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Reading Festival


Leonard Smalls

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On 28/08/2022 at 11:03, toneknob said:

It's been downhill since 1976 /oldman (which is difficult as it's such a flat site)

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That was some line up. I wasn't there but I knew Colin Bass the bass player from Camel from his Velvet Opera days when he was just about 17 if I recall. My brother was the guitarist for the velves. Check out I can see your house from here by Camel. Hope I got it right, I were a kid then in the Velvet Opera days.

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46 minutes ago, TimR said:

 

The chaos that I've seen has been during daylight hours. 

 

I don't think they're even there for the music. 

 

Ultimately they need to drastically reduce the numbers attending to manageable numbers. 

 

I don't think that'll work. If they drastically reduce the numbers, the big acts won't show up and the festival fades away. I think they'd be best off carrying on the entertainment until the early hours. Keep them entertained until they pass out or get tired.

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2 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

 

I don't think that'll work. If they drastically reduce the numbers, the big acts won't show up and the festival fades away. I think they'd be best off carrying on the entertainment until the early hours. Keep them entertained until they pass out or get tired.

 

The troublemakers didn't seem to be there for the bands. 

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I haven't been to Reading for maybe 20 years.  Purgatory.  Most of these festivals are like a three/four day live version of ...Later.  Much better to see a band you actually like in a sweaty little club rather than stand in a field and suffer 150 that you can't bear.

 

Back on OP; Bring Me The Horizon.  Not really my thing although I'm more than familiar with the genre.  I did tune in for about ten minutes.  The live show looked great (obviously lots of £££ spent on the stage) and the band were decent enough.  I just couldn't bear the vocals.  It just seems so passé swearing every five seconds as well; it's just not shocking any more.

 

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15 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

 

I don't think that'll work. If they drastically reduce the numbers, the big acts won't show up and the festival fades away. I think they'd be best off carrying on the entertainment until the early hours. Keep them entertained until they pass out or get tired.

Again, having worked festivals for ten years or so, there was a massive and obvious change when Leeds/Reading started introducing late night entertainment. After the move to Bramham initially everything shut off at 11 every night and there were some real rough nights. 2006 was an especially bad year - the crowd burned down the campsite beer tent, raided and emptied the Carling lorry parked behind it, and it all ended with security heavies suiting up and doing full crowd-control charges with batons to try and clear the area, which just got people even more riled up. I was actually walking through the site off-shift and got slapped into the mud by a heavy who thought he was a cop in hot pursuit. By dawn you had the bad optics of hungover teenagers cable-tied to fencing under 'arrest'. Nasty business all round.

 

Next year there was a 'come to god' chat between festival management, security, and police and they brought in the Silent Disco and other entertainment that went on till 2-3am. They also changed the security meatheads out for a firm with a bit less inclination to start cracking heads. Both aggro and property damage dropped significantly over the next few years until the Sunday Riots became a bit of an old-school meme like the Wave of Bollocks or Pop-Up Pirate. Melvin at FR runs a lot of festivals and knows what he's doing.

 

Wonder if the resurgence this year had anything to do with Rage getting replaced by 1975 and people leaving the arena early for a last night rager instead. Not as popular a choice as they anticipated!

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15 hours ago, Ralf1e said:

That was some line up. I wasn't there but I knew Colin Bass the bass player from Camel from his Velvet Opera days when he was just about 17 if I recall. My brother was the guitarist for the velves. Check out I can see your house from here by Camel. Hope I got it right, I were a kid then in the Velvet Opera days.

Other highlights:

Brand X with Phil Collins on drums

"Phil Manzanera" = 801 with Brian Eno, Bill MacCormick, Simon Phillips etc

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On 30/08/2022 at 19:31, SteveXFR said:

 

I don't think that'll work. If they drastically reduce the numbers, the big acts won't show up and the festival fades away. I think they'd be best off carrying on the entertainment until the early hours. Keep them entertained until they pass out or get tired.

My era was 1999-2003 ,top top bands ,way less  punters .You can cap it ,i'd say 

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I'm starting to think that after 60 years of rock there isn't far for it to go that's non-formulaic while remaining popular. Almost by definition it follows a formula of Singer(s)+guitar(s)+bass+drums structured into something along the lines of  intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chours-outro, and tried and tested chord progressions. Go too hard or away from the formula and it isn't popular enough for festivals like Reading.

 

There are performers from outside the rock genre on the Reading lineup this year that would have seemed like something completely groundbreaking if they showed up in on the stage at Reading in the 1970's though, so some popular music formulas have certainly changed. 

 

 

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19 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

 

The world has changed, there's a whole heap more festivals for bands to choose from. Everyone and their mum runs a festival these days.

It has ,the rise in popularity of the big ones has created a market for more small local ones which suit the older traditional festival goer 

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On 27/08/2022 at 21:10, Leonard Smalls said:

Why is rock so formulaic?

