The last day of the Reading festival is typically the smelliest of the weekend. No one has showered for 3 days, and on top of this, they’ve been camping in a muddy field, drinking copious amounts of cider and sweating lots from dancing (or moshing, depending on which side of the inevitable Reading ‘indie kid/metaller’ divide they fall on). To add to this traumatic situation, the organisers usually fill the main stage with an awful mix of nu-metal or emo bands, probably just to test people’s nerves in some terrible sort of sociological experiment.
Thankfully, arriving at the Reading festival on a Sunday this year, the smelliness doesn’t seem too overpowering. Perhaps now that topshop, hair-straighteners, eye-make up for boys and Kate Moss are considered ‘alternative’, revelers have stopped rolling around in the mud and are actually washing before they come to the festival. What’s more exciting is the fact that this year, Sunday actually has some great bands playing, including two legends of the grunge-era – Nine Inch Nails, and the recently reformed Smashing Pumpkins.
Pickings are fairly sparse earlier in the day, but there are a few notable acts. Darlings of London’s indie-electro scene New Young Pony Club electrify the Radio One stage, with a powerful set that proves to anyone who has only heard their single ‘Ice Cream’ that they’re more than just a one-trick pony (boom boom). Devandra Banhart also puts on a sterling performance, playing his magical folky numbers with a full backing band. Halfway through the set, he asks if anyone in the audience would like to play a song. Two awestruck young women (bizarrely, dressed in wedding dresses) volunteer, and nervously set about playing a song they’ve written to an audience of hundreds. The tune they play is actually quite good, the crowd claps along enthusiastically, and the drummer from Devandra’s band even joins in. It’s a nice festival moment that gets everyone smiling.
New Young Pony Club interview from Reading
New Young Pony Club - Icecream
Devendra Banhart - Sight to behold
Fast forward a few hours. With the sun setting in the distance, Nine Inch Nails take to the main stage to rapturous applause. Drawing most of their set from new album ‘Year:Zero’, mixed in with a smattering of old favourites like ‘Closer’, ‘March of the pigs’, and the legendary ‘Head like a hole’, their set is nothing less than mind-blowing. The sound is perfect – and at a festival, that’s about as rare as someone who smells nice. Shunning their more atmospheric, laid back material, Trent Reznor and his not-so-merry men unleash a barrage of heavy-as-fuck, industrial gems. It’s a sharp reminder that NIN are alive and kicking, far from just relic of the past.
Nine Inch Nails live at Reading - Hurt
Nine Inch Nails live at Reading - Wish
The Smashing Pumpkins, on the other hand, are arguably just that. With frontman Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin the only remaining members of the original line-up, and a new album (‘Zeitgeist’) that just doesn’t cut it for most fans, there has been a fair bit of scepticism surrounding their reunion. At the same time, there’s also been a lot of excitement, and most people had hoped that, as long as they stuck to the hits, their headline set at Reading would be something special. But Corgan chooses to play a fair bit from the new album, as well as a couple of drawn out, spacey numbers from their unremarkable 2000 opus ‘Machina’. The classics, when they come, are golden – ‘1979’, ‘Today’, ‘Bullet with butterfly wings’, ‘Tonight, tonight’ and ‘Drown’ shine like stars against the fairly dull backdrop of the newer songs, and it would probably be worth the price of a day ticket just to see them play these. It’s a shame though, that with such an impressive back catalogue of songs, they spend so much time hammering out throwaway new material, and it leaves you with a slightly empty feeling.
Graham Pembrey
Smashing Pumpkins live at Reading - Today
Smashing Pumpkins live at Reading - Tonight
Purchase
Devendra Banhart
Nine Inch Nails
Smashing Pumpkins
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