Tag: Neil Young

Reading Festival Day Trip

The Reading Festival, originally known as the National Jazz Festival started up in 1961 and then morphed into the more recognised rock festival in the mid 70’s. It linked up with Leeds Festival in 1999 to create a dual festival with a rotating bill at different sites over the same weekend.

My one attendance in 1995 was primarily because Neil Young was on the bill and thus, we obtained a Sunday day ticket.  There were five of us in attendance and the weekend started with me and Gill heading down to Nottingham on the Saturday evening.

My brother’s current beau Fiona had managed to purloin a transit van for the trip, and we had the wacky but novel idea of roping a settee into the back of the van. It felt like we were in the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine.

It was infinitely more comfortable than some PNE trips to the North East in the late 80’s when we travelled in a variety of rust buckets with no seats in the back over the windswept A66 and I will never forget the Reg Childs van where they probably paid us to hire it!

There is a pub on the A61, it is called the Busby Stoop (I was humming the intro to the House of the Rising Sun as I typed that, go on you know you want to!) The pub was located somewhere west of Thirsk. It was named after an old owner Thomas Busby who was hung opposite the pub for murder in 1702.

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The Busby Stoop Pub. Image Credit Ifantasma.it

It was very memorable for many reasons including the owners gracefully allowing us to have an afternoon lock in with the curtains closed prior to a Freight Rover semi-final evening game at Hartlepool and cooking us some pizzas on the way back after the game. The last I heard is that the Stoop closed into 2013 and was converted into an Indian restaurant called Jaipur Spice.     

From memory, the festival site was situated close to the town centre and we met up with Fiona’s brother James on arrival, who was living in Oxford at that point. The main stage bill had a heavy grunge reliance that day.

First on were Babes in Toyland followed by a mildly interesting set by Pavement though their sound was always a little off kilter and obtuse to me. We thoroughly enjoyed a Tourette littered set by White Zombie, a swampy heavy metal band from New York founded by Rob Zombie. They could almost have been a natural precursor to Slipknot.     

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White Zombie. Image Credit Loudwire

I took pleasure in catching about half of Buffalo Tom’s set. We wandered off to the Melody Maker stage and caught an impressive portion of a set by a very young Ash. The main support act was Soundgarden from Seattle who didn’t really float my boat.

It was getting rather cold by the time Neil Young hit the stage and continuing the grunge theme his backing band was Pearl Jam.  It was a decent set, but it wasn’t the same without the calibre of Crazy Horse supporting him. Highlights were ‘Mr Soul’ and ‘Hey Hey My My (Into the Black) and ‘Rocking in the Free World’ as his encore.

We headed back with my brother upfront in the van to stay awake with Fiona the driver. I recall a stop at a random service station for coffee refuelling and it seemed a long way back. The sofa seemed to understand that we had hit the outskirts of Nottingham and with a loud creak released itself from its moorings.

A late rising the following morning preceded a chilled day before a few pints in the local pub and the weekend was rounded off with some tucker and the latest episode of X-Files.   

Manchester Venue 16 Academy 3 – Part 2

In totality, I have attended Manchester Academy 3 nineteen times thereby placing it in 6th place on my most populated venues list.  

Early in 2001, I began to become aware of the Strokes who released their terrific first album ‘Is This It’ later that year. I adore the way that record is recorded, sounding like they are in a New York basement, in a good way. I read in the NME they were playing Manchester and was fortunate to obtain four tickets from Piccadilly Records to a much-touted band for a sold-out gig.

John, Uncle George and Gill were in attendance on a filthy Thursday night in June. Walking up the steps to the top floor we passed Damon Gough (aka Badly Drawn Boy). He was later ensconced adjacent to us at the bar where a cliched fanboy approached him with the snappy refrain ‘love your album dude…’

The support band was Moldy Peaches followed by the main act who looked nervous initially, but they were excellent and had such admirable poise beyond the tender years.

I was perfectly content in the mosh pit when out of the blue somebody unseen threw a haymaker catapulting me halfway across the pit. Even the band looked taken aback. The assailant must have had a ring on as I had a proper bruise the next day.

Now I am a very chilled chap, but I was incandescent with rage at the sheer injustice of this unwarranted attack. There are unwritten rules for mosh pit etiquette and they were emphatically breached by this muppet!

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The Strokes. Image Credit NME

In April 2005 John Peel faves 65 Days of Static were in town. They had a couple of entries in the previous year’s Festive fifty and were supported by Sons of Slaughter. They were decent live but a tad Mogwai lite.

A couple of years later we headed over to see Goldblade supported by the punk poet Ted Chippington. Everything about that gig was loud including John Cooper Clarke booming out of the speakers in between acts.

Goldblade were thunderous with John Robb vamping it up in his inimitable style. I had imbibed a few sherbets, so when they offered ‘Iggy Pop’ style for punters to enter the fray I grabbed a rare opportunity and leapt on stage with many other like minded folk.

Implausibly, it was even louder up there, and I found myself next to the drummer so proceeded to assist him by slapping away at the drums for one track which was very exhilarating! Another new nickname was christened – ‘Jimmy the Sticks’.

On 22/11/07 an exceedingly rare event happened, namely me driving to a gig! The reason for this unusual anomaly was that we were driving to Centreparcs at Penrith the following day for the weekend.  

We landed in the venue just to catch the last two songs of a rather poor support act Son of Albion and somewhat cringingly for the band you could hear a pin drop when they finished, not even a polite smattering of applause!

The main band was the Raveonettes, a duo from Copenhagen with their fabulous names of Sune Rose Wagner on guitar and Sharon Foo on bass with the assistance of a drum machine. They excel in fuzzed up Mary Chainesque (made up word but describes it perfectly!) sound with gorgeous harmonies but with the additional bite of razor-sharp lyrics.  

To exemplify those contrast shades, they have in their cannon a sugary sounding track in the vein of Strawberry Switchblade, but it then contains contextually the understandingly brutal title ‘Boys Who Rape Should Be Destroyed’. They have produced a suite of excellent albums across their lineage.

They were a captivating experience in the live setting and were immensely enjoyable.

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The Raveonettes. Image Credit Ents 24.

When approaching my 42nd birthday I fancied attending a gig on the day so instigated a search and found that Against Me, a Florida punk band, were playing that night. Uncle George, Dave Keane and I sallied over on the quick train.  

This remains one of the four gigs I have attended on my actual birthday, Neil Young on my 19th and I saw a band in Liverpool and Manchester respectively on my 43rd and 51st birthdays.

They were one of those bands that seem to instil intense loyalty from their fans and that was evident in the fervent atmosphere at the gig. They had an individual sound and it was a fun night.