Observations from this year’s Reading Festival

1. You will inevitably miss at least five bands you really want to see.
2. Carling is the dullest beer in the world.
3. This year’s look for girls – flowery wellies and denim short shorts. Nice.
4. Admire this year’s look for girls too closely and you will get a slap from your wife.
5. If you dress as a superhero, you will be in good company. This year I spotted a Batman, a Flash, a Spidergirl, a couple of Supermen, and a Green Lantern. And that was without looking too hard.
6. If, however, you’re dressed as a squeezy bottle of mustard, you’re on your own. And that’s probably the point.
7. The Fall appear to have turned into a krautrock group fronted by a komodo dragon. This is not a bad thing.
8. Gogol Bordello will rise up and take over in 2007. Mind you, I said that about the Arcade Fire last year, and where the fuck were they?
9. Broken Social Scene are a poor substitute for the Arcade Fire.
10. Apparantly, you’re not allowed to get your genitals pierced at the Reading Festival. You can merrily have a bolt shoved through anything else you fancy, mind.
11. Rain is no impediment to rocking.
12. Sore feet, however, are.
13. The worst time to get a major technical hitch is two songs into your set in front of the biggest audience you’ve ever seen. It’s OK, we still love you, Brian.
14. A major technical hitch is a great time to zoom the jumbotron cameras around in search of girls willing to take their tops off in front of 25, 000 people.
15. There are a lot of girls prepared to take their tops off in front of 25,000 people.
16. What do foxes know?
17. There appear to have been a lot of bloggers there.
18. Screw the smartass music crits. Pearl Jam were the band of the festival.