Yeah, I couldn't beleive how small the croud was for Reading Pixies. They were so. fucking. amazing. Gigantic at the end was superb, I didn't want them to ever stop playing; I wish I could see them again.

Arcade Fire were absolutely immense - the sound was hit and miss on most stages through the weekend but it really was spot on for them.

Rakes was ace because the singer was ill so they had a few guest vocalists (the guy from Towers and Maximo Park included) although to be honest, the guitarists voice was very good.

Towers of London were good fun, but nothing compared to Art Brut who were on before them - what a fucking great show!
Other good bands: QOTSA, Wedding Present, Maiden, BRMC, Subways, DFA1979, Kills, Nine Black Alps, M.I.A, Go Team, Be Your Own Pet, Komakino

Most annoying clash: Art Brut vs Forward Russia

Funniest thing I've ever heard: waking up on Saturday to hear some idiot in the tent behind me mispronounce 'Art Brut' and then hear him argue with his mate about Brut not having an 'E' on the end. Twat.

Stooges were fan-fucking-tastic!

Queens were aight, Pixies were good but it wasn't AMAZING like I'd hoped. But the two Brixton gigs were so meh.

Elbow - I'm converted. They were always one of those bands I liked a bit of but never paid attention to much but they were one of my top 5 performances all weekend.

Ditto Echo and The Bunnymen actually. Ian came out in shades, smoking and went "turn the lights down" then drop-kicked his cigaratte. Cool mofo. *curses self for not talking more to that pritty girl in a Joy Division top afterwards*

Coxon - good-good. Only caught the end. *curses self for not approaching pritty girl who kept smiling at me* :( Maybe I just had something on my face actually...

Wedding Present were great, and they had a group of 40 year old fans who were moshing, hah.

What else? Erm. Saul Williams - genius. Dinosaur JR - rather good. LCD Soundsystem - bloody genius again. Much better live than on record.

Cribs were alright...

The Rakes minus the singer plus the Maximo Park guy, two guys out of Bloc Party and THE TOWERS OF LONDON were actually pretty good. Coral - okie.

Roots Manuva - genius

DFA - Fucking radio one and its shit sound! Actually I've seen DFA 3 times now and the sound has always been shit... Hmm.

Kills - meh/aight

Bad Religion - meh

Hot Chip - good

MIA - okeley dokely

Youth Group - aight

YCNIM - meh

Adam Green - entertaining

Sleater-Kinney - only caight the end - aight

Blackalicious - Marvellous

Sons and Daughters - rather good, but I had to leave after 20mins to see Buck 65.

Buck 65 - good good.

Turbonegro - got a bit tired after 3 songs...

The Coral - aight.

The Arcade Fire. Hmm... I went expecting to come away from it saying "OMG BEST FING EVAH" but I wasn't overly impressed. I think it may have been down to the fucking atrocious sound in the Radio One tent and the fact that a load of wankers were pushing and I kept getting crushed. I'll reserve judgement till I see them somewhere better.

So top 5 is.... Elbow, LCD Soundsystem, Saul Williams, Echo and The Bunnymen and Roots Manuva. Why am


Ooh I saw whats-her-face from here! Twice! But not naked (I 'missed' Art Brut actually)

I was right at the front for the pixies, I was so injured by the end..people pushing all the bloody time. Kim Deal, er smile, ohhhhh could I love them anymore.

The full set is here :) Look at it, I mean LOOK at it!

http://www.nmefestivals.com/carling_weekend_-_reading_festival/news/113510

So two of the biggest arses in NME championed music got caught up in an altercation at Leeds. Jonny Borrell and everyones favourite-Pete Doherty. One day they will die. What odds for Pete to pop it first?

Why did they put the unsigned tent right inbetween two sets of dodgems (at Leeds), which played fucking trance albums at a louder volume than most of the bands which played? I would have enjoyed iliketrains' set far more if I could have heard it.

And I think the 'crowdful of wankers' at Arcade Fire as mentioned above is because Razorlight finished halfway through their set and the entire northern readership of NME then descended on the NME tent to get as close as they could to Babyshambles.

Highlight of the weekend was Arcade Fire, first time I've seen them live, suddenly all the praise makes sense.

the security guards had been cool with us the whole weekend ...
guess the fact that they were apparently almost to a man all ex-army probably meant that they might be a bit heavy handed at times.

yeah they are but there seemed to be shit loads more this year, it sounded like a war zone on Monday morning

what a great weekend

highlights-
arcade fire
kings of leon
maximo park
saul williams
pixies
successfully smoked 1oz of skunk between 6 of us, and was successfully sick twice, and woke up on the floor one night.
unfortunately i was forced to watch a bit of alkaline trio and NOFX.

