Clean Bandit filled up the NME tent, people were standing outside the tent to see them. I hadn't heard of them before the festival but I had heard Rather Be. I was pretty near the front, I have quite pushy friends (the easiest way to get to the front is to start from the side). Cage The Elephant were pretty busy, Metronomy were a little bit less busy. They were all in the NME tent btw. Clean Bandit are playing Bestival next week, they are doing pretty well. It's going to be hard for them to follow the hype up, I'm interested to see what they do now! I chose to go see Vampire Weekend and Metronomy by myself and I'm really glad that I did, being alone did not detract from the experience at all as I could totally focus on partying and singing and everything. Other favourites were Gogol Bordello (crazy), Arctic Monkeys, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Die Antwoord (damn). What exactly do you mean by slanted? I chose to ignore as much of the emo shit and pop rock that I could (e.g. Paramore, Papa Roach, Blink 182). Apparently Foster the People were awful and there was a mosh pit at the Kooks. The fucking Kooks. Anthrax they ain't. There were a lot of twats in attendance... Fortunately I only got piss on me once! Some guy was asking everyone to 'shield him' in the Macklemore concert, then pissed into a cup and threw it. Surprised that he was not smacked round the face but I guess that's the bystander effect for you. Also woo Cambridge! It's so fucking boring here. I can't wait to leave in two weeks. I was at university in Brighton (Sussex) for the last three years and it really does not compare.
Basically I mean from everything I'd heard about it, I thought it was going to be this year's emo shit and pop rock concert collective, which in retrospect was a poor judgement and I probably wouldn't have minded going. The people I heard about Reading from tended to be those who like their rock less arthritic than ACDC and less flexible than prog, which only added to my myopic bias. I heard there was almost no atmosphere at Arctic Monkeys. I like your judgement more though, because if they played R U Mine? and I was in the crowd, I would have gone full Napoleon Dynamite. My flailing epilepsy nearly broke the TV listening to it on Jools. I'll have to check out Gogol later. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I don't have the benefit of perspective.What exactly do you mean by slanted?
Arctic Monkeys,
Also woo Cambridge! It's so fucking boring here. I can't wait to leave in two weeks. I was at university in Brighton (Sussex) for the last three years and it really does not compare.
That was my initial impression, honestly I initially just went along for a laugh and didn't know much about the bands. Which was a pretty stupid thing to do, given how much the tickets cost. I'm glad it worked out OK :P R U Mine? was played at the very end, in an extended form. It was the shit. People were pretty bummed that they didn't play 505 though.