The DMS Reading Festival Experience - Day 1
Created | Updated Jul 11, 2003
This recounts my own personal experience of the 2001 Reading Festival weekend, to be published as a three part serial. I didn't go alone but I've withheld the names of the people who accompanied me to save embarrassment on their behalf.
Friday, 24st August 2001
Noon, Main Stage
The Donnas, a San Fransico female 4-piece into grungy rock'n'roll, kick off this year's Reading Festival weekend. A good start but becomes very samey all too quickly.
1.20pm, Radio 1 Evening Session Tent
Adam is dressed like a Robin Hood reject while Kimya obviously wants to be a Thundercat. Together the duo are The Moldy Peaches, a New York outfit supported by a male guitarist in a dress, a bassist dressed as Spiderman and a drummer who I can't quite see. They create an offbeat sound with amusing, though often rude lyrics, making for entertaining listening, including the NME Single of the Week Who's Got the Crack?.
2.35pm, Main Stage
Run DMC may be the first rap group with an album to go platinum, but they seem short of material. They perform Walk This Way and It's Like That and a few others. The rest of the time seems to be depicated to introductions as to who each member is. By the end I think I know which is which. DMC is the one concerned about the location of his hat. Run is the one who donates his signed T-shirt to a member of the audience. Jam Master J is the one with the decks. And that's the way it is.
4(ish)pm, Radio 1 Evening Session Tent
Returning to the tent is a nice reprieve from the glare of the sun. Glaswegian quintet The Cosmic Rough Riders saunter onto the stage. They sound like a cross between REM and Neil Young but this visit is shortlived because...
4.35pm, Main Stage
... public pressure, fuelled by the NME and the release of a forthcoming album, have pushed The Strokes from the Radio 1 Evening Session Tent to the Main Stage. Something that has never happened before. The field is the most packed it's been all day with a very expectant crowd of some 20,000 very sweaty people. The band fall slightly short of the hype, possibly due to nerves, but give a credible enough performance. There is the promise of greater things to come from them. They are far from the worst thing on stage that weekend.
5.35pm, Main Stage
Iggy Pop has an inability to keep still. His microphone stand takes quite a beating as he prowls around the stage. You wouldn't want to meet him in a darkened alley. His set includes the more recent Corruption and Beat 'Em Up and the older, though no lesser, Real Wild Child (Wild One) and The Passenger. During his slot, he attacks a photographer, cuts his nipple, dives into the crowd 'to be touched' and then drags people on stage, one of whom promptly moons. Probably the most entertaining act so far even if the sound isn't quite right.
7pm, Main Stage
P.J.Harvey is one of the big surprises for me. Not just because she is clad only in a black bra, a black pvc miniskirt and black knee-length high heels, not to mention black eye-liner, but also her music is truly great. For years I have got it into my head that she is rubbish. I'm not entirely sure how I've come to this conclusion considering I can only remember one of her songs - Down By The River. Quite possibly the musical highlight of the day, for me anyway. The most entertaining act is to follow...
8.30pm, Main Stage
It's not everyday that a lead guitarist/singer, Billie Joe, squirts the audience with his supasoaker then gets a drummer, a bassist and a 16 year-old guitarist up from the crowd to take over from the band. But this is what happens when the American punk band, Green Day, are unleashed on stage with a trumpeter clad in a bee costume and a trombonist in a monkey costume. After an hour of 'non-stop sex', pumping songs and general goofing off, the drumkit is piled up and set alight. The bass is buried in the funeral pyre and the band leave. Or so we think until Billie Joe returns for a solo acoustic number before the firemen arrive to put out the blaze. The crowd hasn't been this big all day.
8.30pm, Main Stage
The Scottish band Travis closing the evening's events seem a disappointment considering the intense debauchery of the previous act. At least they help the crowd, now thinner in numbers, wind down for beddy-byes. They play the usual hits and album tracks Sing, Coming Around, Why Does It Always Rain On Me?, Turn, All I Wanna Do Is Rock, etc. The lead singer, Fran Healy, has a little chat with the audience between songs, advising us to use toilet paper and wash our hands afterward as well as apologising for swearing - or 'roadmouth' as he calls it. (Aah, isn't he sweet?) Their 3 song encore includes the David Bowie number All The Young Dudes sung by the bassist, Dougie Payne, who, I think has a better voice that Fran.
It may only be 11.30pm, but its a long way back to the train station and then to Didcot to recover and prepare for another sweltering day.
Tune in next week for the second day of the DMS Reading Festival Experience.
