Reading Festival overview

On this final day of The Reading-Leeds festival of 2003, I share my recollections of Reading 2001. It was in fact an advertisement for Reading that initially ignited my European festival obsession. A yellow, black and red ad in Q Magazine for what’s known as “The Carling Weekend” (comprised of simultaneous shows at Reading its sister site at Leeds) had caught my eye in July of 2001. Then, over the course of the next week or so the thought running through my head changed from, “Wow, that looks like an incredible lineup” to “I sure wish I could go,” to “Who says I can’t go?” and finally to, “I’m gonna go, damnit, come hell or highwater!” In that first summer of festival-going I’m glad I got a taste of both the V Festival (which I’ve already written about) and Reading because realized from the start that all festivals have distinct personalities, which of course drove my desire to attend all of them eventually. The V-Festivals are a good first festival for beginners. They’re fairly safe and tidy, and not so big as to be overwhelming. On the other hand, Reading is traditionally muddier, definitely more hip and there’s just something about it that’s just plain awesome despite the fact that at around 50,000 people it’s still only a third the size of Glastonbury or Roskilde. Reading seems consistently to have one of the highest quality lineups of any festival in the world and draws a somewhat rougher, rowdier crowd. Still Reading is friendly and hospitable, and crime is still relatively low. The only violent crime reported during that 3-day weekend in 2001 was a single sexual assault. Granted even one may be one too many, but most arrests were for drug related charges; including some that purportedly involved hash brownies. This year there’s an apparently hellish experience getting there by train due to construction – on Reading weekend no less – as the trains between Paddington and Reading are shut down. Otherwise, travel by train from London is typically a breeze. Arriving at Reading train station in 2001 I needed no city map to find the festival grounds; I simply followed the massive crowds through the streets. Along this rag-tag parade route there were plenty of dodgy hucksters selling counterfeit Reading goods. (I bought two such un-authorized t-shirts, which despite several cat calls of “10 pounds for shite!” by potential consumers, have held up quite well.) It was a long walk from the station to the festival--at least a couple miles--and even once we reached the edge of the grounds it was still a good haul alongside the campground that ran along the festival wall to the actual entrance. I was overjoyed to final arrive inside. And the first thing I saw was some guy half passed out on the grass, perhaps one example of the differences between Reading and the V-Fests. Like I said Reading is definitely rougher and less of a place to take the kids—though that didn’t stop some of the English from bringing theirs along. (I’m not exactly sure what would.)