new bands

Pearl Jam headlining? No thanks, if I want to see some old men growl like hoary old stoats I can get down the local ale-house and steal some aged codger’s KP nuts - it’ll kick off in much the same way in double the time, without the £145 price tag. Anyway, I’m busy watching the mental Animal Collective twiddle feedback nobs and scream at giant red balloons over on the tiny Carling stage instead.

Forget golden oldies in 2006, this year Reading was all about the new talent. Readers with their finger on the pulse may already be neigh-saying the new-rave revolution trumped by popular music mags, but having witnessed the glow-stick induced mania brought about by Klaxons and Shitdisco performing Sunday on the Carling and Dance stages respectively, it’s overtly apparent that this scene’s as alive and kicking as Frank Bruno on a disco-biscuit rampage. Klaxons’ acid-pit attracts kids with bright neon overalls, and as they open with crap-on-record-but-effing-marvellous-live bass-rumbler ‘The Bouncer’, the entire tent explodes like a bomb in a highlighter factory. Shitdisco may not have the crowd intensity (their set is at a criminally early 12.45pm) but their frenetic on-stage antics suggest that, pitched on a nighttime backdrop they’d be a dance force to reckon with. Already signed up for the Club NME tour in October, find here two names set to rush off the starting block as hits of the future.

If sweating your life away whilst chewing on your tongue didn’t take your fancy, serene sonic alternatives were found in Fields (Radio 1 Stage, Friday) and Howling Bells (Carling Stage, Friday). The Bells’ Australian brand of dusty back-hand blues brought a softness so swooning and sentimental it brings tears to think the main stage alternative is the blaring pop lobotomy of Kaiser Chiefs on the main stage. Earlier in the day Fields play before a sleepy-eyed morning crowd, who sit back in the cavernous Radio 1 tent, wishing away their hangovers.

On Saturday morning The Maccabees cause a surprisingly large tailback for their lunchtime performance on the Carling tent, playing arch-art rock that sounds like The Futureheads doing an impression of The Cure on anti-depressants. ‘Latchmere’ is the song people cheer loudest for, although it’s unclear whether people like it because it’s good or because it has the best music video in the world. Still, it’s a mighty fine half-hour of indie-pop purity, and there’s definitely scope for bigger things further down the line.

Whether the same can be said for The View, who filled in for The Organ later on the Carling stage, is a matter of debate. They’ve just surprised everyone with a Top 20 hit, but they’re not very good. Standard indie-fare with nice choruses but no subtlety or subversion, I can’t see them keeping the world amused for longer than one album’s promotion schedule. File with The Kooks under ‘utterly forgettable’.

The best new band of the whole weekend is You Say Party! We Say Die!, an eccentric Canadian five piece that seemed to have zapped down on Sunday’s Carling stage straight out of a 50’s B-Movie. Brewing up a visceral disco punk soup that uses exclamations for croutons, I’d spend the next five paragraphs singing their praises if I hadn’t already spent all my clever analogies doing so in a live review over on eGigs (our sister site) last week. They’re amazing and you should go see them, except their tour is over now – gutted!

Semifinalists follow on, playing interesting experimental that I could write a far more concise review of if I’d stuck around for more than three songs. This is more of a reflection of me being hungry than them being awful though, and I reckon they’re still worth a listen.

Judging by the huge number of people who turn up at the Carling tent to see Good Shoes, you can expect them to be highflying and stealing magazine covers in the not too distant future. “We Are Not The Same” and “All In My Head” are certainly MTV Chart Show worthy pop singles, but their set sniffs mysteriously of non-descript art-rock filler. Still, the masses love ‘em and that’s what counts, right?

Lethal Bizzle, the East London rapper who is easily on par with contemporary Dizzee Rascal draws just as big a crowd for his afternoon grime meltdown. As well as his own ‘hits’ like the ace ‘Fire’ and More Fire Crew’s ‘Oi’, Lethal B chucks in his own versions of The Streets’ ‘Don’t Mug Yourself’ and The Rakes’ ’22 Grand Job’. Everyone’s got their trigger fingers in the air, which is quite silly seeing as most people are middle class whiteboys, but for his sheer onstage presence and rapability, the set is a complete smash.

So there you have it, a dozen or so reasons why the main stage at Reading was crap and you’d have better spent your time checking out new bands before they get big. Take my advice and avoid the big names next year, stick to the smaller stages – it’s where the party’s at.

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