Reading 2011: Mud, Noodles & Not Watching Muse

At the turn of 2011, I wrote a post about New Years Resolutions. The premise of the piece was basically me saying that too many people make resolutions that they will never keep, and as a result I came up with some attainable ones. These included things such as getting a degree, going abroad and going to a music festival.

I still haven't been abroad going into the final third of the year, and it's fair to say I probably won't make it across the channel before New Years Eve 2011. This is a result of me being too lazy for my own good, being too indecisive to pick a place to go, and being so lonely that I have nobody to go with. Serves me right for trying to be clever. However, the other resolutions have been completed. I came out of University this year with a degree, and last weekend I finally made it to a music festival after years of looking at festival line-ups and thinking 'meh, maybe next year it will have a better line up. I'll grace it with my presence then.'

The main reason for my festival abstinence is mainly due to an inherent intolerance of camping. I cannot fathom for the life of me how people can camp as some sort of leisure activity. It's uncomfortable and it's annoying, and  if you're surrounded by other campers, then more often than not it's noisy, which leads to me being tired, which leads to me being grumpy, which leads to everyone hating me as I moan about every aspect of the experience bit by bit. So when my girlfriend text messaged me a couple of weeks ago saying she had won a pair of weekend guest tickets to Reading Festival with NME, I knew I was going to have to try and conquer my hatred for experiencing the great outdoors.

The first thing that struck me was panic. It was three days before we had to leave and I didn't have the slightest clue what I needed to take with me. I spent hours consulting the internet to find festival itineraries that I could use. This made me panic more, as I had hardly any of the items that were being suggested by people. My head was being dominated by a mental picture of me on my knees in a field in the middle of Reading, crying in the pouring rain, with nothing but a toilet roll and the memory of how comfortable it was at home in my own bed.

Eventually I got my act together, and by Thursday evening, my girlfriend and I had arrived at Reading in glorious sunshine, pitched our tent in the guest camping area and started to explore the festival. I had made it. Rather than give you a blow by blow account of everything I did at the festival, I'll break down what I learned at Reading into something far more enjoyable and hopefully less boring.

1. Mud can do oneAfter three days of walking around in mud, it doesn't matter how comfortable your Wellies are, your feet and legs will be ready to give up completely. Unfortunately, my Wellies didn't really fit in the first place, so after a few short hours I was on the brink of tears. I always thought the August Bank Holiday was supposed to be scorching every year without fail. Imagine how disappointed I was when after about 12 hours of rain, I emerged from my tent on Friday to discover the site had become a mud bath. It was fine to walk around in at first, but once the sun finally came out it got stodgy underfoot, the result was me almost getting stuck with every footstep. On top of this, I would get anxious about walking back to the tent for a while, because I knew it would mean struggling to get my boots off for what felt like an age. If I go to another festival next year, it might have to be Benicassim, then I'll almost be guaranteed a bit of sunshine at least.

2. Bombay Bicycle Club are very nice guysAs part of NME's prize, my girlfriend and I were given the opportunity to meet Bombay Bicycle Club before they went on stage in the NME/Radio 1 Tent on Saturday evening. While the opportunity to meet a well-known band was an experience that I couldn't possibly turn down, my excitement was hampered by the fact that I had only heard one and a half songs of theirs in my life. Again, the panic struck me. I listened to their début album in a desperate attempt to familiarise myself with their music. It didn't work.

Luckily, it turned out that Bombay Bicycle Club were not at all egotistical and didn't ask us anything about their music at all. In fact, they were sound guys. Since then I've listened to a lot more of the band, and while I'm years behind, I sincerely recommend them. An extra positive about the meeting was that we caught Jamie Hince from The Kills walking around backstage. The downside is that Alison Mosshart was not with him.

3. The Strokes and Pulp completely killed it
As soon as the meeting with Bombay Bicycle Club had finished, my attention and all my nervous excitement became focused on seeing Pulp and The Strokes perform on the main stage. The latter have been a favourite band of mine for some time, and the prospect of watching them live for the first time was almost enough to make me wet myself. I wasn't disappointed at all. The 18 song set was filled with hit after hit, and to top everything there was a collaboration with Jarvis Cocker (aka 'The Jarv'). Just before that, Cocker et al. pulled out the second best performance of the festival, with a set that included much of 1995 album Different Class. It was off the chain, and hearing 'Disco 2000' live was nearly enough to induce tears of joy.

4. The Vaccines are awesome live

I actually can't put into words how much they have gone up in my estimations after their performance in the NME/Radio 1 Tent on Friday evening. They were off the chain. I've even revisited their album as a result.

6. I have no time for Muse

We left Reading early on Sunday for a number of reasons. The main one being that neither of us were that bothered about seeing Muse perform Origin of Symmetry. I've never been that much of a Muse fan, and I'm not really sure why they have so many fans. I don't even slightly regret the decision. Despite being asked for my wristband on numerous occasions by crack-heads while on the way back to the train station, the quiet train journey, the decent and free food and the good night's sleep were well worth the minor hassle.

While I checked twitter on Sunday night, I noticed it was full of angry Muse fans who were disappointed that the BBC had only shown three songs from Origin of Symmetry. As an avid armchair viewer of festivals, I don't understand how people can be so incensed by it. If they really wanted to see the album being performed, they probably should have got a ticket. Then I remembered that I had a ticket to see them and chose to go home instead, and felt extremely smug. I still do.

7. I still hate camping

There wasn't a morning where I didn't wake up to find a part of my body aching. There wasn't a night I didn't get woken up by the rowdy campers behind our tent. It sounded like they were actually in our tent. Upon disassembling on Sunday evening, it turned out they pretty much were, as they had pitched up on top of our pegs. Some of the activity to come from them at 3.30am was to find out if noodles would set alight on their camp fire. "THE NOODLES ARE FLAME RETARDENT" was the cry heard just a few seconds later. These men were 28 years old.

The camping experience was sweetened by the fact that I hadn't paid anything for my ticket. I also realised it wasn't so bad for me in the guest area when I visited the other camp sites, which looked a little bit like the leftovers of a nuclear fallout.

At the end of it all, I can finally say that I have been to a festival. I wouldn't say that I enjoyed every minute, because I would be telling fibs. However, the band points were heavily outweighed by the good ones. Heck, maybe my New Years Resolution for 2012 will be to get over my intolerance of camping so I can go to Reading again next year.