Right, entry number 1, The Reading Festival. Time to put Lilly Allen to shame with this blogging lark. So I know technically Reading isn't exactly travelling, but .... It was outside of Middlesex and I did stay over so it's going in the log! Thursday - Managed to turn up late (Daz's fault) at the wrong coach park in Heathow (My fault). Eventually made it to the right coach park ... a bus stop on the Bath Rd, coach park my ass! The festival didn't start until Friday so we thought we'd be one of the first lot there ... bollox! There were bloody thousands of people there already, we had to walk for over half an hour before we could find somewhere to pitch our tent. Putting the tent up weren't too bad, and it kept us dry for the whole weekend, which was the main thing. Spent that night sat round a camp fire drinking Strongbow (yep I'm classy like that) chatting to a couple of lads from slough who were pitched up opposite from us. We never did settle the argument what's better Family guy or the Simpsons ... its quite blatantly Family guy, they were from slough what do they know?! Friday - Let the music begin. Get into the arena, what's on first? ... Towers of London. Should have stayed in bed!! There was a market we had a look round, a computer games centre and loads of burger vans etc to keep us busy whilst that rubbish was playing! Next up were Fighstar, containing none other than Charlie Simpson, formerly of Busted. They weren't too bad actually, quite heavy rock, lots of loads drums and at one point Charlie even swore, saying he wanted to 'see a f**kin mosh pit right there', naturally myself and Daz were appalled by such language and have vowed never to listen to Fightstar again. Next on the list to watch were Panic! At the disco. Quality I thought not realising there was obviously a hate brigade hiding in the crowd set to try ruin their set. One minute into the first song and SMASH! Whilst I was happily tapping along, out of the crowd comes a full can of beer and crashes into the leads face, down he went, on came the medics and off walked the band. Luckily they were talked round and came back on to play a good set, don't think he put his all into it though and who could blame him? Next, the subways. Quite simply good if unspectacular, the female member is quite hot though, out of two I'd give her ............... After the subways Daz went back to the tent leaving me on my tod to watch Fall Out Boy, didn't care I was on my own though as this band are and were quality, the highlight of my Friday. From start to finish there were constant mosh's and whirlwinds happening, it was mayhem. Pete Wentz their front man, then split the crowd in two and demanded we start a bottle flight - love it! . It was raining beer bottle but no one cared, got cracked on the nut a couple of times. A mixture of beer and fanta in the hair - nice! (click the link for a vid of the bottle fight and my wonderful, if not slightly out of tune singing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux9Jya_FjsI ). The headlines on Friday were Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand. The Kaisers were good as always, I predict a riot went down particually well with Daz and myself. Didn't stick around for Franz Ferdinand, theres only one Ferdinand I'd pay to see and that's Sir Les! ....I should have gone and watch Dizzee Rascal - fix up Carl Sharp! Bit of an Essay this, sorry Saturday - made it to the arena just in time to see Mr Wadsworths favourites, The Automatic, they did a quite amusing cover of Kanye West's 'Gold digger' before finishing with 'Monster' - TUNE! Then caught the end of Dirty Pretty things on the main stage, heard 'Bang Bang' and the libertines classic 'Cant stand me now'. Pete Doherty may be an absolute waster ... but he is also a musical genius if you ask me. Hopefully he'll sort himself out and then the Libertines can reform! After that Feeder played an awesome set, played the classics, 'Just the way I'm feeling', 'Just a day' and 'Buck Rogers' .... "he's got a band new car, looks like a jaguar, its got leather seats, its got a CD player, player, player, player ....". The Streets followed Feeder and were also very very good. Pretty much everyone sang along to 'Fit but you know it'. Right Saturdays stars, well for me at least, were up next - The Artic Monkeys. Yes, believe the hype these boys are the nuts. Their set was effortless even though Alex turner was quite clearly battered. As soon as they started their set with 'I bet that you look good in the dance floor' mosh pits appeared everywhere and generally everyone went nuts. 'Dancing shoes' and 'Scummy man' were also very good. Their one of those bands that gets you buzzing! Shame it was only a hour set, that said I was utterly knackered and had to watch Muse (the other headline) sitting down. What can you say about Muse? ..... quite simply EPIC! Sunday - The last day already? CRAP! Only really one band I wanted to see on the Sunday, but I was quite pleasantly surprised by a few other performances. First we caught Goldy Lookin Chain ... Safe as F**k! The Welsh crew done good and were really quite funny ... 'This is the second best day of my life, the other day I tried sex and that was wicked!' and 'Big up the DVLA' ( supposedly one of the band had just passed their written test earlier that week) were two of the best lines they conjured up. Surprised their record label dropped them, the tent they were playing in was packed out! Then saw Bullet for my Valentine and a bit of Slayer before Daz decided he wanted to go back to the tent AGAIN .... And I was left on my own AGAIN! I'll have a wander I thought ... dum de dum de dum ... what's this I hear? ..... Lethal Bizzle I read on the board ... Who? Pretty crappy name! Still, in I went. Didn't care much after that, the set was awesome. Unbeknown to me Lethal Bizzle was a garage MC, formally of the dreadfully titled More Fire Crew (yes, as seen at royals .... Don't pretend you haven't been there, we all have, there's video evidence!). It was classic garage all the way, YES YES, SAFE (in best chav accent). I think the fact I didn't expect to hear anything like that at the festival made it that much better, they even played to classic 'Oi!' .... Reminded me of being 16 again - not shaving for a week so you looked a bit older, thinking it'd help get you in a club. Never did really work did it! Ok, back to the music, right, My Chemical romance next up. Hhmmmm they were ok, nothing to rave about. I then left Daz to watch his Placebo and Pearl Jam stuff whilst I went to watch a little known band called Larrikin love. I discover these earlier in the year and been hooked ever since. My guess is they'll be one of these bands that never quite make it, but I love their music all the same. They're kind of Ska and reggae, a mix of the libertines, madness and the clash .... with a twist of irishness, they even have someone playing the spoons in their set - legendary! Anyway, their set was the highlight of my weekend, full of energy and once the music had a happy feel to it. A lot of todays artists like to 'keep it real' as they say, and write about modern day Britain which is all very well, but lets face it, there's never anything too positive in the news to write about and this is reflected in Plan B's album for example. Gun crime, knifings, drugs and all sorts of prejudice - great! Not sure I wanna hear music about all that crap, and whilst one of larrikin's songs was a little political the rest were all jolly, jump around and have a good time songs. I did end up a sweaty mess by the end of the set but I didn't care (yes the people next to me might have cared, having not showered in three days probably didn't help my cause either). After that I dint care for much else, I watched a bit of Pearl Jam, Hot chip and Maximo Park but was still humming along to Larrikin love. Their set had single handily made my weekend .... Until I found I'd lost my camera BOLLOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Right that's it kiddies, blog one over and done with. It's a bit long I know, I'll try make the next few a wee bit shorter for you. Right I'm off to pack, Later.