Reading Festival 2011: The Artrocker Review

PHOTOS:
MIKE BURNELL
WWW.ISO400.COM

Konichiwa, bitches. Reading's back and possibly the best one ever! OMG.

First, here's me with the news: 

The term 'Feral Youth' has definitely been redefined in the past couple of months. Normally, indiscriminate looting and setting fire to stuff was more of a 'Reading thang' or a 'Kristallnacht thing' rather than a 'Tottenham thing'. Every year at Reading, each new generation of moronic, hoodied yoof who suddenly found themselves released from the inverted-commas 'shackles' of parental domination for the first time in their spoilt, hunter-wellies-wearing lives suddenly felt the need to act like irresponsible pricks. That being said, there were less of them this year. I guess they're all in prison? Phew.

The music was fine on the friday. Really - F.I.N.E. (I mean it, that's not a criticism, though it sounds like I'm saying it all sarcastically like). It's just that neither The Vaccines, Noah and his Whale (and that song about L.I.F.E going O.N) or White Lies could amass to the epic, understated cool that The Horrors brought to the Festival Republic stage that night.

Dare I say it, few other bands even came close all weekend. The Horrors are.... wait for it... the future of decent music. BOOM. There it is. I'll tell you who ISN'T the future of music anymore: The Strokes. Sad face. More on this later. 

Saturday was a jolly good lineup. Kicking off with the surfer rock of Yuck (an awesome start to the day), they were followed by the distinctly average Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Check this out: Edward Sharpe is an imposter in Devendra Banhart's clothing. Sure, he looks the part with his hippy hair and his hippy beard and his deliberately dishevelled clothes but I just don't buy it. "Buy what?" You might ask. ''IT''. I just don't fucking buy IT.

He seems like he's going through the motions and acting like a quirky hobo but when I look into his eyes I see a tiny little man controlling an Edward Sharpe robot who is actually quite vacant and doesn't have much to say at all, but he's seen others do it and he reckons he can 'have a go'. Bleurgh. 

Odd Future!! Finally I got to see them. OFWGKTA (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All) are like a hip-hop version of Trash Talk: You can't really hear the music or the lyrics but you're so caught up in the spectacle that you don't really care. They are as full-on as you can get.... aggressive, charming, energetic. Crowd surfers and head bangers pump their fists in unison with the Wolf Gang. Magnificent. 

Mariachi El Bronx were back again (their 2nd time at Reading) dressed like the Three Amigos and clearly having an awesome time. Later that evening (as The Bronx) they rocked the shit out of the Lock Up stage, though for some reason they don't seem to be as ferocious as usual, and appear to have lost some of their edge. I don't know why that is. 

Can you believe it's been 10 years since The Strokes released their debut album? It was the week of 9/11 (as Stuart Lee says, the 9th of November) and Is This It? came out. Fucking BRILLIANT. Room on Fire was equally amazing. Then things got worse with First Impressions of Earth (though still not BAD), and now we have them at their worst with their
latest album.  

It's my 4th time seeing them now and the lack of movement in their stage show is starting to get a little old. Let's face it, they were never the most animated of bands but they always looked cool, they always sounded cool, and all their songs were, well... cool. Julian Casablancas still looks the same (leather jacket, jeans and vintage nikes) and leans on the microphone for support during their ENTIRE PERFORMANCE.

His between song banter resembles 'Bill & Ted' with mono-syllabic utterings such as 'Whoa', or 'Awesome' or 'Fuck' or 'Thanks'. They play a song you love, then it's like 'now here's one of our shit ones'. You
could hear the crowd talking amongst themselves in these moments. I dunno man, it's just not the same any more. Have The Strokes lost their significance? Are they even a band to be excited about anymore? 'Whoa. Fuck. Shit' is what Julian might have said about his lackluster performance.



Sunday showcased some bands with a more contemporary flavour in the first half of the day. The wonderful lyrically transplendid Chapel Club and the awesome Warpaint preceded Friendly Fires who gave an incredible performance on the main stage that lifted the mood before Interpol brought everyone back to reality. Interpol are another band that seem to have lost their potency over the years. They certainly lost one of their best band members in Carlos D.

Daniel Kessler is his usual snake-hipped self as he fandangos his way across the stage with his guitar, suited and booted. Paul Banks however looks somewhat out of place with his adidas tracky-top. The crowd are into it nonetheless, and the music is top notch, if the song choices aren't. 

I made the mistake of catching a bit of The Streets doing terrible, bare-chested things over at the Lock Up stage (my god, they are truly awful!) and the frankly overrated Muse who once again succeeded in annoying the shit out of me. Meanwhile, 2ManyDJs were a fairly decent end to my Reading 2011.

Over at the Alternative Stage they were screening 'Nirvana 92 Live at Reading'. They have obviously given up when they resort to playing a video of a performance from 19 years ago from a long gone band. I wonder if the lack of sponsorship from Carling this year affected the budgets for the bands?

In one way, this was one of my favourite Reading Festival’s ever. In another, it was tinged with disappointment in seeing some of my favourite older bands reduced to poor imitations of themselves…. a greatest hits karaoke. On the other hand, there is comfort in the knowledge that as the older bands’ wheels slow down, the newer bands are taking music towards a bright, odd future.

See what I did there?