Well overall that was....

[johnmcga]

I think it sits somewhere in the middle of the seven Readings I've been to. I had a bad Friday (I wasn't feeling 100% and made some poor band choices), but it finally got going for me on Saturday evening with Mastodon, The Cribs and Metronomy, then just got better and better on Sunday to the point where I was really up for another day of music this morning.

Organisation seemed excellent, but the food selection in the arena has gone downhill for the second year in a row. Four donut stalls but no decent pies and no 'I heart sausage' place? I know they've had to make sacrifices to open up space but I'm sure they could do better.

There were the usual day-tripping idiots in the crowd too, but it wasn't enough to spoil my weekend. Think someone else has always mentioned how it's not usually the kids causing trouble, but more the 25 - 45 lot. (They're not all like that, I'm 31 myself!)

Highlights for me were Metronomy, Django Django and Zulu Winter (both bands I thought would get big crowds, but didn't) and the Futureheads who played to a small but lovely crowd last night. The Cribs were also great fun.

Found The Foos a bit meh but then I didn't see the full set and we were off to the side a bit, in with the chatterers.

Sound on all stages was as good as I can remember it, bars were fast and friendly and the toilets were in good nick. I liked the new coloured lights too, but think they should've stuck with the old main stage. It was much more distinctive - now Reading just has a similar stage to V / T / Hyde Park.

And this year I managed to avoid getting into any arguments with security over their ridiculous confiscation policies going into the arena, so that was a positive too.

I'll be back next year, for sure.

[DTichborne]

I had a briliant time. The quibbles are minor, but for what it's worth...

1) Might as well not have bothered with the free lager, but churlish to complain as it was free

2) The programme. When I noticed the vendors' tabards saying it was £7 I thought "Ah! £3 cheaper than last year! Another recession gesture..." but then of course you discovered that the lanyard was all you were getting. Perhaps it was about being green and not printing tons of programmes that get read once...

3) Making the boat to White staff-only was a bit mean, I thought.

These are minor complaints though. It's a brilliantly well-organised event. Think of how many people there are on that site and yet how hitch-free it is by and large. Pretty much never a queue of any size for the loos, easy access between stages, much better sound on the stages, and so on. So I'm glad to see that this is the prevailing consensus in the comments above me. I'll be amazed if any of the complaints that do appear over the coming days are down to anything other than the occasional dickhead punter.

As for the point about age, I'd disagree when people say that the crowd is getting younger. I'm 39, and when I went in my 20s I felt far too old, and now I genuinely don't. This isn't some mid-life crisis/denial, there genuinely were a lot of older people there. I think a lot of the people that were 10 years younger than me when I went in my 20s are still going and maybe now we don't look all that much different. Loads of kids too still, as there should be... I wish now that I had gone when I had finished my GCSEs/ A levels but I was a relatively late starter - went to my first Reading aged 23.

If I go next year, there's no escaping the fact that I'll be 40. But I can't see myself not doing it.

[Bobs]

Shit.

I don't know why, it just wasn't very good at all.

This being my 7th festival, its the 1st time ive ever wanted to go home early, company fine, but people generally everywhere else just seemed like bad bellends, i don't know if i'm just a snob nowadays, but everyone just felt like right knobhead kids, and im only 20. I just seemed too Old for the place.

As for the music, it was just a mess imo, sound was great, but Friday just clashed everywhere for me from 12 onwards, yet sunday i just found myself, bored with no bands to see, Florence got 1hr+ how? She's shite, loved for a song she didnt even write.

But as seen by my ratings, bands i saw i was happy with but for £200 i wanted more, i felt i got value for money at IOW, not Leeds

[rug568]

Shit.

I don't know why, it just wasn't very good at all.

This being my 7th festival, its the 1st time ive ever wanted to go home early, company fine, but people generally everywhere else just seemed like bad bellends, i don't know if i'm just a snob nowadays, but everyone just felt like right knobhead kids, and im only 20. I just seemed too Old for the place.

As for the music, it was just a mess imo, sound was great, but Friday just clashed everywhere for me from 12 onwards, yet sunday i just found myself, bored with no bands to see, Florence got 1hr+ how? She's shite, loved for a song she didnt even write.

