Pixies Reading Festival – 26-28/8/2005

The only time we went for the entire weekend.
‘We’ in this case is me, Iain and Nat. Weirdly, Janet wasn’t interested. After aa first trip to the festival in 2001, with my sister and her husband, Iain and I started hitting the festival for single days. But 2005 had a line-up which divided the jury and required full attendance.
Reading Festival is the daddy of all festivals, dating from the 1960s, when it was a jazz & blues festival held in ‘nice’ Thames-side towns such as Richmond and Windsor before moving even further up the river and crashing into Reading. Quite how I never got to the festival as a lad, despite living so close is beyond me. Probably couldn’t afford it.
The weekend was fabulous music-wise, but the camp-site was horrible and the toilet block was a flood-lit caged compound, with every move recorded on CCTV. Anyone desiring to use the loo in the middle of the night was forced to remove any headgear or hood so that they were recognisable. The loos still got overturned and vandalised on the Sunday night.
The group of lads near our tents barely heard any music – they spent the weekend drinking, smoking and trying occasionally to chat up Natasha. They also helped Iain set up the tents on the Friday afternoon – he got there early while Nat & I were still at work. By the time we found him he was already totally festive!
According to the spreadsheet, we saw…
Dropkick Murphys (excellent Irish folk-punks – need to see them again)
The Subways (rock trio with a female bass player, who never quite made the leap from support act, despite a great sound and great songs)
Elbow (the others left me, on the grounds of boredom)
The Coral (no longer the Beefheartian wonder of yore, they were now just another indie band)
The Killers (Natasha’s choice – not really my cup of tea)
Pixies were still on the first flush of their reunion tour – having fun and not worrying about the future. And that was Friday done.
We must have spent much of Saturday ambling between stages, or maybe in the comedy tent. We did see…
Juliette & The Licks (as in actress Juliette Lewis not bad, but not as awesome as The Kills later on)
The Kills (him, her and a drum machine – incredible menace in every song!)
We re-convened at the end of the night because Nat & Iain wanted to see the Foo Fighters. After two songs I remembered that I really wasn’t a fan and wandered off. In a tent I spent a few minutes watching The Go! Team, but they lost me. Then I wandered into the second stage tent. It was a mad-house. The band barely moved while pumping out an incredible barrage of short sharp punk rock songs, e.g. ‘Punk Rock Song’. By contrast, the audience were berserk and the band seemed to be on first name terms with them all. And thus I fell in love with Bad Religion.
By Sunday, sleep deprivation was taking its toll and once more the comedy tent was a good place for a nap. We still managed to enjoy…
NoFX (one of the great American party-punk bands and always good for a laugh)
Iggy & The Stooges (archaeological garage rock – kind of dated and dull)
This was my second time seeing British Sea Power, and I still didn’t quite get them, but the sight of a mosh pit wielding tree branches has stayed with me.
Now I thought we saw Nine Inch Nails this night, but that was a year later. Who we did see was Marilyn Manson. Enormous fun, and he delivered the greatest hits while rumours flew that this was his final gig in the UK. The guitar player sat on a swing at times.
And then we got Iron Maiden! And not only that they were only doing songs form the first four albums – i.e. the only good stuff! I hadn’t seen the band for maybe thirty years and it was a step somewhere back in time. Bruce Dickinson is incredible – he never stopped moving through the entire gig – encouraging the band, encouraging the audience or just running around like a demented puppy. The best memory though is a couple of teenagers looking at Iain & I – twice their age - and one saying in amazement “you know ALL the words!”
But never again would we overnight at Reading Festival. Much better to stay sober and drive home to comfortable beds and no danger of an overturned toilet.