Reading Diaries...

It’s been over a week since my last blog! God, it feels like years! Where does the time go? What have I been up to?

Good question!

Last Monday we all went to watch The Village, we went to the Masons before hand for a quick pint, for some reason it felt like years since I’d seen everyone even though it was only about a week or so, a fly landed in my pint and Gaz said it served it right, after explaining to Gaz that flies have feelings too and that one day he might come back as a fly we left to see the film.

As we walked to the escalator to the cinema Gaz pulled a £10 note out of his wallet and said that he bet’s me £10 that I couldn’t run up to the top of the escalator going down.

This was one of those good conscience/bad conscience moments for a brief moment I was stood there looking at the escalator thinking

(good conscience) Don’t do it, think of the trouble you could get yourself into
(bad conscience) Go on! Don’t be such a wuss!
(good conscience) Don’t listen to him
(bad conscience) £10 for fuck’s sake! Go for it!
(good conscience) You could hurt yourself
(bad conscience) You need the money and you’ll look a total ass if you don’t
(good conscience) You’ll get kicked out and then you… Hey wait! Come back!

The next thing I knew I was (what seemed like) halfway up the escalator but I was only 2 steps up, I had to run as fast as I could if I was going to reach the top so I put all my effort into it, I finally got about £9.75 of the way up there and I looked up to see a security bloke standing at the top saying “turn around and go back down” I kept on running and he still stood there saying it again, I stopped and tried telling him it was for a bet but then I felt myself going backwards…

£8.50
£7.25
£5.72
£3.49
36p

I had failed but given it my best shot all the same, I’d like to see Gaz try and run up that escalator, in fact I’d like to see Gaz try and run! The film itself was a bit boring, I wouldn’t see it again.

Tuesday my mum had the idea of organising a big group of us to go to the pub quiz at the Colebrook, unfortunately the Colebrook was closed because of an electrical fault so we went to the quiz at the Sharmans.
When me and my mum got there Gaz was already there with his mom, his mom’s boss (who looked like a gym teacher) and her husband (who’s face was bright red) and Carl. Then Adam came along with Jo and then Gemma turned up too.
We did quite well, we came 3rd in the end and only a couple of points off first place as well!

On Wednesday I went into town with Gemma and Jo, I got to Gemma’s house for 11am but Jo was running late because she overslept and then she took too long in the shower (ha ha!), we got into town but it was raining so we ran for cover in the Pavillions, we looked in HMV then the Tempest where Jo bought the Locust album (seriously!) and Gemma bought the Rise Against album.

We had a look round the Oasis, Jo bought a Nightmare before Christmas bag and a Nirvana and a Muderdolls t shirt and Gemma bought a Pixies t shirt with Black Francis on the front naked and it looked rather rude, she claims its his thumb but I’m not sure.

When we got back to Solihull, we stood at the bus stop by Tudor Grange, Gemma and Jo got on the number 6 bus but I stayed waiting for the 69 to take me home, after almost an hour of standing round waiting like a prune I remembered that the 69 had stopped coming down that road so I ran into Solihull and just about caught the last 69 for an hour, I got home and then went straight to Sainsburys for some last minute shopping for Reading.



Thursday

That night I had an early night (2:30am) and got up for about 6:30ish I got to Gemma’s house for 9:30 after one of the most random taxi journeys ever where the driver told me he used to take me to school and that he knew my Nan and then went on to sing Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes for the rest of the way and when it came to paying him he actually refused a tip!

Helen got to Gemma’s for about 11ish, we got in the car and started off, Me and Gemma had put together a cd for Helen for driving us, all the groups on the cd were playing at reading, but I couldn’t resist putting Hell is for Heroes on as well. The tracks on the cd were:

Super Furry Animals - Do Or Die
Green Day - Geek Stink Breath
Bloc Party - Little Thoughts
Coheed And Cambria - A Favor House Atlantic
The Offspring - Come Out And Play
Taking Back Sunday - A Decade Under The Influence
The Libertines - Don’t Look Back Into The Sun
Kasabian - LSF
Modest Mouse - Float On
Placebo - Teenage Angst
Pretty Girls Make Graves - This Is Our Emergency
Razorlight - Rip It Up
Thursday - Signals Over The Air
The Holiday Plan - Sunshine
The Ordinary Boys - Talk Talk Talk
The Distillers - Drain The Blood
The Von Bondies - C’mon C’mon
Thrice - All That’s Left
Funeral For A Friend - The Art Of American Football
The (International) Noise Conspiracy - Smash It Up
Hell Is For Heroes - Few Against Many

When we got to Reading the queue of traffic went on for miles, luckily Helen managed to overtake most of the traffic, there was this one bloke in a transit van who didn’t let her pass and looked over with a smug look on his face, we soon over took him and found a way to bypass the majority of the traffic.