But as seen by my ratings, bands i saw i was happy with but for £200 i wanted more, i felt i got value for money at IOW, not Leeds

[Bobs]

You do realise you didn't have to go see Florence right? You can't really blame the organisers for clashes. If anything they deserve praise for putting together a decent line up.

I honestly can't see how you can complain about value for money when according to your ratings you saw 22 bands and seemed to enjoy a large proportion of them. The festival is incredibly good value for money considering the cost of stand alone gigs.

[kaosmark2]

Oh, i didn't it was literally the last 3 as i went from NME to see Kasabian, i saw her ruin The Chain at Glastonbury in 2010, and she'll never be forgiven for that. I wasn't moaning at the organisers, the fact it clashed as you said showed the strength, on the flip side, the saturday thinned out to having less bands, before sunday, was just rather bland, in my own opinion, my ratings? probably a little generous, and for the bands i'd have paid to see, it would have roughly came to about £200 anyway, so my point remains valid.

Sticking with my point, off the top of my head. Download, Isle Of Wight, Bestival, Latitude and Hop Farm all had better lineups this year, well for value for money, for me.

I mean i could pay £200 for glastonbury and see nothing and have a great time, i just found people irritating thats all.

[kevinboyle82]

Decent weekend, Foos ATDI and Hives probably the stand-outs for me, with The Vaccines and The Cribs notable mentions.

A well put together festival as well, except for getting out of the white car park. Took 6 hours, not a security guard in sight. Farce.

[Benj]

Deffo the best in 4 years or so for me too. I think the weather made the big difference over the last 3 years, not needing to wear wellies and being able to sit down at will made a huge difference to me as a 35 year old!

On top of that, although again maybe led by the weather, the atmosphere overall had something the last few years had lacked.

The music was great too, esp the Friday and Saturday, for me, the Saturday especially just had great show, following great show, all the way up to the end of the Cribs (was disappointed by both Kasabian and esp ATDI, who just didn't seem to get going for me.)

All in all, top stuff, bar once more the ridiculous entry from town that was still there for the 4th year running, making people tramp all the way in through the camp sites to get in is a huge chore that they really should do something about.

The Sunday seemed utterly rammed compared to the Fri and Sat too, which was a bit of a drag, otherwise bar those two issues, a massive thumbs up to Reading this year!

I’d like to see the queue pen system introduced at the bars (mainly the ’72 and ’78 by Main stage) as it was quite easy to get served and avoids people piling in all at once. It works well at V Festival (Chelmsford), but I fear that Reading’s arena doesn’t have the space.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Benj

[mrtourette]

My only beef with the whole thing is this, why the fuck didn't Green Day headline? Could have replaced the Cure on Friday and festival would have sold out so fast, people were saying apparently 60,000 extra tickets were sold when the rumours came out.

Edited August 28, 2012 by mrtourette

[DTichborne]

A well put together festival as well, except for getting out of the white car park. Took 6 hours, not a security guard in sight. Farce.

[los believer]

I was impressed with the organization this year, could tell they had put lots of thought into it, never had to queue THAT much for anything, toilets always seemed to have loo roll and the ones in the arena were regularly cleaned (even the ones in the campsite didn't seem as bad as previous years.)

Band wise, it was awesome as well, with a good mix on each of the days to suit everyone. Foos and Greenday were definitely the highlight of the festival for me, even with the Foos finishing early meant there was time to go and catch half of the other headliner sets.

However, I would agree with those moaning about the GCSE kids. There was a group behind us who didn't seem to leave the campsite at all, and upon returning to our tents, we found that they had been unzipped and they had stolen our beers and chairs. Also at the main stage in particular, there appeared to be a lot more idiots than previous years who seemed intent on ruining the experience for other people. But maybe we just got unlucky with where we were.

Not sure if I'd go back for a fifth year, would depend on how good next year's lineup is as the music made up for the rubbish camping experience this year.

Edited August 28, 2012 by los believer

[mrtourette]

Nooooooooooooo!! Worst idea ever, I assume you were one of the folk who just piled in to the bars at the end right by the main stage, if you bothered to walk another 10-20 meters further, there were staff waiting with no one to serve! We didn't queue for more than 30-40 seconds to get a beer once all weekend, even on the Sunday when it was hugely busy for Foos etc... If it looks buys, just keep walking, you always find a slot where there is no queue or at most one person to wait behind.

