Dear Reader,

I've Just been reading the news section on this very site. It says, and I quote:

The White Stripes have been forced to pull out of their scheduled Carling Weekend appearances as the injury sustained to Jack White's finger in a recent car crash has not yet healed. Mean Fiddler have promised the band will headline next year. No replacement act has been announced yet, making an already weak line-up look distinctly thin.

Now, after the web-master of this fine website can say that this line up looks weak, (and fat reg should know, he has been to a few festies!) who can tell me that Leeds/Reading is still a good festival?

Crap! Reading and Leeds are a shadow of their former selves and have been for the past three years! The majority of people who go to Leeds/Reading now are only interested in 'how good the riots where' or 'what is the best camp site'? If I were all you people, (which I know I'm not) I would be DEMANDING a better line up for these rather sorry looking festivals.

Come on Mean Fidler, pull your finger out!

Regards

Norman Cockblaster

...If the line up determnines how good a festival is, then the V festival would always win cos they have more money. However, the atmosphere at V is corporate and sanitised, and not a patch on Reading.

Here's something I posted on another festivals forum recently:


Reading won't die, after all, this year has seen weekned tickets for all the UK festivals sell out in record time! Remember 4 years ago when everyone was saying "There's too many festivals and they all have the same line up!"?

Festivals are more popular than ever, thanks to pop bands disguised as credible rock (I don't need to name names, you know the bands i'm talking about!). This means that all the shitty little kids in their hoodies and baggy jeans are all going to festivals this year. Expect at least one new major festival to appear next year to reflect the popularity of 'alt' music.

Don't worry though, as soon as the Sum Charlotte 182 bubble bursts, the mainstream will go back to it's default setting (pop) and festivals will go back to being something which appeal to a more narrow range of people.

Personally, I don't think we will ever see a better bill than Reading 2000; all the biggest bands in the world together (Oasis, Limp Bizkit, RATM, Foo Fighters, Slipknot, Stereophonics, Blink 182, Primal scream, Pulp, Beck, Muse, Daphne & Celeste).

Daphne & Celeste...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I'm not having a go at the festivals popularity. There's still going to be tens of thousands there.

I just think that the whole experience would be allot better if they had were a little less main-stream. I understand that you have to have big bands there to make some money. However, I think it's time that smaller bands had the chance to play to a wider audience rather than be stuck in some tent that only fits a couple of hundred.

Something must be done to secure the future of this festival and indeed British music. Fame academy, popstars etc MUST stop.

i'd like to suggest...a suggestion..of the shitter you believe this festival is..the more beer you buy + consume to make up for this, in order to make it an amazing festival, unless of course someone like Metallica pulls out, thus leaving us with that much beer to drink to make up for it we will all die of alcohol poisoning

Boy would that get my knob throbbing!