We got to the actual campsite for about 3pm but when we got there we were stuck between a car which was stuck in the mud and another car which had a flat tyre. In the end Helen managed to park the car ok and we went off trying to find somewhere to put the tents up, a lot of the spaces were taken but we found a nice little spot in brown camp and by 4:30 the tents were up.

We had a sit down and played The Pyramid drinking game, for those who don’t know how to play, you make a triangle shape out of cards using 5 rows, 5 cards on the bottom row, 4 on the next one up, then 3, then 2 and then 1, the cards are face down and you have to turn over a card on each row making sure you don’t get a Jack, Queen, King or Ace.
For a Jack you have one sip of your drink, for the queen you have 2 sips, the king is worth 3 sips and the ace is 4 sips. Once you get one of those you have to start again from the bottom, the aim is to start from the bottom and get to the top of the pyramid without getting any of those cards.

I’ve played this game in the past and was sick, the same had happened before with Helen too, I had the first go and managed to get every Jack, Queen, King and Ace in the pack which was worth 40 sips in total, then it was Helen’s go, she got almost as many sips as I did, it was then Gemma’s go and she got to the top without a single sip, I reckon she cheats!


Helen and Gemma sat in their tent.

We then collected our wristbands which were pink, last year mine was green but I only went for the day, in the evening we went to a club night called Frog at the Rivermead leisure centre, we queued for over an hour behind this weird looking tall man and an irritating small woman who both pushed into the queue in front of us, the woman spent the entire hour talking to this man about herself, the subjects she covered included how many cigarettes her dad smokes a day (it’s 40 by the way), her trip to America, her ‘gay friend’ and her dog’s loose bowels, we got to a point where we tried overtaking but they wouldn’t let us and they were the ones who pushed in!

When we finally got inside I got molested by a security bloke looking for drugs or guns, I told him I didn’t have any and he looked a bit disappointed, so did I because I could have really used a gun when queuing up!
Inside there were 2 rooms we chose the room with the shortest queue at the bar because we’d done enough queuing for one day, we sat down on the floor we drank our £3 pints, this crazy woman was dancing behind Helen and kicked her in the back accidentally she stopped dancing and started paying Helen compensation in Marlboro Lights which she didn’t even want and then carried on dancing like nothing had even happened.

When we got back to the tents we tried starting a fire but the wood was special safety wood that doesn’t burn, in the end we ran out of fire lighters and gave up and all decided to go to sleep.
I was a bit nervous because I’d never slept in a tent until then so I didn’t know what to expect, I got into my sleeping bag and was freezing, the next thing I new I’d been dreaming about all the tents being replaced with cars and I was the only person still sleeping in a tent, this panicked me a bit so I had to look out to see if it was a dream or if it had really happened, thankfully it was only a dream so I settled back down only to hear the rain start to fall.

Friday

When I woke up the next morning it was still raining and I was starting to wish I’d bought wellies with me, when we were all awake I started brushing my teeth when I suddenly realized something, I had nowhere to spit the toothpaste out, luckily I had an empty Carling can nearby so I spat it into that.

After eating half a packet of ginger biscuits and the whole of Reading doing a huge Mexican wave of people shouting ‘bollocks’ we walked up to the arena we noticed that all the path had been churned up by people walking through the wet mud, it was like walking through thick porridge or what I can imagine it to be like anyway.


On our way to the arena in the mud.

As we walked into the arena we could hear a bunch of people rapping on the main stage, it was Goldie Lookin’ Chain and they were singing ‘Your Mother’s Got A Penis’, after a quick burger we went to the Radio One stage, Mad Action were playing and they were quite good, I cant remember any of their songs I only remember the singer’s hair which was like a mini afro.


The Main Stage.

Next up on the same stage were The Open who were ok and then Ikara Colt who were good until some Johnny Borrell look-alike grabbed my shoulder and pulled me out of the way and then stood directly in front of me so I couldn’t see and then to make matters worse his cockney friends joined him there, so just on the fact that he looked like Johnny Borrell and he pissed me off I decided I wasn’t going to watch Razorlight!


The Radio One Stage.

After Ikara Colt were The (International) Noise Conspiracy, I’d heard Gemma talk about them before but hadn’t heard much of their stuff so didn’t know what to expect, the singer came onstage and started jumping up in the air and kicking, he even climbed into the crowd towards the end of the set, I bet he’d had his Weetabix that day! They were wicked!


The (International) Noise Conspiracy.