[Benj]

Yeah I found this, everyone obviously goes to the end of the bar closest to them instead of spreading out and getting served quicker.

Also I'm pretty sure that they tried the pen system on the left hand side bar (facing the main stage) one year, I'm guessing it didn't work out.

[PurpleFire]

Overall, Brilliant Weekend! It was the best one Ive been to quite simply because everything ran so smoothly from the very small ques for everything to a very comfortable atmosphere! The amount of high 5's and chats I had with ramdomers was brilliant and to see the amounts of families there this year was truely amazing!

To be able to take Kids who all looked to be having the time of there lives just shows how safe and freindly Leeds was this year!

The acts were brilliant, the sound was brilliant and to be quite frank the whole bill was brilliant, so much choice and class all over the bill! Kasabian to finish were amazing and stole the show over everyone, even the Foo Fighters who were very unimagitive with there set which the toured basicly the same last year when they came to MK Bowl!

Weather was bliss, not enough rain to cause mud just slippy brown grass and ive come back burnt on my neck and wore shorts most of the weekend!

Loved it!

[evilduck]

As for the point about age, I'd disagree when people say that the crowd is getting younger. I'm 39, and when I went in my 20s I felt far too old, and now I genuinely don't. This isn't some mid-life crisis/denial, there genuinely were a lot of older people there. I think a lot of the people that were 10 years younger than me when I went in my 20s are still going and maybe now we don't look all that much different. Loads of kids too still, as there should be... I wish now that I had gone when I had finished my GCSEs/ A levels but I was a relatively late starter - went to my first Reading aged 23.

If I go next year, there's no escaping the fact that I'll be 40. But I can't see myself not doing it.

[DARE]

Loved it (Leeds) in the past there's always been an issue or two that just undermined the weekend but this year was fantastic, lots of bands to see and lots of good people.

[halfpint]

There are no problems with bar queues at Reading whatsoever at the moment (although if the sheep all joining the queue at the one end

decided to spread out a bit, I may get peeved

having to wait a minute or so to get served!

[ArcadeMonkeys]

Everything ran smoothly, the music was great (OFWGKTA were brilliant I thought, very different to anything I've seen).

There seemed to be a right less dick head element this year. Although, I did read a few pages back about the audience seeming older, for me it was one of the youngest I've come across, I spoke to loads of people talking about their GCSE's!! I'm only 20 and felt fooking old!

For me, this year was the best in the past 3-4... The weather helped that somewhat as well.

[Avens]

I found I didn't have to queue for anything other than Friday's breakfast bap, and even then despite the queue looking horrendous it moved pretty fast. The staff doing the breakfast bap stall were heroes, though...really friendly, nice, cheerful despite getting a fair old bit of abuse. When I was there everybody wanted sausage, and every so often someone would come out holding about four baps whilst all the people waiting would just scream "SAUSAGE! SAUSAGE!" at them in an effort to get one of the prized sausage baps. Some idiot of a girl got dead stroppy next to me and yelled at one of the staff members, "I've been waiting 30 minutes for a fucking sausage so the next time one comes out you'd better bring it to me, you c**t." Bollocks was she waiting 30 mins; 10 at most.

I was pleased that I'd been there 5 mins and I got a sausage before her, rude twat.

As for the children, well...I was in the first section of Brown under the B1 fire tower and it was fine. I'm 28 and around me were people who were early 20s, a few Welsh 30 year olds and a big camp next to us who were about 18...and who didn't talk to us all weekend at all but one of them did shit on the corner of our tent (then one came to apologise as I was putting the tent down at about 2am. Too late: shit had already made friends with my hand).

I think the rule is, fewer kids the furthest away you get. Noticeable age drop as you get into yellow. And if I hear "YOLO" one more time, it'll be ME doing the shit.

[howlinpete]

Leeds was excellent. We camped in Brown (didnt get there till about 5:30 on thursday but still found plenty of space) and everyone around us was very friendly, not a dickhead to be seen. Band wise, not as good as some years I've been but still very good. The Cure blew me away, got down the front and it was surprisingly busy, I was expecting it to be one of the quieter headliner crowd I had been too but it was pretty busy. It wasn't exactly a typical headline set, so I can see why a lot of people may have got their fill after the first hour and a half or so, but I thought the whole thing was excellent.

