Stewart Nash

It’s that time of year again with the August Bank Holiday weekend to say goodbye to the festival season for another year. Last year whilst watching the Reading Festival on TV I finally got round to writing my review of the 1992 festival headlined by Nirvana.

Last night (Friday) I spent the evening watching this years highlights on TV with the annoying Fearne and Reggie, however for a change these presenters weren’t the worst part of the show. In an attempt to keep up with the kids I sat through sets by My Chemical Romance (whom I can only describe as Barbie punk), 30 Seconds to Mars (embarrassingly over-styled US fake punk played by failed Hollywood actors), Bring Me The Horizon (more fake angst plastic punk) and Beady Eye (who apart from the World of Twist cover haven’t got any songs). Kurt Cobain and Joey Ramone, both of whom have played the festival before, must be spinning in their graves.

The horror of what I witnessed reminded of some of the terrible festivals I’ve attended over the years. Bad organisation and terrible line-ups are my main gripes in 20 plus years of festival going.

Reading Festival 1988

My first ever festival as a young innocent teenager, it was so terrible it was to be the festival that changed Reading forever.

To a more experienced festival goer it would have been such a boring weekend but as we were so young it was exciting. Myself along with two mates went to Reading via London (where we stopped off to see The Lords of the New Church at the Marquee on the way) and didn’t even bother to take a tent. I remember getting food poisoning on the way and throwing up at the train station, but this didn’t seem to bother me. We ended up sleeping in the entrance of a friends tent.

The line-up was terrible, well Friday was acceptable with The Wonder Stuff, The Godfathers, The Ramones and Iggy Pop. The rest of the weekend comprised of Starship, Meat Loaf,  Bonnie Tyler and one of the worst bands ever Deacon Blue (who were bottled so heavily they only managed one song). The weather was also pretty rubbish although there was no mud.

The photo below pretty much summed up the weekend, I remember sitting in front of the stage many hours waiting for a decent band to come on, I had a long wait. There was so much bottle throwing at the bands (out of protest) that the following year the organisers changed the line-up completely with New Order headlining in 1989.

It wasn’t all bad though… Fearne Cotton, Zane Lowe and Reggie Yeates weren’t anywhere to be seen. You can read more about Reading 1988 here.

Field Day 2007

By 2007 festivals had come a long way since Reading 1988, unless you go to Field Day of course. All the ingredients were right… fantastic line-up, lovely weather, great location. Apparently it was “great backstage” so the organisers told everyone the following day as the complaints came rolling in (which you can read here). We had all our food and drink confiscated on the way in and couldn’t buy any when we were inside, the queues for the toilets were an hour plus and no matter what stage you were watching you could hear the other stages. By 6pm about 60% of people had gone home. We left early so we could get a drink from the Weatherspoons pub at the train station before the journey home, it was to be our first alcoholic drink of the day (remember this was a Saturday). Which meant we missed most of Justice, nevermind there’s a video of some of it below. It looks good doesn’t it? But 10 hours in the sun without any food, booze or even water seemed to taint the experience. Mind you, all the drugged up students in the dance tent looked like they were having a great time, lucky gits!

Last month Field day 2011 took place and everyone was still moaning about the same things from 2007 and saying they wouldn’t go back next year…. yeh, yeh yeh!!!!

I’m sure the organisers of Field Day got tips from the Stone Roses and their shambolic one day event in Widnes in 1990. One of my rubbish claim to fame’s is the fact that at around 2pm we were the first people to be served at the tiny bar at Spike Island, however had I known how the day was to go we’d have ordered a dozen pints each. The queues went on for hours and we never had another drink. The support bands were terrible (who were they?) and the p.a. was more suited to a tiny club. The whole day was a shambles, at least it didn’t rain. We left home about 6am on the morning of the gig  and arrived home around 24 hours later, it wasn’t worth the effort.

Crystal Palace Bowl Garden Party 1991

Another line-up on paper that looked great and I’m sure backstage they had a great time, but another boring Saturday was to be had in Crystal Palace when The Pixies were joined by Ride, Cud and The Boo Radleys. I’m sure all the bands played well but they were so far away who could tell. 20 years later I’m still confused as to what promoter went to the venue and thought it’d be a great idea to have a gig with a band one side of a lake with the audience on the other! It may have worked for Pink Floyd playing to a load of hippies getting stoned in the 60′s but not a bunch of indie kids in the early 90′s. On top of that it rained and there was no bar. SERIOUSLY, THERE WAS NO BAR! We went to the pub at about 7pm and missed all The Pixies.

V Festival 1998-2001

A music festival for people who don’t like music, V Festival is a corporate advertisers dream. There’s adverts everywhere. You can get chips for £4 with no salt, vinegar or  ketchup, you can queue an hour for a tent to see a band with no toilet when you get inside so you have to go where you are standing or not be able to get in again, they will also refuse to take the drink tokens you bought outside and make you buy some more so you end up going home with loads of drink tokens you can never use and an empty wallet. Every opportunity to rip-off the public and they take it, V Festival’s days are numbered if they don’t start treating their customers with some respect, saying that the festival seems to get bigger every year. Why?

If that’s not enough all the line-up is paid for by major labels, so mostly rubbish with some ‘has-been’ headliner. This is the festival made for Toploader and Razorlight fans, it’s just awful.

So ” why did I go” I hear you cry… Good point. We’ll end with one of the few decent bands to play at V during that era.

Last year I finally got round to reviewing my last Reading Festival from 1992, you can read that review by clicking here.