The next band on the Radio One stage were Modest Mouse, I was quite new to this band and had only heard ‘Float On’ before then, they played ‘Float On’ and they were brilliant! When they were finished we realized we’d been stood in the same spot for over 4 hours and our knees were killing us so we had a walk around the stalls for a bit, got a really nice lemonade drink, then I risked using the toilets…big mistake!

Someone had decided to flush their coat down the toilet (god knows why) and so the toilet was blocked and over flooded and what was meant to be inside the toilet was really all over the floor, I took one look at this and decided to use a different toilet, on the way back I caught a glimpse of The Distillers, I gave Brody a wave but she didn’t wave back - the bitch!

After a short break back at the tents we decided to go and watch Mclusky on the Carling Stage, I was a bit disappointed when we got there because I was expecting the head teacher from Grange Hill from back in the 80’s to be singing some songs but it wasn’t, after that we walked to the Radio One stage to watch the Super Furry Animals, they were ok and did quite a few of the old favourites but then they decided to go all High Speed Garage on us so we left.

When we got back to the tents (after all getting stuck in the thick sticky mud) we attempted the campfire again with no luck so we played the pyramid drinking game for a bit and Gemma actually had some sips this time for a change, while it was Helen’s turn she managed to try and cheat by knocking her drink over, unfortunately it all went inside her sleeping bag.

Saturday

I woke up on Saturday morning really excited, not only was the sun out but the line up was going to be awesome! The Holiday Plan, Coheed And Cambria and Funeral For A Friend - 3 of my favourite bands - were all playing on the same day!

We headed towards the arena and got ourselves some breakfast, I had a sausage and egg roll but was so excited about the line up that I didn’t realize the egg had ran all down my jacket.

When we got into the arena we started walking towards the Concrete Jungle stage, as we started walking though we noticed the 5,6,7,8’s had just started playing that irritating ‘Woo Hoo, Woo Hoo Hoo’ song.

We started running towards the Concrete Jungle stage!

When we got there and got our breath back Fireapple Red were just finishing, they sounded pretty ok from what we heard. The next band up were The Holiday Plan, this group is one of my favourites and if you’ve never heard any of their stuff I highly recommend them! I didn’t mind too much which songs they played because all of their songs are great, they started off with ‘Stories’ which was purely amazing, they also played ‘Everyday’s Winter’, ‘Sunshine’, ‘Wasting Time’, ‘Around My Wrist’ and a new track off their debut album which is due out in October, they didn’t play ‘Giving Up’ but they were still brilliant and I enjoyed every second of it!

As we were leaving the Concrete Jungle stage I suddenly got all excited about my birthday, because on the day of my birthday The Holiday Plan are playing Bar Academy and it’s only a few weeks away!


It's Thursday!...On Saturday!

Anyway enough about them for now, we then saw Thursday on the main stage, we were the envy on Reading because we had hay to sit on while everyone else was sat in the wet mud.


Helen and Gemma back at the tents.

We went back to our tents for a quick break and some more ginger biscuits and then went back to see Coheed And Cambria, as we were making our way to the Concrete Jungle stage Gemma saw who she thought was 50-Cent on the Main Stage, she started getting all excited until we had to explain to her that it was The Roots, she looked a bit disappointed but Coheed And Cambria were brilliant so I think it cheered her up a bit!


Coheed And Cambria. (Note the fly on the man's hat)


Coheed And Cambria again...I think!

We then spent some more time sat on hay watching the main stage, we saw Franz Ferdinand and The Libertines who performed without Pete, while they were playing there was this weird bloke in a tweed suit who started dancing to this one song and then kept perfectly still for the next one.


Some people watching Franz Ferdinand.


The Libertines minus Pete.

After The Libertines was Morrissey, he was very good, he did some Smiths songs too which was good to hear, he also complained that someone had given him a parking ticket once in Caversham and that Radio One never play his songs anymore, it’s a good job he wasn’t on the Radio One stage then!


The Carling Stage.

We had time to kill before Funeral For A Friend started so we went to watch Mondo Generator on the Carling stage for a while, they were running late for some reason and for a second I thought they weren’t going to play but then they came out and started playing and they were ok. Gemma and Helen went off to the toilet before Funeral For A Friend started so I watched The White Stripes for a while they did loads of covers but were still ok.

We made our way to the Radio One stage to see Funeral For A Friend, the actual tent was full so we had to watch from outside on our tiptoes, they did this thing called Make Out Metal, where they got 2 random people to snog onstage all the way through ‘The Art Of American Football’ the woman had her phoned stolen at their last UK gig but her boyfriend and his girlfriend aren’t to know so shhh.

