Reading ’98 – Saturday

So did you sleep well this night ?

I was still cold. And in the morning, when I woke up for good, Alice was asleep where Elaine had been.

Where did she come from ?

From the Melody Maker Tent.

That’s where she lives ?

She did do on Friday. She went home after that.

Oh, okay.

My morning ablutory trip to the Portaloos this morning was undertaken with pink hair, but without the devil horns. Because I hadn’t brushed the wig, it just looked like some serious bed-head hair. And because of the lack of devil horns - and this was the interesting bit - the hair colour on its own was not enough to merit shouted conversational comments from those around me.

Maybe it was too early.

Yeah - but a non-heckly start to the day is a good start to the day. And it was another good day.

It was sunny.

Yup. And we saw nice bands. At some point in the day I spoke to ‘Rolling Stone’ as well.

How?

By using my mouth. Whaddaya mean how?

I though only Ludo could talk to rolling stones.

Noo, that’s just in Labyrinth.

So is it just Jerry Hall then?

Stop being deliberately obtuse, you.

( Whaa??? )

Rolling Stone the magazine. Not the people. They wanted to talk to me.

Only because they’d taken Elmo picture.

Elmo, I was carrying you. They took my picture as well.

Elmo was the one facing the camera. Elmo the one with face on photo. You just pink.

Elmo Monster...

Hee-hee.

And on with the day... Deciding to say ‘aaargh, no’ to the mainstage delights of Bis

I thought you liked them

as people

oh

I spent the day spotting obvious Bis fans, and my first audience-member spell watching SEAFOOD.

Seafood were cute.

Just really sweet, yeah. They were missing a member

No. 4 Seafood

as they kept reminding us, in their nervousness. The singer has a very pure voice, that rides clear over their clattering guitar.

And Elmo think their audience is psychic.

Or they’ve just seen the band enough times to know exactly what cover versions they do. Always.

Elmo not expecting The Pixies.

And I wasn’t really expecting ‘Walking In The Air’. But it was just so cool.

Yay for Snowmen Seafood ! That was much more fun than waiting for your Marked Money guy.

Half an hour in front of the mainstage in the sunshine to be told that Money Mark isn’t going to show at his allotted time, because he’s not onsite. We did meet a group of folks wot liked Elmo though.

Ego ego ego !!!

And walking back to the Melody Maker tent, went past Elaine and Ellen. Who had - hurrah ! - just seen me on the screens on either side of the stage. ( Looking ‘really pissed off’, apparently. That’s like, my normal face. )

Whatever. Then we saw another band.

We saw THE LLAMA FARMERS. Whom I’ve heard lots about, and a couple of records by, but as a Money Mark substitute they were insubstantial.

Elmo rather watch Seafood again.

Yeah, they were nowhere near as good as Seafood. Just kinda shouty. Like Earl Brutus and Campag Velocet but without the glam and the antagonism, and just a bit of ‘roaar’... I’d rather have had Urusei Yatsura.

They had cool hair though.

Yeah - but I didn’t mind having missed half the set. And then, that over, we went back to the tent. Saw Elaine’s amazing ‘crisp-balancing’. Talked to Helen. Michael’s been looking for me. Obviously as ineffectively as I’ve been looking for Charlie. Though my friends do have an advantage in my homing-beacon of a head.

Does it flash ?

No Elmo. But it does glow. And because I’m tall as well, I’m fairly easy to find.

Unlike the music tents.

They were easy; they just got a bit confusing at times. When I went back into the Main Arena, I was going to watch ten minutes of Snug, but I was waiting in the wrong tent. ( Somehow I just assumed that, although I was going to have to run between tents to get from them to Clinic, that both bands’d be on on the DM’s stage. Though at least I wasn’t in the dance tent ( sponsor label - Carlsberg - plastered all over the place ) thinking it to be the DM’s tent. Like some of my friends managed to do... )

Isabelle silly.

Well I didn’t notice you pointing out where I should be.

Um... Isabelle should write about CLINIC now.

