At first I thought the people at Reading were teasing the punters by playing Green Day tracks at about 10:50 on the Saturday morning. However, this was possibly, as Billy Joe Armstrong put it ‘The best worst kept secret the UK have ever seen’. As I heard his voice in between songs I knew that they weren’t just playing American Idiot to the arena, I ran to the NME/Radio1 Stage and managed to catch pretty much the whole set. It was incredible. They steered clear of new tracks and played their old stuff, for example stopping ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ so they could play ‘Longview’ instead.
Also on the NME/Radio1 Stage were Pure Love. I was curious to see how former Gallows frontman Frank Carter would perform considering the change from Hardcore to Alternative Rock and I was pleasantly surprised. Next up were Scottish Rock band Twin Atlantic who performed very well and seemed very appreciative of the responsive Reading crowd. After a great set from them I headed over to the main stage to get ready for OFWGKTA (unabbreviated name, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All). To be honest I don’t know where to start when it comes to Odd Future. Their set was like nothing i’d ever seen before. Tyler, The Creator and co. basically attacked Reading with their music and the crowd went absolutely ballistic especially when Tyler’s track ‘Yonkers’ was played. At one point they even danced with the security guards, hilarity to say the least. If you ever get the opportunity to see them live I would highly recommend it, a very odd experience to say the least.
Enter Shikari were next to grace the main stage with their multi-genred, hard to categorise music. The amount of energy put into the performance made it difficult not to bounce along to their post-hardcore, dub-steppy beats. Enter Shikari have 
always been known for having a very obvious comment on society through their music and their live shows are no different. Rou Reynolds can control a crowd with ease and during ‘Juggernauts’ there were a lot of crowd surfers, it seems they wanted to replicate breaking the world record back in 2009. I stayed on the main stage to watch The Vaccines of which I have never seen live before so it was good to see them just before the release of their new album Come Of Age. They played all their hits from their debut as well as some new tracks. A very enjoyable set.
As for Azealia Banks I listened to the ‘212’ from outside the Dance Stage and chaos erupted. Everyone I could see was bouncing along and going completely nuts for it. The last act I saw on the Saturday was Florence and The Machine. To be honest I wasn’t overly impressed by her. This may be because I’m not a massive fan of her music but her set overall didn’t really impress me. She is a fantastic performer, there is not doubt about that but it wasn’t for me. I heard the distant drones of Kasabian as I retired to my tent for the night.
Check out Friday’s review here and keep an eye out for Sunday’s review coming soon.