Just watching Reading festival in the Beeb... And there's Bring Me The Horizon on. Who employ every single metalpop cliche ... Why is there nowt new or different? Is there a set formula?

 

Your main issue is that you're looking to Reading Festival to show you new rock music. Look to festivals like Arctangent and 2000 Trees.

Once again, for anyone complaining that there's nothing new or different, I promise you that it's because you're not looking hard enough.

 

Reading festival has pretty much always been a pop cross-over festival, which is fine, if there has been rock bands, that act will have had a wider appeal for one reason or another.

 

With regards to Bring Me The Horizon, never been a fan, but go and listen to Count Your Blessings and Suicide Season if you want rockier Bring Me.
 

I also go back to this feeling of if someone accuses a band or artist of 'selling out' or (in the case of rock/metal music) writing lighter music in order to succeed etc, then that person obviously has no real interest or understanding in creating art. If they did, they would understand that someones artistic output changes and evolves over time.

Some artists might subscribe to this idea of creating to a formula exclusively to be popular, however I would offer that they are the exception rather than the rule.

 

Si

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23 hours ago, Supernaut said:

deathcore/metal roots! 

 

Perhaps my problem isn't so much Bring me the Compromison, but most metal... Because the majority within each part of the genre appear to be exactly the same!

However, now I've said that the same applies to most punk - same old set formulas, all wear the same Fred Perry and jeans. And just about every other genre; in funk it's about parties and getting down, pop is all OOh I luv U baby, and jazz is all about recreating the milder fringes of bebop without getting anywhere near the interesting stuff in the middle.

Perhaps that's why I'm drawn far more to leftfield stuff; in metal, I like Rolo Tomassi. In punk/metal it's Suicidal Tendencies. Funk is all about The P, and jazz-wise it's Ornette and weirder.

Mainstream music generally gives me the willies, and not in a good way :biggrin:

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4 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

 

Perhaps my problem isn't so much Bring me the Compromison, but most metal... Because the majority within each part of the genre appear to be exactly the same!

However, now I've said that the same applies to most punk - same old set formulas, all wear the same Fred Perry and jeans. And just about every other genre; in funk it's about parties and getting down, pop is all OOh I luv U baby, and jazz is all about recreating the milder fringes of bebop without getting anywhere near the interesting stuff in the middle.

Perhaps that's why I'm drawn far more to leftfield stuff; in metal, I like Rolo Tomassi. In punk/metal it's Suicidal Tendencies. Funk is all about The P, and jazz-wise it's Ornette and weirder.

Mainstream music generally gives me the willies, and not in a good way :biggrin:

Rolo Tomassi listened to Count Your Blessings and thought let's do that. 

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On 30/08/2022 at 02:05, Barking Spiders said:

 Not surprised unfortunately. Reading festival has always stood out as one where trouble nearly always kicks off. I recall my eldest daughter going a dozen years ago and she came home early as trouble was kicking off on the saturday e.g. with bottles of p1$$  liberally being chucked into the crowd. 

 

anyone recall a long balmy summer evening during the 80s with with big country and marilion ....the bottling was ridiculous and fires were lit amongst the crowds with flags being waved all over the place, it was a beautiful scene reminiscent of some medieval battle.

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5 hours ago, Musicman666 said:

 

anyone recall a long balmy summer evening during the 80s with with big country and marilion ....the bottling was ridiculous and fires were lit amongst the crowds with flags being waved all over the place, it was a beautiful scene reminiscent of some medieval battle.

I was there and remember it well 🙂. Back in those days the bottling and torching seemed a lot more friendly. People unscrewed the lids on the peepee bottles so it didn't hurt so much when one hit you on the bonce. And I remember wandering around early on the Sunday morning and pulling a sleeping hells angel out of a smouldering campfire that he had passed out in. Those were the days .......

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7 hours ago, Mudpup said:

I was there and remember it well 🙂. Back in those days the bottling and torching seemed a lot more friendly. People unscrewed the lids on the peepee bottles so it didn't hurt so much when one hit you on the bonce. And I remember wandering around early on the Sunday morning and pulling a sleeping hells angel out of a smouldering campfire that he had passed out in. Those were the days .......

yeah great days ....naively i thought what a waste to leave some of the beer in the bottle to maximise lobbing range ... but the vast majority were just empty plastic ones that had all the danger of a pillow fight, the crowd atmosphere was very chilled and friendly....no malice whatsoever.

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20 hours ago, Supernaut said:

Rolo Tomassi listened to Count Your Blessings and thought let's do that. 

Indeed... After hearing that album the year after they were formed, the Rolos went away and produced a spitting image of the Bring Me's offering.

Here it is live, in a lingerie shop in 2008 - as you can see every rock cliche is present and correct 😁

 

 

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