Was disappointed with Bloc Party, the sound seemed distorted from the back of the tent. i found it quite amusing that some guy was climbing up the metal support for the tent and they stopped playing and said "your ruining it for everyone else, just get down"

Highlights -
ARCADE FIRE - I know, inevitable...Even better than I thought they would be...Moment of the festival was set opener 'Wake Up' as the whole tent erupted into song...Also weird to find that they are the indie Slipknot in terms of onstage foolery...
THE CRIMEA - What planet is Davy Crockett from? The guitarist rocks like prince! This band are seriously underrated. Great album too...

WORST-
My Chemical Romance were terrible...Worst live vocals I've EVER heard...As were Foo Fighters...The Tears tried their best but suffered through a tired ste and embarrasing turnout...

The Cribs - home win, Nine Black Alps - getting there...Ah fuck, too many pills...entire vocabulary erased...

Was at reading but didn't post yesterday, and only woke up about an hour ago -

Highlights -
* YCNI:M, had seen them twice before and was slightly impressed but this year they really played well and the new songs were excellent.
* Kano, thought he might be a bit poor but was proved very wrong, could have played for a bit longer though.
* Editors, didn't sound as much like Joy Division as I had expected. Good stuff.
* Dinosaur JR, was expecting just poor grunge music from a bunch of tired old men but wow, pure rock and roll, and that Cure cover was great.
* Go! Team, though they might be good but I wasn't expecting them to be great. If I ever get rich and have a private party, they can do the music. One of the best bands of the weekend.
* Forward Russia.
* Turbonegro, absolutely hilarious, but in a good way.
* Fourtet, WOW, I had thought that maybe one guy on stage would be a bit boring but I was so very very wrong. It was like a private rave in there (but with music better than that present at most raves). Truly fantastic.
* Iggy & The Stooges - Although the rest of the band looked a bit old and tires old Iggy showed no signs of it, like a one man circus, No Fun was amazing.
* LCD Soundsystem, guess what? They actually have more songs than the Daft Punk one! Could have done with a bit more differences between the songs but still very good.
* Iron Maiden, only playing stuff from the first four albums? Boring! Wrong! Noone puts on a show like they do, guitars were flying, flags were waved, zombies walked and every song was just pure unadulterated metal. It didn't matter that I only knew a few of the songs, every one was just as good as the rest, brilliant.

Dissapointments -
* Blood Brothers, OK, let's get a few things straight first of all, they are one of my favourite bands and the show at the Underworld was one of the best I've ever been to. But this time, meh. The crowd was pretty poor, the sound was disgraceful, you couldn't hear the singing, and they only played (with one exception) songs of Crimes. A big let down.
* Dead 60's, clearly they just want to sound like the new Specials. Unfourtunately they just aren't good enought to do it.
* Raveonettes - I had never heard of them before and I can see why. Very formulaic, and guys, you don't need three guitars if two of them spend the whole gig playing the same thing.
* Alkaline Trio - YAWN.
* Rakes, listened from the back because my friend loves them but they were just average average average. Very boring indeed.
* Biffy Clyro - Dunno what was wrong really, just wasn't as good as I had expected going on the last time I saw them. Oh and the new songs are far too emo.
* Only seeing the end of Sleater-Kinney, the looked really good.

Highlights (excluding the ones mentioned in suprises) -
* DJ Format - As always, top notch stuff, featuring one of the best rappers around.
* QOTSA - great crowd reaction, fantastic solos, played all the hits, can't really fault them.
* Pixies - I don't think there is anything that I can say about this performance that hasn't already been said. Beyond amazing. Best band of the weekend.
* Arcade Fire, although the crowd was too pushy and some were just there for babyshambles it was a truly excellent performance, the finale of Power Out and Rebellion was just undescribable.
* British Sea Power, saw them last year and they were good but this year they were just even better, the new songs fitted in very well and they reaffirmed themselves as one of the best live bands I have ever seen.

I also saw - DFA1979 (good but not as good as I had expected)
- Roots Manuva (very good)
- Hot Hot Heat (very fun)
- VHS Or Beta (pretty average but I hadn't thought they would be anything else)
- Killers (OK, I only saw them to get to the front for the Pixies, but seriously, how bad can one band be. The songs (excluding Mr Brightside, of course) were abysmal and the band were static. This is what is wrong with modern music.)
- Buck 65 (started off poorly but got much much better, original rapping that still works very well)

This lot, however, don't really seem to fit in any of the other categories.

Overall, fantastic festival, in which I saw some of my favourite bands, heard new boy bryce and watched countless fires explode. Equally as good as last year and maybe better.

sound was pretty good for Killers at reading...

the mainstage sound on sunday at leeds was shit because of the wind ...

i thought the killers had decent enough sound, what they lacked was any personality, charisma, or star quality

what? why didn't you say hello...
WHAT THE FUCK!