Reading 2008

Just got back from Reading and my thoughts are as follows:

1) Friday and Sunday lineup was brilliant (who needs Slipknot or Avenged sevenfold?? When I saw them play at Twickenham I thought they were shit, they sound like Busted with bigger guitars). RATM and Metallica were obviously fantastic. Vampire Weekend, Biffy, Serj Tankian, Hadouken and Feeder all get honourable mentions too. Saturday's lineup was less inspiring, the Killers are fun to sing along to if you're pissed but not overwhelming. Bloc Party I thought were pretty average, but then no surprise. Best thing on saturday was probably We Are Scientists, who were great, especially the Ace of Base cover.

2) Food poisoning!! Lots of fun to be had on saturday night when J and I spent a good while throwing up in a ditch after eating a veggie curry. Just as well we hadn't stayed in the arena eh... complained the next day and got our money back :)

3) The comedy - really enjoyed seeing some really good comedians, and would definitely recommend the comedy tent to everyone (though as one of the guys said "put your hand up if you're an emo... no wait, this is the comedy tent").

4) Beer - carlsberg/tuborg (half the bar staff didn't know which was which), could have been a better option surely?

5) Camping chairs are a truly amazing invention.

6) If you have hiccups and you can't get rid of them after an hour and they're really starting to piss you off, go into the toilets at the campsite, guaranteed cure!

7) Tents are fun, but only people who know how to put them up should be allowed to use them. A self supporting dome tent doesn't need its ropes out, they're just annoying to people trying to get by without tripping over .

8) If your mum is coming to pick you up at 11am on monday morning, don't tell anyone as you will be laughed at.

9) Please don't call your boyfriend at 5am outside my tent and then start crying because he accuses you of sleeping with some little emo dickhead in the next tent - you're making a tit of yourself and inducing homicidal rage in others.

10) Sunday night in the campsites is meant to be dreadful, but I slept through all of it (except the people singing round robins in french, the girl on the phone to her boyfriend, and the absolute twat in the tent next to us, who really came very close to getting a tent peg through his eye socket), then again I could sleep through anything. However, walking through some of the other campsites there was quite a lot of black smoke (tents) and the toilets had been set on fire. TWATS.

11) While I'm on a roll with the complaining, all the indie girls pissed me off. They all looked the same, with fake scruffy hair, short shorts, colourful wellies and hoodies from their private school leavers parties. I bet they all watched Babyshambles and fantasised about the look on their mum's faces if they brought Pete Doherty home.

12) Oh yeah and the guy who tried to nick J's camping chair is a prick.

13) Finally for the whining: wellies. Why?? They're not comfortable, they make your feet really quite vile and sweaty, and they have rubbish grip if you're trying to walk anywhere. It's not the Somme! It's a very slightly muddy field, with maybe 3 puddles between your tent and the arena. At no point does the mud come higher than your little toe, you really do only need trainers. I took wellies and wore them once, when I'd just woken up and was going to the loo, and didn't want to put my flipflops on to navigate the cesspit (campsite toilets... don't look down). However, I wasn't wearing clothes as such (I wasn't naked, that would be too much for anyone that early), and didn't even like have my hair like straightened or anything, like oh my god...

14) Definitely going next year, and not eating any food from the arena. Far better and cheaper to eat kimchi noodles, ainsley harriot cous cous, and pop tarts. Next year I'm taking more poptarts.

15) I'd rather be at Reading than at work and not looking forward to tomorrow :(

16) I have a crush on Serj Tankian, like I'm 15 again :) Good times!