Skip to main content

My Time at Reading Festival!

After picking up my exam results on Thursday, last week, a few of my friends and I jumped in the car and travelled to Reading Festival. You have no idea how long I'd been counting down the days until this event so I was very, very excited. When I was 12, I went to Glastonbury Festival (Under 13's go free!) and that still remains to be one of the best weekends of my life but I hadn't been to a music festival since then so I had mostly forgotten what they're like.
Music festivals are phenomenal. 
From the second I received my turquoise Reading wristband, to the moment I bid the site farewell, I had an incredible time. Admittedly, before arriving, I had been a little apprehensive of what to expect. I'd been told my previous festival-goers that Reading is full of aggressive, in-your-face people, who clamber into your tent in the middle of the night and steal your sleeping bag with you still inside it. However, this was not the case in the slightest.
The majority of people at the festival were super-friendly, music-obsessed and there just to enjoy themselves. Obviously, you do get some odd exceptions who decide that they can't hold on and relieve themselves over a friend in the middle of Vampire Weekend (yup, that did happen...) but that's the same for any event (but perhaps not in the middle of Vampire Weekend). 
Most people arrive at Reading on the Thursday of the event, and the music starts on the Friday. Therefore, the first night was probably the craziest one of them all as there wasn't a lot going on so people just sat by their tents and drank any liquid that wasn't water. Every so often, there would be a 'Mexican Yell', which is like a Mexican wave but a scream that started off on one side of the entire site and gradually passed through the thousands of tents to the other side. That was kinda peculiar...
So, on Friday, at around noon, my friends and I walked from our little home in Brown camp to the Main Arena, where all the fun happens.
The Fat White Family

Jimmy Eat World (if you hadn't worked that out already...)

Vampire Weekend

We... Are... Paramoreeee

Queens of the Stone Age

Gotta love the lasers!

Marmozets (fun fact: Marmozets is made up of two sets of siblings- so cute!)

The Hives (and their terrifying backdrop)

Imagine Dragons

Jake Bugg

Arctic Monkeys

The Neighbourhood

The 1975

Disclosure

And that isn't even all of the artists I saw!
Although the ticket is quite pricey (£202.50 + booking fee for a weekend pass), I saw 28 different acts across the weekend, and I wasn't even pushing myself to see as many as I could. 
Out of the acts I saw, my Top 5 are....
  1. Arctic Monkeys- I was already a pretty big fan before I left for the festival and this group did not disappoint! Throughout the whole weekend, hundreds of supporters were wearing AM t-shirts and, when performing, the entire crowd knew every single lyric. My highlight of the set? Their performance of 'When the Sun Goes Down'. Incredible.
  2. Disclosure- I've always been a lover of dance tunes and siblings Guy and Howard Lawrence couldn't have ended the weekend in a more perfect way! Although I was completely, and utterly, crushed during their set by the males surrounding me, I still managed to have an awesome time.
  3. Paramore- The Most Professional Act of the Weekend Award definitely goes to this lot. Despite twenty minutes of no sound due to a technical fault, the group were not fazed and instead performed an excellent acoustic version of one of their many hits. Also, Hayley Williams is the coolest gal. Serious hair-envy.
  4. The Neighbourhood- Before my friend said that she wanted to see these guys, I had never heard of them. This act were so lively and seemed to be really enjoying themselves, which is always nice. One of their songs, 'Honest', was on the soundtrack for The Amazing Spiderman 2. Pretty awesome, don't ya think? At the end of their set, Jesse Rutherford (vocalist) threw his waterbottle about 90ft across the crowd- I was impressed. Check these guys out.
  5. The Fat White Family- okay, okay, I did intentionally only go and see this act so that I could say that I'd seen someone with their name but they were so, so good! Judging from the volume of singing created by people watching, the Fat White Family have a very dedicated fan base. Definitely worth a watch!

 Overall, I honestly had one of the best weekends of my life. I really hope that it's not too long before I get to go to another music festival as it truly was SO good. Tickets for next year are already on sale so get yours now!
Talk soon, Florrie x

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"I Cry When I Laugh" - Jess Glynne - Album Review

Not many artists can say that they've had five number ones before releasing their debut album but one 25-year-old can. Known for featuring in the song of 2014 ‘Rather Be’, Jess Glynne has come a long way since her rejection from The X-Factor ten years ago. Her album, ‘I Cry When I Laugh’, retains the dance vibes she has become renowned for from her singles, but also experiments with softer sounds, notably on album track ‘Take Me Home’. Citing her influences to include Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin and Frank Ocean, the album diverts away from the typical pop regime, with elements of R&B featuring in the tracks. For the album, the London girl palled up with fellow British artist Emeli San d é  t o collaborate on “Saddest Vanilla”- an appropriate name choice for a song so lackadaisical. Despite the docile pace of the song, this track stands out- for all the wrong reasons. I can appreciate the fact that Glynne wanted a mix of tempos on the album but the dreary track merely ...
Post a Comment
Read more

12 Problems Only People with Glasses Will Understand

17th May 2008. The day my dreads became reality: I got my first pair of glasses. I'd seen it coming for a few months prior to it, but there was still a part of me clutching on to the idea that perhaps my eyesight was just blurry because of the side effects of some peculiar, undiagnosed illness I'd had. Yeah, I was pretty desperate. However, just because the optician tells you to start wearing glasses, that doesn't mean you to have to, right? ...Wrong, but that's what I did anyway, up until late 2012, when it got to the stage where I felt like my grades were being affected by my near-sightedness.  Don't get me wrong- I don't have anything against glasses-wearers; in fact, I genuinely do believe glasses can look sublime. It's just the hassle of wearing them that frustrates me to this very day. If you forget your glasses, you're completely, and utterly, stuck. Every activity you attempt to complete at work that day becomes 19842 times more d...
Post a Comment
Read more

Accomplishments.

Summer is well and truly over. In fact, it had ended over a month ago, but only in the past week have I fully accepted that the weeks of going out in just a t-shirt and shorts are finished for the year. To say that my summer was an adventure would be an understatement. Interrailing across Europe, flying out of the continent for the first time and getting a place at university... These past three months have been simply unbelievable. As I closed that Mathematics exam paper for the last time on 24th June 2016, I had little idea that my summer would be the whirlwind that it was. One week on, and I had flown to the Netherlands for the beginning of eighteen days of walking 30,000 steps a day, train journeys and simply incredible sights. Four weeks on, and I had flown to New York City for, undoubtedly, my greatest holiday. Five weeks on, and I had flown inter-continent to the Sun State of Florida. Seven weeks on, and I had received my A-Level results, which I was fortunately absolute...
Post a Comment
Read more