Taking Sides: Reading Festival Vs Glastonbury.

"I think Reading was probably better up until the early 80's; Glastonbury was definitely better through to the early '90's; and Reading was probably better again until they started doing it in tandem with Leeds in 1999, since which it's nose-dived dramatically."

TS: spending 3 nights shivering in your soaking wet clothes in a freezing cold tent Vs. being able to get a taxi home every night.

I remember Reading being strong in the early 90's too, while Glastonbury took a couple of years off in that time. But Reading seemed slower to change, sticking to a more basic diet of rock and indie while Glastonbury went more dance.

Therefore, I pick Glasto (despite having never been) because of the better variety.

But is there any long summer weekend in England where the chance of rain is less than 50%?

Plus Glastonbury isn't full of 15-year old virgins in Blink 182 t-shirts pushing over portaloos.

breaking news
Glastonbury
http://www.nme.com/news/108007.htm
OASIS, PAUL McCARTNEY and MUSE have been revealed as the headliners of this year’s

Naff 90s trad rock band - looking back to the 60s, Paul MOR Macca and Alterna-teen rock band.

Actually, that's the worst headlining bill ever. It's worse than Coldplay Stereophonics and Rod Stewart.

And the new bands tent Matt!

So are you saying this is a good thing, or a bad one?

I can't think of anything worse than that, except possibly coldplay, stereophonics, rod stewart and primal scream.

Once was a Teenager Boys Poster-Girl in 1979, and two ageing 80s Bands.

JET, THE THRILLS, BADLY DRAWN BOY, JAMELIA and FAITHLESS have all confirmed for this year’s V FESTIVAL.

Jet will play on the NME Stage at this year’s event, while the other bands’ stages will be confirmed in the coming days.

This year’s event takes place over the weekend of August 21-22 at Hylands Park, Chelmsford and Weston Park, Stafford.

The Strokes will headline this year’s event on a bill that also includes their heroes Pixies and pals Kings Of Leon. As we did last year, NME will have our own stage at V Festival.

anyway going to festivals because of the lineup = madness, surely?

"I think Reading does actually alternate between the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica every other year."

Not by any means - Reading was Indie Central through most of the 90's:

1990: The Cramps, Inspiral Carpets, Pixies, Mudhoney, Nick Cave, Wedding Present, Buzzcocks, The Fall
1991: Iggy Pop, James, The Sisters Of Mercy, Blur, De La Soul, Sonic Youth, Carter USM, PWEI, Dinosaur Jr, De La Soul, Neds Atomic Dustbin
1992: The Wonder Stuff, Public Enemy, Nirvana, Public Image Ltd, Suede, EMF, Manic Street Preachers, Charlatans, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Teenage Fanclub
1993: Porno For Pyros, The The, Siouxsie & the Banshees, New Order, Blur, Big Star, Boo Radleys, Chumbawamba, Therapy?, Lemonheads
1994: Primal Scream, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cypress Hill, Ice Cube, Manic Street Preachers, Pulp, Radiohead, Soundgarden, Elastica,
Tindersticks, Jeff Buckley, Lemonheads, Frank Black, Pavement
1995: Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, Green Day, Bjork, Paul Weller, Neil Young, Soundgarden, Beck; Gene, Foo Fighters, The Bluetones, Reef, Ash
1996: Rage Against the Machine, Black Grape, Stone Roses, Prodigy, Garbage, Ash, Ice-T, Offspring, Reef, Underworld, Rocket From The Crypt, Sonic Youth, Dubstar, Julian Cope, Space, Babybird, The Divine Comedy, Mansun, Kenickie, Geneva
1997: Suede, Manic Street Preachers, Metallica, The Orb, Space, Cast, Stereolab, Bush, Marilyn Manson, The Verve, Audioweb, Boo
Radleys, Symposium, Catatonia, Embrace, Eels, Bentley Rhythm Ace, Broadcast, Cornershop
1998: Page & Plant, Beastie Boys, The Prodigy, Garbage, New Order, Ash, Mansun, Supergrass, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Bluetones, Super Furry Animals, Travis, Spiritualized, Bentley Rhythm Ace, Ultrasound, Gomez
1999: Blur, The Charlatans, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mansun, Elastica, Kevin Rowland, 3 Colours Red, Ice T, All Seeing I, Sugarhill Gang

Going to festivals for any other reason = paying a ridiculous amount of money to sit in a field with a few mates and a load of total strangers getting wasted, surely?

Who's on this year?

I did say it turned to shit in '99, didn't I?

Reading = close to major town, pass in and out easily, band stages and areas 75%, market 25%.

Glasto = no towns nearby, pass in and out not worth it (never tried), band stages/areas 50%, markets 30%, other stages/areas 20%

Basically, Glasto is not just for a day or part time, you're in for keeps until you leave.