Foo's were good, saw the first half of the set before feeling I had seen enough and wondering over to Justice, who were really excellent. Had a decent crowd too because of the rain at the Foo's so was a really good atmosphere too. On the Sunday I saw Feeder before ATDI, who were surprisingly excellent, the crowd absolutely loved it, and they seemed to really enjoy it too. Don't think I have ever seen a headline crowd so small as ATDI, but they still seemed to put on a good show, and my mates who went down the front said they were brilliant. Other honorable mentions go to Mongol Horde, Crystal Castles, Azelia Banks and Joy Formidable. And a big fuck off to Graham Coxon, who was shit and a bit of a knob.

Also, considering what happened at Creamfields, I think Leeds got very very lucky with the weather, only a few heavy periods of rain, which almost all happened late at night, and the ground barely got churned up so I could sit down pretty much all weekend.

[robith]

Got offered guestlist on Friday night so went down on Saturday afternoon.

Which was good as I don't think I would've paid for that - for my tastes one of the poorest Reading line ups I've ever seen. The run of Mastodon The Cribs and ATDI was really great though - ATDI was one of the best experiences I've ever had.

Party in the guest bar on Saturday night was absolutely huge. Sunday watched Django Django and Joy Formid - both ok. Then got sunburnt and pi$$ed in the guest bar and went home around 7.

9/10 mostly for company, having a private bar and seeing ATDI. Line up mostly woeful. Reading overall seems friendlier than the last time I went 2008 but then I didn't have to endure the campsites as I was in guest

[DTichborne]

Got offered guestlist on Friday night so went down on Saturday afternoon.

Which was good as I don't think I would've paid for that - for my tastes one of the poorest Reading line ups I've ever seen. The run of Mastodon The Cribs and ATDI was really great though - ATDI was one of the best experiences I've ever had.

Party in the guest bar on Saturday night was absolutely huge. Sunday watched Django Django and Joy Formid - both ok. Then got sunburnt and pi$$ed in the guest bar and went home around 7.

9/10 mostly for company, having a private bar and seeing ATDI. Line up mostly woeful. Reading overall seems friendlier than the last time I went 2008 but then I didn't have to endure the campsites as I was in guest

[chriseede]

Did anyone go see Justice, nothing said about them so far. Caught the last half hour of there set due to the Foo's ending early, seemed really good.

[moss265]

Really enjoyed the weeked, first since 2009 for me. Bought my ticket purely based on the fact At The Drive In were playing, and they wholly justified the ticket price! Justice were brilliant too - I know they clashed with the Foos but I couldn't believe how small the crowd was, even after Foos had finished on main. Other highlights were:

Miike Snow

Feeder

Alt-J

Sbtrkt

The Subways

and Deaf Club on BBC Introducing - certainly one for the future.

Probably be my last R/L though, at 26 I find myself moaning about the youngsters too much, and I know its not their fault!

[Chrisw16]

My first Reading Festival and I absolutely loved it!

Thought purple camp was fantastic, pretty laid back but not too far from the arena, we were right on the border of yellow.

Most bands were amazing, special mention to Los Campesinos! Feeder The Hives The Black Keys and of course Foos!

I thought the after hours entertainment was a bit overrated, 2 hour wait for the silent disco was a bit much, enjoyed much more sitting back in camp with your neighbours drinking into the early hours of the morning.

Also was pleasantly surprised by how calm sunday night was after being warned of the anarchy and tent burning to expect, worse that happened all week was when we came back to find someone had rummaged through all my clothes, yet hadn't stolen anything.

Didn't think there were that many 16 year olds around camp, everyone we were with was 17/18, I am 15 and it felt like me and my mate were the only people at the whole festival who were that age. I went with my 19 year old cousin and his girlfriend which was absolutely great for buying drinks.

Would definitely go next year, just hope no twats from school latch on to the idea of the festival and ruin it for me next year.

I guess also your first Reading is also always the best.

All in all, best weekend of my life, met great people in camp, saw some incredible bands and made stories I'll never forget. Loved every minute!

(Also first time poster, followed this forum for a while now though, be nice on me)