Reading Festival – 1999

November 13th 2019 – Richfield Avenue, Reading

I really wanted the big yellow traditional poster of the line up, which were a mere £3, but unfortunately, they had been in high demand and sold out on Day 1, so the image here is a copy from the Reading Festival archives.

There’s always one that gets away

A quick peep at the poster shows a little known “Coldplay” were on. I don’t think saw them, why would we, the first album “Parachutes” wouldn’t come out until 2000 (when we will see them) and I was never that “in the know” about up and coming bands. I found the 3 tracks on Youtube which is fascinating. This was the first one, “Shiver” and listen to how few clap at the end, but if you go and listen to “Spies” on Youtube, their third track, something was happening and a buzz had gone around.

One thing you learn really quickly with festivals, is that you are going to be pissed off by the clashes!! So Mansun clashed with the Chilli Peppers straight away! Bugger, a choice will need to be made! Well, Mansun had been a little disappointing live last year and none of us had seen the Chillis, so that was the choice made :-).

The other thing is that being at a festival can be addictive…one day isn’t always enough. I wouldn’t go again next year, but this experience made me think I could go to this festival again and luckily, circumstances fell into place that would lead me to be a regular at Reading for a decade……

I loved the layout of the festival, five tents, none far from each other, but the sound from each didn’t clash either which was great.

The Main Stage took pride of place to the head of the field, to the left was the Comedy/Music Tent and Carling Stage (smallish tent), to the right was the blue roof is the Radio 1 Lock Up stage and the purple roof is the NME/ Radio 1 Stage. The all around the site is tents, apart from the railway line to the right……amazing!

So what did we see? Well, we started on the left side for the earlier bands, then had a site wander and were mainly to the right side of the stage level with the sound tower for the rest. Far enough back not to be in a mosh and near enough to see and hear things properly. The wandering during the day to caught a few surprises.

Who Did We See?

Backyard Babies

I’d done a couple of Monsters of Rock by now, so was looking forward to a bit of outside noise. Why not start with a bit of Swedish Punk Rock? I had a smile on my face as soon as they played “Bombed (Out of My Mind)”

Fast and furious but tuneful, the sun was out (intermittently), a nice start to the festival. Seemed sensible to think they would burn out before the end of the show…..nope! Good start to the day and it’s only half past 1!!

Set List

• Bombed (Out of My Mind)
• U.F.O. Romeo
• Babylon (Faster Pussycat cover)
• Powderhead
• Too Tough to Make Some Friends
• Ghetto You
• Highlights
• Made Me Madman
• Look at You

Buckcherry

Was less enamoured by these guys. Californian American rock…..the best thing we got from these guys was it gave us time to study the other bands biogs and Dean reading the programme and picking out the next show we should take in…..on a bit of a whim! It will go down in history as a very good whim!

Set List (including)

• Lit Up
• For the Movies

The Living End

So the 1999 programme and set cards are missing somewhere in the house, or a bin location not known 🙁 My memory is that the biog said these guys were an Australian puck rock band and a cross between Green Day and The Stray Cats – Dean adds he read them as “a power punk trio”….which he followed up on the day with “This sounds interesting…..”

So we wandered over to the blue roof tent, as mentioned earlier being the Radio 1 Lock Up, which hosted a mix of punk, heavy rock and newcomers.

There’s something special being in at the start of a band’s career. The Living End played Brixton Academy on April 30th 1999 and Rock City on August 17th 1999 (missed that one then!). This was then only their third UK gig of their “The Living End Tour” touring the self titled debut album.

What a brilliant sound as they launched into what we now know was “Monday”. The band was Chris Cheney – vocals and lead guitar, Scott Owen – double bass and vocals, with Travis Demsey on Drums.

Really good three piece and after 3 songs, we were seeing the “power punk” bit – I really loved “Prisoner of Society” and the whole sound of the double bass was fantastic. I’d seen a band in Leicester a few times called Sharp Cuts (from Sheffield) and these guys were a hard and fast punk verison of them, in a totally different league.

There weren’t many in the tent at the start, but it started to crowd out as people got wind of the sound and came in to party.

A really great find. This would set me up for a while as when we got home, I mentioned to some Australian friends in Melbourne (where The Living End hail from), what a great band they were and she sent over a few Aussie CDs that hadn’t yet been released in the UK…….I was hooked.

This recording of them at The Bizzare Festival, is “bizarre” in its own right, as the whole set up from the tent to the crowd looks so like the Lock Up Stage at the Reading Festival, so is a great representation of how they looked and sounded at the time.

Set List

This is a best guess, based on the previous gigs of the tour…..

• Monday
• Save The Day
• All Torn Down
• Prisoner Of Society
• Tainted Love
• West End Riot
• Second Solution

Pitchshifter

I’d seen Pitchshifter before at Metallica’s Big Day Out, so was really keen to see them again and so was the rest of the crowd…they even knew the words!! Really good show, the crowd loved it.

I was now really enjoying festival life, just watching music in a field with thousands of like minded people, the sound was blowing around a little bit, but it wasn’t stopping our enjoyment.

Set List (not known, but included)

• Microwaved
• Genius
• Un-United Kingdom

Feeder

I liked Feeder. I’d got the second album “Yesterday Went Too Soon” and was looking forward to hits like “Day In Day Out” and “Insomnia”.