(Admittedly, I live near reading.
Reading 1979
Glasto 1985-89
reading 1991,2,3,5,6,8 and 9.)

http://www.geocities.com/triple5ive/reading/history.html
1988 Headliners are Ramones, Starship and Squeeze. Iggy Pop, The Wonder Stuff were the main highlights, along with seeing Meatloaf get bottled off the stage…TWICE!

the key year change was ...1989 that saw a switch to a more NME/ MM oriented agenda, and the unfashionable Hard Rawk/ AOR types completely faded away.

1989 New Order, The Pogues, The Mission headline Mean Fiddler's first Readign festival weekend. Bands this year include My Bloody Valentine, The House Of Love, Billy Bragg, The Wedding Present, New Model Army, Pop Will Eat Itself, Jesus Jones and Voice Of The Beehive.

this is the point!

At Reading/ Leeds you are limited to watching bands, getting wasted by your tent and avoiding teen-idiots trying to riot. At Glastonbury when the bands have finished you can go dancing to a variety of different soundsystems, go and sit down with a cup of tea and a splif and watch the passing people, go rollerskating, get fake-married and fae-divorced, find a burning sculpture, see a film under the stars, take hippies seriously for once or just bowl about looking for adventures.

Also: I am sure the Reading crowd would have responded with great violence when faced with the collected works of Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Campaign for Real Indie.

I do love Glasto - I think there is a bit of a disconnect though between the amazing fantastic things you can do there and the (also fantastic) things people actually do do there, i.e. lie around, get mashed, listen to music. For a lot of people (probably including me so it's not a criticism) the hippie stuff is a marvellous backdrop to a great rather than something you really engage with, despite people's claims that "next year we'll bring a tipi".

your point being?

No, nothing, no point at all....

How do you fancy getting together with a gang of your mates and sending me £100 each (that's cheaper than either Glasto or Reading!) and you can all come and pitch your tents in my back garden for a weekend?

Just to make sure you don't miss out on any of the true festival atmosphere and experience, I'll hire a portaloo, take out the paper and get the bowl specially blocked so that it rapidly fills with shit in a most authentic manner; then I'll get some dodgy geysers to come 'round and sell you lumps of oxo cube (on the pretext that it's "dope") small packets of Omo ("speed"), my mum's old laxative tablets ("E"'s), and foaming pints of warm urine mixed with turps ("rough scrumpy") at vast prices.

Oh and if you get cold and wet and decide to tear a few strips off the fence to start a fire, I'll send some huge bastards 'round to kick your teeth in.

What more could you ask for?

I AM GOING TO DO ALL THESE THINGS AT THIS YEAR'S GLASTONBURY

Have you been talking to my mother?

I'd only do our equivalent of Reading (Witnness/Oxigen/whatever it's called this year) for one day I think, the crowd is awful for starters.

Up until about ten years ago I'd have agreed with you entirely; around '94 it just seemed to get far too big (it's now more than 4 times the size it was when I first went) and started to attract far too many people who didn't seem to have any interest in either the music or the experience.

The only people with no interest in the music or the experience were the dirty scallies who were interested in robbing and dealing. Mercifully, the fence has kept them out since the carnage that was 2000. Why anyone would go to Glastonbury if they had no interest in the music or the experience is beyond me.

Agreed. But perversely, NOT going to festivals because of the line-up is a perfectly acceptable course of (non-)action.

To whit:

I will go to Glastonbury regardless of the line-up, because it's been the undisputed highlight of my year since 1993 and I have no intention of stopping now. There is ALWAYS something interesting to see, musical or not.

I will happily never go to Reading/Leeds/V/T In The Park again, but now and then they announce something really interesting and that makes me change my mind - this year, Pixies would've made me visit one of these events, had I not procured tickets for the actual Pixies show.

There's fuck-all point going to R/L/V/T if you don't like any high-billed bands. This is simply not the case at Glasto.

Really? Thy had an awful long run of it then, 'cos as far as I can remember they first arrived in '93 and were there in force in '94 (which was when - and why - I stopped going)!

It does sound as if it might be worth considering again; although the idea of sleeping in a tent again and painful memories of rain and mud are still major deterrents!

like the lock/rizla bar? radio 1 stage? THE BRAIN MACHINE???????

Also, THE MINISCULE OF SOUND!

I remember a couple of hot-knife tents up in the Green Field that had a similar effect to that....

Reading does it's best with after-hours events at the Rivermead sports centre next door to the Festival site but it's really pathetically laughable in comparison.

In 02 the dude let us stay on for a half hour or so, it's kind of crazy, there's crappy hippy-ambient music and you stick on those weird light emitting goggles or whatever and all of a sudden you start seeing funny stuff everywhere. I want one in my room for coming home monged.

Or was this a hal?

We had great fun on the bumper cars but then started to think we'd dreamed it, as they were not to be found again.

Addition : This was at Glasto.

This is key to why Glasto wins.

the glastonbury yoghurt involves the yeo valley stall, disgusting magic mushrooms + gulping and wretching

?