Part 4

Reading Festival 2003 - Friday: So... we got up at 7am to get ready for the long-awaited day... The day that was the beginning of Reading Festival... The festival of the year... The year that is 2003... Three... nah! Anyhoo, we got up at 7am all bug-eyed but damn excited. Got ready, sorted out what we'd need... apples, narnas, water, sweets, phones, money, tickets and a blankie =) (forgetting goddam loo roll!)

We left at 8:30 for our 2 hour journey ahead. It went pretty smoothly, no traffic or anything. Hehe, whilst in the car I asked Lu to put on Placebo's Without You I'm Nothing album and the first song was Pure Morning... lyrics: "A friend in need's a friend indeed, a friend with weed is better, a friend with breasts and all the rest, a friend who's dressed in leather..." Rather interesting. Lu's daddy was driving.

When we arrived we saw so many people... walking in opposite directions: On their way to buy beer, on their way back from buying beer. We got dropped off and followed random people and eventually ended up at the site. We met up with Jenna, Nina and Rachel then queued up for our beautiful wristbands! Then off we went to queue at the gates. We drunk the little alcohol we had before it would get confiscated due to glass-bottlesness. The gates opened and we went straight to the mainstage, and we were quite close to the front. First playing were Inme who got the crowd started though we're not big fans and next up were Bowling for Soup who made us say "FUCK"... WE LOVE FAT PEOPLE!!! ah, they had loads of energy and biiiig personality!

Finch were darn good too but we were all a lil knackered so we sat down and watched which was a shame really but they didn't even play 'Letters to You' which we love. Less Than Jake were great too and had circle pits all through the crowd and got everyone skanking away. During the Datsuns and Staind Lu and I went for a wander around the whole site for the full Reading experience whilst Jenna, Nina and Rachel went to see if they could get something signed by Blink =) So off me and Lu went a wandering around the many shoppy thingys - we bought some vodka jelly shots and Reading tops and i bought some flip flops hehe! We got this free compilation CD which is advertisement for quite unknown bands which was lovely but a bit too Ra-Ra for us, and we got thirsty so bought some freshly made lemonade which was rather zingy! So we were slurping away and spotted this Orange light-up textboard thing and decided to text in an advertisement for the site (which was unsuccessful i might add!) - "for random sh*t - www.giveusdiamonds.tk love angela and lu xxx"

Anyhoo we went back for The Darkness who were friggin wow, and the lead singer guy ripped off his clothes to reveal a zebra-print one-piece outfit...with flares! The crowd just went mad and lu and i found ourselves sandwiched tightly between them, until the point of no breathing so we followed some people out of the main mosh pits for some air. Now on to Placebo... teehee! Brian Molko fell over on stage... methinks stefan got a bit carried away and tripped him up or something and brian fell and said, "that's the first time i've ever been assaulted by my own band members!" They had a great set, some new, some old and everyone was singing along. Brian was looking rather dashing and they all handled their instruments very well ;)

During the break before Blink we tried to get signal to get in touch with jenna and co and after chatting to some random strange posh drummergirl and signal cutting out a zillion times we were all united as one again. power to the people. but berlimey! we turned our heads and there was like a constant swarm of bottles flying about in the air, seriously, they were like always in the air! Everyone got hit on the head at least 3 times and we got what seemed like beer land on us... at least i'm hoping that was what it was!

Blink were fantastic! Travis had a new floppy mohican hair cut and he was just like God on drums, Tom was a funny little twat as usual and Mark was just Markish with his pink geetar. It was just so crowd-worthy and they played old stuff and new, like Action, ah if only we coulda been closer... but bleugh, i never knew humans could sweat so much! we were shoulder to shoulder with people who were like they'd just climbed into a bath with their clothes on!

Linkin. Park. were. fucking. amazing.

Before we saw them though, we started chatting to this utter dude called Craig who i am going to marry along with the other 6 people. He was drunk and stoned at the time but he was just so funny! He had rock star shades on and slightly less than shoulder length hair and he kept spreading it over his face to look cool bless him (we all wore his glasses and we couldnt see anything!). He asked me to do his eyeliner and make it look "smudgy" (aw!) and then he started writing somethign on jenna's arm with my eyeliner. It looked like complete nonsense and he kept laughing cos apparently i was making him laugh (we're going to have platinum wedding rings) but eventually we saw what looked like, "AMBULANCE". Then he asked me to draw on his arm and i wrote "spoon" and "penis" because of the mature person that i am.

Linkin Park were just like they are on their CD... totally in tune, but even better cos they were live! We've never been huge fans of them, but we definitely respect them heaps more for it and the crowd was just mad. A lovely young chap protected lucinda from the McCrazy moshers and i might make them marry each other too =)

So we all met up together at the burger stall behind the tower and followed the massive (sweaty) crowd away from the stage. Nina's daddy kindly took us all home and as the lovely wonderful angela is so lovely and wonderfully clever, we got home at 2am as predicted.

It was an amazing experience and well worth the money. For anyone who's planning on going next year, with us or without, for the full weekend then bring toilet roll! Next year, any of our friends who wanna come can come with us. We're gonna buy a tent and decorate it pink and sparkly and have glow in the dark paint and maybe have a flag so that it's easy to find =)

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