Okay. Heralding the start of another ‘John Peel’ day, we have Clinic. Whom are nestled into the same compartment of my head as Appliance and The Male Nurse, for both freakoid value as well as song style.

We like Clinic too.

Mmm-hmm.

They make good songs and they play weird toys.

What else do you need ?

To find Horton.

Yes, actually. But I meant about Clinic. Never mind. Set over, I’m looking about for the Puck that did the sound for the next band on last time I saw them. ( Such an Issue #4 line-up, this festival... )

Horton was stood behind me. And recognised me. No longer knob-twiddling for them. Still hyper-active.

He shook Elmo around !

You did seem to be spasming when he touched you, yeah.

Poor Elmo.

Well didn’t the band make up for it ?

THE ELECTRIC SOUND OF JOY ?

Yup.

I thought you said they had a singer.

They did last time I saw them. Have since lost Greg / kicked him out. ( Which would be why he’s not featured in the press photo in the souvenir programme. )

So their songs have no singer.

They steered clear of the ones that required words.

Like the singles ?

Like yeah, the ones that people knew. I think they were hoping no-one would notice.

Elmo noticed.

Quite a few people noticed. But they carried themselves well in his absence. Just now their entire sets is carried by their experimental soundscape noodlings. And they’re closer to Mogwai-soundscape comparisons than ever before.

So they don’t need their singer back ?

It doesn’t look like it. Oh, and incidentally, if you reading this were stood next to a girl with pink hair

And Elmo

And a muppet, can you now offer me an explanation as to why each of my photo flashes was met with a look of bewilderment ? Was it your first time next to a camera holder ? Or could you just not see WHY I was taking pictures ? Why were you on the front row ? What was going on ?

Isabelle.

Yes ?

Calm down.

Okay. Sorry.

That’s okay.

The Electric Sound Of Joy left the stage, Horton bounded off after them to see Lee Scratch Perry, and we stayed put to watch TEN BENSON.

Who rocked.

I thought they were going to look something like White Town. Cos they’re associated in my head with them. ( Probably because of the huge fuss in indie circles their records have created. ) But they were fronted by an Oriental chap in baseball cap, tuxedo shirt and tie, and shorts.

They looked like little kids pretending to be wedding guests.

It was most surreal. And they are completely mental. The ‘dog one’ was my proof of this.

They do make weird noises.

And the keyboard player dances like Tim Booth. While he’s playing.

Elmo like that. Hee-hee. And ‘The Claw’.

And I’ve been singing ‘Evil Heat’ around the smoking campfires each evening. Thumbs up for Ten Benson then. And the guy at the back of the tent with a box for a head...

And paw up for HEFNER too.

Whose album I’d been listening to quite a bit before we came to Reading ( ‘Breaking God’s Heart’ on Too Pure ), and whom I was looking forward to quite a bit as well. And they did a damn good set.

The singer even took his glasses off, like the one from Spearmint.

And the sweet-pea bass-player - who looked like Rob Lowe - made himself dizzy by spinning around excitedly.

They played a Beach Boys song too. Yay ! Elmo going surfing.

They didn’t do that one.

All Beach Boys songs get back to surfing eventually.

I suppose so. It’s a good thing that life doesn’t work that way.

You only say that cos you no can surf.

I have never tried. Though skate-boarding on water doesn’t appeal. Neither do the wetsuits. I’d rather just watch other people.

Isabelle just lazy.

Yup. I know. We should have stayed for Elliot Smith, but I, um, couldn’t be bothered. I wanted food. So we returned to the tent. And emerged some time later to sit most of the way back of the field and listen to SUPERGRASS. Whom I haven’t seen for ages either.

Well Elmo only seen other peoples legs to them.

You did get us singing along though.

You weren’t singing the right words.

The Mark & Lard version of ‘Alright’ is funnier. But then, Supergrass’d be entertaining even without their hapless assistance. Some bands need a rocket up them more than others.

Are you talking about THE WARM JETS?

Maybe.

Hee-hee.

