Since 1971, England's Reading Festival has become a Mecca for fans of British rock, as well as a notorious mud slide. This year, the festival drew hundreds of acts from around the world and battle lines between the best American rock and
Britpop's stalwarts. VH1.com's C. Bottomley packed his tent and his raincoat to watch the fun. Here is the first of his three reports.
Sometimes you have to be listening to a band while setting up a tent in order to truly understand what it's about. As critical adages go, that one's pretty untested, but it applies to hearing the verbal abuse and mangled metal of Limp Bizkit come sailing over the large corrugated metal fence that surrounds the Reading Festival on Friday (Aug. 25) afternoon.
As the red clay bricks on which the southwest English town of Reading were built slowly turn to powder against a tent peg, Fred Durst and an audience of several thousand people sound like they're having a hell of a time. It's one of the loveliest days of summer, with the thermometer topping 85 degrees, but Durst still wants people to put their fingers in the air and show him what kind of motherf*ckers they really are.
While the English music scene retreats from the boozy days of Britpop into an anonymous world of faceless musicians concentrating on "the music" (stand up, Doves, Coldplay, Muse, Embrace, Terris, et al., and then please sit down again), America's new metal acts understand that kids want to see someone who looks like them onstage, shouting out about how unfair life is, and bringing the noise. Throughout the weekend, that clash of cultures will fight what even Rage Against the Machine come to call the Battle of Reading.
Limp Bizkit ought to sound like your whiny little brother in the back seat of the car repeating "Are we there yet?" Instead, as they romp through their cover of "Faith" and "Take a Look Around," their dandy violation of the Mission: Impossible theme, it sounds like the mythical English reserve is crumbling before the celebrated American anal retentiveness.
Nobody told the Bluetones. The sturdy quartet have always been never-weres, failing to coin their own version of veddy English slackerdom - "Oh, is it 5 p.m. already?" - into compelling music. Instead, wind past their set on the main stage, the drinking tents, and the numerous stalls selling hats that would be acceptable only on a Dr. Seuss character to the Radio 1 Evening Session Tent.
There Soulwax are playing their set the way it's meant to be played - as if it were their last. This Belgian band belies its lowland roots by mixing showmanship with off-the-wall good humor. Their mike stands are decorated with fluorescent lighting that's totally ineffective in the summer evening; they're wearing beige suits; their guitarist grimaces like he's channeling Jimi Hendrix through his colon; they dance like aliens who've just learned the concept of Anthony Kiedis; and there's even an uncalled-for cover of Prince's "Pop Life" with a guest melodica player purporting to be from Mexico. Time to rescue their American debut, Much Against Everyone's Advice, from the bargain bins.
Grandaddy follow that, and discover that this unattractive portion of the Thames Valley sure ain't Modesto, Calif. Their affecting scenarios of way-out-west technological anxiety don't quite move people like "The Crystal Lake" and "Hewlett's Daughter," the FM-chummier numbers off The Sophtware Slump. Wary of turning into a greatest-misses act, the ornery ones (well, they do have beards) stick to playing obscurantia. Vertical Horizon have nothing to worry about.
If only every bald American band had the hairy chin of Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl. The greatest American rock songwriter since Kurt Cobain, Dave has achieved the difficult feat of making pretty boy drummer Taylor Hawkins look like just another Foo Fightin' stiff. But damn, his tunes are good. Now if only we could get him to write something with Santana, maybe we could make the Foos bigger than Matchbox Twenty.
While the Americans have taken the day - with the Doves' afternoon set erased from memory by the second beer - Primal Scream demonstrate their chameleon-like versatility by reinventing themselves as a British Rage Against the Machine. For those keeping score, that's after their quick changes over the past decade from a U.K. Love to E'd-up hedonists to the Faces on the Mississippi to dub mad scientists.
The Scream's ear for a trend would be shameful in any other band. But like Ed Gein, they wear their skins rather well. Tonight they blast through the entirety of XTRMNTR, and the mantle of this nation's most important band suddenly fits them. On songs like "Kill All Hippies" and "Accelerator," they package punk as dance music, muttering about "no civil disobedience" to get the Firing Line vote.
Even the Limp Bizkit fans stick around. By the time the stick-insect-thin Bobby Gillespie gets around to rapping "Pills," he has the entire audience singing along, chanting "Sick! F*ck! Sick! F*ck!" Scary stuff. With former Stone Rose Mani's bass thundering through "Higher Than the Sun," though, Reading gets its first regional anthem. Drugs suddenly sound like a very good idea.
For drama, nobody can match tonight's headliners. Oasis are rumored to split as soon as they're done playing Reading's northern cousin, the Carling Premier Leeds Festival, on Monday night. As storm clouds gather in the evening sky as if readying themselves for an appearance by King Lear on vibes, the feuding brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher give the Oasis cycle what could be one last go-around.
Since Noel Gallagher refused to see out the remainder of their European tour with them, we have every right to expect a clapped-out band. On their oldies - rapturously received by kids who remember having their first Newcastle Brown to "Supersonic" - they sound like it. Nevertheless, if Oasis are making their last bow, they're going out on top. On new material like "Gas Panic," given a long guitar fade that surges with Radiohead's brittle sensitivity, they're everything you ever heard about them.
In front of their people, Oasis regain the attitude that seemed hidden between their legs during their American tour. Noel Gallagher picks a fight with everyone in the band except his inebriated brother, leading the audience in a chorus of "Who the f*ck is Andy Bell?" and shouting at his drummer until Alan White finally figures out how to hit a snare and the bass drum at the same time.
"Don't put your life in the hands/ Of a rock 'n' roll band," sings Noel on "Don't Look Back in Anger." For once, it sounds like the temperamental guitarist might have taken heed to his own title. For those who wonder if the Gallaghers can ever live with or without each other, take comfort that they're still sniggering together over jokes about cocaine. Tonight, as lightning forked overhead, we ignore the verse.
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