We then headed back to the tents getting stuck in mud along the way, Gemma went to sleep as soon as she got into her tent, I think all the walking in the mud had worn her out, Helen then managed to knock her drink over again and once again the campfire didn’t light but Saturday was definitely my favourite day there, we saw some really good bands and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sunday

When we got up the mud was less sticky so we got to the arena a lot quicker, the first band we saw was Thrice who were pretty cool, we were sat on the ground though and I got a numb ass so I must have looked a bit stupid as I stood up.

We then hobbled over to the NME signing tent where we got free copies of the NME, that saved me £1.80 so I was chuffed! We walked into Reading to get a McDonald’s, they were playing a load of punk songs in there which seemed a bit surreal but I had a double cheeseburger which seemed really good value at 99p when a cheeseburger would cost you £3.50 back at the arena.

When we got back to the arena we found out that The Rasmus had lasted about 30 seconds before getting bottled and booed offstage, this actually surprised me because I had money on it being 10 seconds.

The 22-20’s were about to start on the Radio One stage, we didn’t want to miss this because we’ve all had the opportunity to see them at some point but something has always stopped us, luckily this time we saw them and they were wicked.

Placebo were then starting on the Main Stage, I’ve always wanted to see them live and they were brilliant, when they finished we had a look round some of the stalls when all of a sudden Gemma and Helen started running towards the Main Stage, it turns out that 50-Cent was just starting and they were both really excited, people were booing and throwing bottles at him and I think this upset Gemma and Helen a bit. He told everyone to “put your hands in the air” so everyone stuck their middle fingers up at him, he then said “Y’all not gonna stop me, I’m gonna keep on going” someone then threw a camping chair at him and he walked offstage.


Placebo. Don't know why those girls have 'Monk' written on their foreheads though.

After grabbing another burger we then watched Melissa Auf Der Maur on the Radio One stage, she said that her first gig was at the Reading Festival 10 years ago to that day and how it was the highlight of her year, she sounded really happy and even commented on how good it was to see so many happy smiling faces in the crowd before taking a photo of herself onstage with the crowd behind her.

The next group on the Radio One stage were The Von Bondies who were ok, luckily The White Stripes were on the day before so there were no fisticuffs, suddenly loads of people left and we realized that Green Day had started half an hour early!

We ran to the Main Stage as they were playing their new song ‘American Idiot’ they did most of their classics which was brilliant, also because of The Rasmus and 50-Cent walking offstage there was a huge gap to fill so Green Day played for 2 and a half hours! They formed a band onstage and also did some covers which included ‘We Are The Champions’ by Queen, ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ by The Ramones, ‘I Fought The Law’ by The Clash and quite randomly ‘Shout’ by Lulu.

After Green Day we were having one final walk round when I bumped into Luke, he looked a bit surprised to see me but I think he’d had a bit to drink because he then hugged me and referred to me as his ’love slave’ before saying that my mum does the best bacon and eggs ever.

We got back to the tents, had a quick drink (Helen didn’t spill any this time) and then started to put the tents away, we needed to get rid of the rubbish so we tried to start a fire with it but it wouldn’t light so we found a pair of jeans on the floor which some Sharon had left behind and threw them on, they burnt really well and after a while the smoke started to go everywhere, I was struggling to get my tent away while I could still see for the smoke but I managed it ok so we headed back to the car.

After getting a bit lost and fighting our way through the drunkards we found the car and followed 2 other cars out, some drunken hooligans started banging on top of the car but we escaped unscathed and drove off into safety!

On the journey home I kept thinking of all the things I missed at home such as my bed, the shower, comfy chairs, coffee and chocolate, I was so tired though that I could feel myself starting to fall asleep, my head kept dipping but I forced myself to stay awake.

I got home for about 4:30, as I came in my mum ran down the stairs and told me my sister had vanished, she went out Sunday afternoon and hasn’t come home, we stayed up until about 5:30 before deciding it would be better go get some sleep.

She turned up midday the next day, apparently she had gone into Stratford with people from work and got drunk, then they all went back to this bloke's house somewhere by Warwick and as they we all eating sausage and potatoes around this big expensive glass table she threw up all over it, then threw up in the bath and on the settee.


My Lounge when I got home. I took this photo to use up the rest of the film.

Since I’ve got back all I’ve done is take it easy and write what seems to be the longest blog ever, my trainers are ruined but I needed some new ones anyway.

Melissa Auf Der Maur was right - Reading is easily the highlight of the year!

currently listening to: Green Day - American Idiot
Gemma is currently listening to: 50-Cent - In Da Club
Mr High-Speed Garage is currently listening to: Some Dizzee Rascal shite