Will Shannon Wild from Essesx please call her mother urgently.

Download Mud, Reading Mud.

Just got back from Reading Festival (for those of you that don't know, it is a music festival in the town of Reading, rather than a week of literature. Ho ho bad jokes.)  It has left me shoeless, and rather than take the time to clean festival mud from my boots, I thought I'd come inside and blog about the experience. Besides I have blisters on every single one of my toes, so sitting down is the prefered modus operandi at the moment.
Reading Festival isn't the first festival I have been to, but it is definitely the most commercial. As well as this, you cannot be a cool UK teen without having attended this event (or the sister Leeds festival) it would seem, as the average age of people attending was about 17.

These cool kids are loving Reading.

This meant there was a significant amount of police and security present, which personally made me feel more unsafe and worried about getting arrested for things like climbing the fire towers and urinating in public than at smaller fests. I mean, festivals are pretty much the safest places in the world aren't they?
People at festivals are totally cool. They just do what they want, chat to anyone, share anything and dress up however they want (although most people stuck to hotpants, UV face paint or animal onsies). A trip back from the portaloo's which should have taken 10 minutes took me about 3 hours, because of chatting to random people and being given free things. That is how the world should be all the time... and I don't get why it isn't :(

gettin' arrested for dressin' as a monkey

The camping is a wicked part of festival life, a proper 24 hour party, but the music is better! I don't get people who sit around the campsite after the arena is open????
Like, one morning, there wasn't much we wanted to see until about 2 hours after the arena opened, so we stumbled into the alternative tent and stayed there watching some SICK standup comedy for about an hour. Honestly, comedy in the morning and it's difficult to leave. I would recommend Daniel Sloss.
Some of my other highlights were Metronomy, and Cage the Elephant... but anything that was playing in the NME tent was amazing.... OMFG I NEARLY TOUGHED ALICE GLASS!!!FGFHTGHRHFH.... haha but YEAH the NME have really got it going on.

Metronomy

My particular fave NME moment was probably Panic! at the Disco. Did I forget to mention that I used to be the BIGGEST emo fangirl ever???

LOOK I was really emo!

Panic brought it all back. We kind of wandered over there as a bit of a filler, like: "oh Panic! used to be good, lets check 'em homeboys", then walking to the front of the stage I got a little excited shiver, like I'd just swallowed glitter butterflies... and then Panic! exploded. It does help, I suppose, that they are a beautiful band, but they are also brilliant performers. Brendan Urie was all over that stage, and their set was perfect for a festival, playing lots of there old stuff for the people that loved them way back, but integrating it with their new stuff, which was a beautiful plug, and I might be a fan again and buy the album etc (because lets face it, Pretty Odd was just that).
Muse were pretty good too... litterally the biggest crowd I've ever stood in, and they had lights and lazers, and they know how to do good stadium rock, but they're really only getting a token mention here, because, and yes I'll admit it, I got a bit - bored. Muse are so perfect when they perform now it's like there is no need for an audience; I stopped listening to Muse after 'Absolution', so their performance was a bit lost on me. I could have created the same effect at home with itunes on visualiser.
On the other hand, My Chemical Romance made me cry. (Look, I already told you I was a huge emo fangirl, but if you don't want to hear my in depth analysis of their set and the direction I think 'Danger Days' has taken, stop reading now, and just watch this video my friend Cal made)

Opening with Na Na Na was totally expected. BUT STILL TOTALLY AWESOME! MCR live have an awesome energy that just makes peoples fists pump. It's so beautiful. They even make you jump around a bit when watching them on TV (according to my dad, who was pretending I'd let him come with me all weekend - thank you BBC). Their older stuff had this punky energy to it that the Danger Days album brought back after the more queeney elements from The Black Parade, which is great, as they have such energy. Gerard struts around the stage like he owns it; he was so camp, but it so worked for Reading becuse you need a massive performace to win over a festival crowd, who might not be familiar with your music. Although some of the emotion was lost from songs like Helena, the crowd was never lost, and the atmosphere was absolutley buzzing.

Gerard Way and Ray Toro

The best bit of the set from my point of view was Dead! For some reason everyone went absolutely WILD, I think it was because most people have heard the Black Parade album, and Dead! is one of the few that translate brilliantly to a live performance because it loud and angry and fast.
I was hoping for a few more of the older songs, because 'Revenge' is the best album in the world, and some of the songs from 'Bullets' are still so raw if you are lucky enough to hear them performed. However, they stuck mainly to the new album, and it was still awesome. I love the new album, because they have gone back to their roots, as they promised original fans they would, but they still kept the conceptual fantasy of the 'Black Parade'. The brilliance of the new direction that MCR have taken is that they have managed to bypass the fame that encompasses other bands to keep their raw energy and anger; it is sometimes hard for a 'punk' band to keep old fans happy when they are living in a celebrity world with no pain or anger. My Chemical Romance were born out of a storm of anger over the attack on the twin towers, and they have recreated that pain by creating a comic book landscape in which to place themselves. Crazy, yes, but brilliant also.

Personally, I can totally connect to 'Danger Days' in the same way I could connect to 'Revenge'. Back when I was 14 and angsty and angry at the world and love and feeling all tween and misundertood, My Chemical Romance felt that too. And they sang about it. 'The Black Parade' is full of confused feelings, the band became a household name, couldnt feel angry any more, and as a fan I was a bit lost. But sometimes, when life left me a bit lost, that was the only album I needed. Now, 'Danger Days' is here. Destroya, Vampire Money and Planetary are full of that angsty rage, but it is more refined. It is a more revolutionary rage, a changeable rage. Also, there is a sense of growing older and lost youth in the album, a feeling which I can totally relate to. I imagine the band were nostalgic about their roots, finding it difficult to have the same pain as when they were releasing bullets, and falling under criticism from fans and the media for the black parade. That nostalgia is verbalised best in 'The Kids from Yesterday'. On stage MCR said it was their "favourite song on the album" so it is obviously poignant for them, but it is also poignant for me, becasue I'm leaving my childhood and moving on to university. Like MCR I'm growing up and moving away from my 'Revenge', and I can totally understand Danger Days.

Did I mention Brian May arrived? And did We Will Rock you with them?

When there was a slight groan from the crowd as they opened into s/c/a/r/e/c/r/o/w I couldn't understand it. It was a brilliant song from a wonderful set, by an amazing band. I loved their performance, and I love their music, and I think that the future looks so bright for My Chemical Romance. Just watching one live performance can ignite a lasting passion for that band, and their reading performance was definitely one to remember. I'm so glad I was there.

Gerard looks cute with red hair too ;) 

xxxx Rhio