I don’t understand the mentality of the Reading crowd. Here we all are, with some of the best musical offerings in the world at our disposal, coming together in a mutual appreciation for music. The location isn’t half bad. Granted, there are a lot of people packed into the site, but there’s plenty of room for everyone to potentially have a good time. We have a drink, have a dance, have a sing-song… Then we start a riot, smash open doors, don’t use the bins, piss on people’s things, steal people’s things, act as totally outrageously crazy as possible in the hope that someone notices just how crazy you are, so that you can then what? Bathe in the satisfaction that you’ve just ruined someone’s weekend by throwing a cup of piss across a crowd?
What is going on? Have all these people been let off a leash for the very first time, that they just have to let out this ‘I’m going to be a general wanker for the weekend’ urge, in an environment that says it’s ‘OK’? Well to be honest, it’s not OK.
Festivals are there as an escapism. A lot of (if not most) people do turn into someone who they wouldn’t be when they return to work on Tuesday morning. But it’s generally a good transition. Free, enlightened, high, whatever. Not twatish.
I don’t get what it is about Reading (and I’ve been told Leeds is the same) that attracts this kind of mentality. Every August bank-holiday weekend, I tell myself that I won’t return, simply because of the way people are to each other, to the festival and to the grounds it’s situated on.
It’s clearly not festivals in general. I bet half of the Reading goers attend a number of other festivals around the country, and they all seem to be left unscathed. The Big Chill manages to have a beautifully preserved lake, slap-bang in the middle of its grounds. No rubbish, no people, no urine get puts in there. The same goes for the Green Man festival, set in the serene mountains of Brecon Beacons, Wales. They have a fresh water river running along the site, where people can swim and bathe. Again, it’s left pristinely.
So what’s up with Reading? The only sign of a river there is when people’s piss and shit has filled up the what-used-to-be stream. I’d say that this would all eventually lead to the demise of the festival. But it won’t. For some reason, it’s seen as standard Reading. Why?!
I know it’s not everyone who’s there. If it were, God help us. But there are a lot of people doing these things and it ruins so much enjoyment of a festival that has the promise to be one of the best in the world.
