Reading Festival: the review

The past two weeks have been pretty hectic for me. I spent a week working at Kerrang! magazine and then after a short two day rest I was off to Reading Festival, so it's all been a bit quiet on the blog front. Whilst we wait for a new week to start and for these posts to get back to normal, I thought I'd get myself through my festival blues and awful cold (chilliest August bank holiday ever spent in a tent) by giving you guys a mini review of this year's Reading Festival.

Who did I see?
Friday: Hacktivist, Red Fang, We Were Evergreen, Crossfaith, La Dispute, Drenge, Mallory Knox, Twin
Atlantic, Enter Shikari, Vampire Weekend, Jamie T, Paramore, Queens of the Stone Age
Saturday: Gnarwolves, Pulled Apart By Horses, Royal Blood, Lower Than Atlantis, Cage The Elephant, Don Broco, We Came As Romans, While She Sleeps, Issues, Architects, Of Mice & Men
Sunday: The Story So Far, Bad Rabbits, Saint Raymond, Baby Godzilla, Neck Deep, Sleeping With Sirens, A Day To Remember, You Me At Six, letlive., Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Blink 182

Seeing as my list is rather extensive, I'll let you know about my favourite bands of the weekend. Issues were outstanding. Their first time at Reading and Leeds festivals and the crowd was so much bigger than I was expecting. Their whole performance was electric and mosh pits were rife. There was so much energy from everyone there, it was pretty insane and they were the best thing I saw all weekend. letlive. were another band which fans squeezed into The Pit to see and again, they were stunning. letlive. know how to give a good show and they are never ones to let a crowd down. Jason was bouncing about and even climbed the backing rig at one point. He gave heartfelt speeches and even spoke briefly about the issues of Ferguson. In traditional letlive. style, their Reading festival set is one to be remembered for a long time. Twin Atlantic literally blew me away. I was not expecting such a crisp and energetic performance from them and I am still getting over how great they were. They had a strong crowd and an even stronger setlist and for a long time I didn't think anything would top their set for me. Even watching it back on TV has blown me away. I cannot recommend seeing them live enough. Naturally, Blink 182 were a massive highlight of my Reading festival. As pop-punk heroes, they were always going to steal the limelight and their set was exactly what was wanted. Hit after hit, sexual innuendo after sexual joke, Blink did not disappoint. Okay, they're not as beautiful sounding as they once were and it was kind of sad to see Tom Delonge looking a bit worse for wear but no one goes to a Blink show expecting crystal performances identical to the albums. Complete with a Mark Hoppus drum solo, Travis Barker actually speaking and a massive flaming 'fuck' sign, Blink 182 well and truly impregnated everyone in the field and stole the weekend.

Other points of interest over the weekend were the fact I met Valentino Arteaga (drummer for Of Mice & Men) and he was lovely. Hayley Williams and Paramore were absolute stars getting through the sound problems the way they did (the system completely cut out so they sang 'Only Exception' acapella). Jamie T showed up for a surprise set and packed out the Festival Republic tent as though he were a headliner himself. Jeremy McKinnon (vocalist of A Day To Remember) nearly fell off the crowd in his giant inflatable ball after forgetting about the barrier split. And apparently Arctic Monkeys were okay...

It was an insane weekend, my best Reading by far and I just wish Reading 2015 would hurry up!