We arrived in the tent during one of the singles, my only interest in seeing the band for the second time is now in the Strangelove factor.

Whaa?

They’ve nicked Alex.

I though Strangelove were dead.

They’re not dead. They’re just resting. But Alex is now gadding about with The Warm Jets. And yes, he is the most interesting thing about the band. ‘Can we go and see someone good now please...’ And we wended our way back out of the tent, and up towards the mainstage. Where we saw THE PRODIGY.

Elmo the Firestarter ! Elmo twisted ! Isabelle just spasming.

In time to the music, thankyou. Becca found it most amusing as well. So I turned my ‘evil goblin’ eyes upon her.

Elmo no like it when you do that.

Neither does she. But it works, for The Prodigy. Even if Keef now looks like Uncle Fester / the lead singer of the Dream City Film Club... on a REALLY BAD day.

Liam & Maxim looked nice though.

Yes they did. And they still gave us some funky shit. And ‘Funky Shit’. As well as ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ - no matter how politely The Beastie Boys try to censor them.

Elmo had fun.

I don’t think I was close enough to be truly infected by the music.

But if Isabelle had been at the front Isabelle squished.

Very much so, yes. I wouldn’t want to be in the middle of a Prodigy crowd.

Or THE BEASTIE BOYS.

Mmm. They inspire serious devotion and very scary dancing, both of them.

And they both very cool.

Yes. Though only the headliners got the strange-drugs-vision camera techniques. ( And why was the man filming so obviously fascinated with the keyboard ? )

It made Elmo eyes go funny.

And, I know for some it’s sacriligious to say so, but I didn’t stay for the whole set. I didn’t want to. Claire and I disappeared after half an hour, for some food and to sit down. ( They played ‘Shore Shop’ when we got to the chips van. Claire ordered, I danced. Then we were both happy. ) I wanted to see everyone who was playing that evening, but there was no-one I needed. So we shared ourselves between tents; first some seated recuperation listening to BENTLEY RYTHMN ACE.

Funky shit !

Elmo !

What, you say it.

I’m bigger’n you.

You can no censor Elmo.

I’m trying to protect your little furry self.

Elmo say what Elmo want to. And they were funky shit.

I know. Ah, whatever... We didn’t dance though. We didn’t even sit in front of the stage. We were sat on the side, back to the barrier divide between audience and backstage.

We tired.

Yup. And the smallest things held our attention. Like the plastic bottle next to the barrier at a point where the protective covering didn’t quite reach the floor. The coloured lights pulsing from off the stage flooded beneath the barrier, and seemed to be coming from within the bottle. It glowed sporadically, and intensely, all night.

It was cool.

And it was hypnotising us. I’d have wanted to leave earlier for the DM’s Tent, were it not for that bottle.

You know how you said it was the little things that amused us?

Oh yeah...

Does that mean the girl with the bag too ?

Ah, definitely. As we were moving through the Arena, the girl in front of us stepped in a plastic bag, and didn’t notice. And woth each further step, didn’t notice. It was so funny. But there’s no real reason why. Just the suspense of it all - would she notice ?

And we were all tired.

That probably helped, yeah.

But the band woke us up !

Indeedy. When we got there, the ALABAMA 3 were rocking as righteously as only they can. There were two dancing cow hand-puppets in the audience, and a really beautiful boy watching from behind the barrier - probably the same one I saw at David Bowie ( Leeds ) and Strangelove ( York ) last year. Probably.

And lots and lots of people onstage.

I last saw them at V97, very early in the day, and then they had about half this number in their travelling repertoire. Definitely no dancing girls.

And now they headline !

And now they encore with ‘Peace In The Valley’ which is one of my favourites. They truly uplift the crowd.

They were wonderful.

Hurrah for The Alabama 3.

Claire say hurrah for her radiator-man too.

Very probably, yes. In the queue to leave the Arena after, we were stuck behind a very warm shirtless man, behind whom ones hands could be toasted as you would an open fire.

Hee-hee...

>>> Sunday

Last revised: 27/07/01