This was the first time I’d see them live vocalist and guitarist was Grant Nicholas who had a great melodic tuneful voice, matching his guitar style. Drummer Jon Lee and bassist Taka Hirose. I don’t know who the other guitarist was, I thought they were a three piece, so this was surprising (answers on a postcard?)

Grant was on top form and give or take the windy sound quality, Feeder produced a top class performance.

Set List

• Rubberband
• Day In Day Out
• High
• Yesterday Went Too Soon
• Insomnia
• Sweet 16

Silverchair

We were doing well for Aussie bands today! The second ones after The Living End. The Living End were from Melbourne, but Silverchair were miles away from Newcastle, New South Wales to the north of Sydney. In 2001 I would visit this Aussie Newcastle on a road trip from Cairns to Sydney…….it was really industrial and you could see how kids could bring out great rock music from the environment.

Don’t remember a great deal about them, except how surprised I was to see the crowd really knew who they were and I didn’t….they were loving it….and that is a festival in a nutshell. Some great You Tube footage of them. The Freak and Anthem For The Year 2000 were the ones that stuck in my mind

Set List

• Taxi Driver (walk on music)
• Israel’s Son
• Emotion Sickness
• Slave
• Pure Massacre
• Ana’s Song (Open Fire)
• Miss You Love
• Madman
• The Door
• Freak
• Anthem for the Year 2000

Terrorvision

If you have been reading my earlier blog posts, you will know Terrorvision and I have a great history together. This was a really great thing to see, again, having seen a band in small venues grow and grow is a lovely feeling and then to see them high on a bill at such a prestigious venue as Reading is really quite emotional to know you have helped them along the way. Third on the bill behind two huge ands in The Offpring and Red Hot Chilli Peppers is something to be proud of for Keighley/Bradford’s finest.

They don’t me from Adam (or anyone else for that matter) but I swear Tony waved at me today…..ok, it could have been any one in the thousands loving this gig. In fairness Tony had no intention of leaving anyone out of this gig….and the sun even came out!

It was a barrage of sound from the off with plenty of banter and crowd interaction. The set was made up of the classics and the crowd was loving it….We even made a brief foray nearer to the mosh pit for a bit. Tony Wright’s energy is endless and infectious, you just can’t help joining in, by the time Oblivion was played the crowd stretched as far as the eye could see.

One of my favourite festival sets of all time, full on energy with no breaks!……..thank you, you made it boys, that was rock and roll!!

Set List

• Discotheque Wreck
• Celebrity Hit List
• My House
• Middleman
• Oblivion
• Alice What’s the Matter
• Pretend Best Friend
• Tequila

The Offspring

The Offspring had been around for quite a while now and if I’m honest, I’d loved them and moved on to other things as the last album they did “Americana” was getting a bit too commercial for me. Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) was great, but the rest was a bit stale.

Smash was the defining album for them, although they didn’t really break England, they definitely had a strong rock following as this crowd showed tonight.

• Dexter Holland – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
• Noodles – lead guitar, backing vocals
• Greg K. – bass
• Ron Welty – drums

This was another full on set. I had expected Reading to be quite heavy, but I wasn’t quite ready for the intensity, but it was great.

The Offspring played all the big songs, beat up The Back Street Boys (watch the video) and were as entertaining as Terrorvision.

Really fun and glad to have seen them live. The only sadness was I hadn’t got to see them years earlier when they were at their peak, even so, they played a brilliant set.

Set List

• Americana
• All I Want
• The Kids Aren’t Alright
• Walla Walla
• Gone Away
• Have You Ever
• Smash
• I Choose
• Bad Habit
• Gotta Get Away
• Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)
• Intermission
• Staring at the Sun
• Come Out and Play
• Genocide
• Why Don’t You Get a Job?
• Self Esteem

Red Hot Chilli Peppers

I thought I better watch the video through in full to see if my next few words were fair or not…..they were………..these guys were very boring live!!!

Anthony Kiedis – lead vocals
John Frusciante – guitar
Flea – bass guitar
Chad Smith – drums, percussion

That is a sad statement, as I’d loved a couple of their albums. They’d had 7 albums to this point, with their break through album being Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) which included the brilliant Under The Bridge. I was also enjoying the latest album, Californication.

Actually, the set started really well with a great performance of Around The World and Give It Away….then it all just seemed to get a bit samey, Flea started to mess around with bass licks and there seemed too much jamming, too much slow stuff and it just wasn’t floating any of our boats.

Some of the crowd were enjoying it, but many were feeling the same as us and drifting away….maybe The Chilli’s were unlucky because the Main Stage had set a very high musical standard all day and to follow The Offspring and Terrorvision was going to be tough!

Did we see Flaming Lips or Mansun….the memory fades, but I don’t think we did…..it is feasible after the disappointment of the Chillis that we popped over for a bit of Mansun, but I think we were also a bit tired (how rock and roll), so decided it was a good time to miss the crowds leaving for the hour and a half homebound trip.

A fantastic first experience of the Reading Festival…at this point in time, I hoped I would return (I would a fair few times)!!

Set List

• Around the World
• Give It Away
• Your Pussy’s Glued to a Building on Fire (John Frusciante song)
• Scar Tissue
• Suck My Kiss
• Savior
• I Like Dirt
• If You Have to Ask
• Jam
• Soul to Squeeze
• Organic Anti-Beat Box Band
• Easily
• Right on Time
• Under the Bridge
• Me & My Friends
• Encore:
• Sir Psycho Sexy
• The Power of Equality
• Encore 2:
• My Lovely Man
• Search and Destroy (Iggy and The Stooges cover)