Reading Festival - August 2004
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I have never been to Reading Festival and haven’t been to a big commercial festival since Glastonbury 2000. I didn’t think much of it to be honest, that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy myself. I had a wicked time and met some cool people but there is other festivals I'd rather be at. I find the whole 'arena' thing hard to deal with, at Womad it wasn’t too bad but at Reading you feel like cattle being herded through the turnstiles and once inside it seems so enclosed.
There is no chill out area with music/healing/workshops etc so everywhere is manic. Soooooo many people! The main stage is huge and even if you're lucky enough to get to the front and you survive the crush you are still far from the band. That’s just not personal enough for me, and the prices at the food stalls........thank god I went to work and so got meal tickets. The highlight of the weekend was decorating our bit of fence with loads of plastic tape we found!
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Morrissey from The Smiths was disappointing, The Smiths were idols of mine but despite the fact he did do some Smiths songs I found him altogether dreary. The Streets were also disappointing as they just couldn't pull off live anything near like their albums sound like. Doubt I'll be back to Reading, (famous last words).
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I only took one photo! Here it is with a couple of others taken by friends.
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