Josaka - Berkshire live music, indie record label, gig promoter

Wasssup Creep: Reading Sunday

Posted: Mon, 31 Aug 2009

I was pretty excited by the Sunday line up at Reading, Radiohead topping the bill of the weekend's best day and plenty I wanted to see on all of the stages. Needless to say I didn’t manage to see them all...

Radiohead started with Thom Yorke’s first words being “Wassssup” and the band opening with ‘Creep’, an unlikely beginning that didn’t get too much more predictable. Having seen them four times in the last few years, this was the first time they’ve played the 1992 song that got many people in to the band. So we were off to a good start and safe in the knowledge that the set list would be different to the previous night in Leeds.

The stage set and video production were similar to that used in the Victoria Park headline shows last year, multiple cameras providing images to the stage screens with weird angles and perspective used to enhance the epic weirdness of Oxon’s most successful export since the dictionary.

The set included plenty from OK Computer and recent album In Rainbows, the crowd pleasing highlight was probably ‘Karma Police’ with the large crowd singing along with Thom, a new track was also performed, ‘These Are My Twisted Words’ which is available from the bands website as a free download.

Radiohead proved that their slightly reclusive and mysterious approach to being one of the world’s biggest bands hasn’t lost its charm and they kept everyone guessing what would be next throughout the hour and a half set.

Bloc Party took their slightly-too-familiar slot as main support and made reference to the fact they weren’t planning to be back next year. The set included a mixture of old and new closing with ‘Helicopter’. Before them the Yeah Yeah Yeahs treated us to a suitably excellent performance with recent hit ‘Heads Will Roll’ and classic ‘Maps’ proving the crowds favourites.

Before them fellow New Yorkers Vampire Weekend provided some upbeat indie, a sucker for a hit 'Oxford Coma' was my favourite from their set and they were generally much better than when I saw them with Blur in Hyde Park earlier in the summer.

With the rest of the day I caught a slightly embarrassed Kids In Glass Houses play two songs backstage (pretty good), girl fronted indie rock outfit Joy Formidable (a bit 90s) on the Festival Republic stage and Frank Turner (on fine form) and Lethal Bizzle (hip hop by numbers but fun all the same) on the Radio 1 NME Stage.

That means I missed Golden Silvers (what a tune True Romance is), Hot Rats and The Rumble Strips amongst others, but I still had lots of rum, lots of music and lots of fun. Good times Reading Festival – see you next year.

By Jim Bowes

Josaka was at Reading Festival all weekend and you could have kept up with the action by following Josaka on Twitter – but even though it’s all over we’re still tweeting about the Berkshire Music Scene.