Reading Festival 2017 - Saturday

Kicking off our Saturday we headed out to the NME stage for Inheaven, an exciting new band with a genuine talent - their self-titled debut album is due out on 1st September.

We were treated to a genre-defying mix of indie, grungy-rock, and melody with a bite to it. The rebellious 'Baby's Alright' was written before Trump’s election – but it seems particularly potent now; “Bombs will drop and the world will shake / Don't believe a word they say / Pull the trigger now or face your fate / In a messed up place where hate breeds hate.” 

'Regeneration''s fuzzy noise rock with shouted anthemic vocals were nostalgic and cinematic while their newest track ‘Stupid Things’ out this week takes you to a more Americana alt rock place. The band explain: “‘Stupid Things’ is a song for daydreamers. It’s about a love that exists outside of reality, it’s a romanticism you’ve created in your own head - but in the real world you have never even spoken to this person you think you know so well. It’s a school crush that feels like it will last forever. And it’s our very own coming of age soundtrack.”

Next on the NME stage were Marmozets - a set we had been looking forward to as had not yet experienced them live and we in no way were we let down in the slightest.

As the opening track 'Move, Shake, Hide' roared out singer Becca's stage presence oozed charisma and attitude in boundless amounts.

As a band made of two sets of siblings they gel well together and there was absolutely no let-up throughout the set by the whole band, their brilliant angsty brand of punk-laden hardcore, went down really well with the crowd.  

With alt-math leanings and raucous guitars underpinned by driving drums, not to mention Becca's incredible talent for switching from vicious gravel to melodic sugar in a split second this was a great show topped off by the ending full of furious energy that is 'Why Do You Hate Me?'.

Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes gave their usual high energy show with great crowd interaction. Frank did his usual bit encouraging the ladies to crowd surf saying they should feel comfortable and if they had any men giving them trouble he'd "bite their f**king head off and give it to my dog as a chew toy". It is a great sentiment including all the audience and he was clearly humbly proud to be in the influential position he has earned.

Frank dedicated "Lullaby" to his daughter who was watching from side of stage, blowing her kisses and waving throughout the set. With the set ending on the angry and to the point “I hate you” it was an all round highly entertaining and uplifting show.

Next up we headed over to the Festival Republic stage for Canada's Japandroids, check out the pics here!

Saturday's headliner Eminem is consistently seen as one of the greatest rappers of all time, not only a titan in hip-hop but in modern culture itself. One of the biggest selling artists of the 21st century, his razor-sharp wit and impeccable larger than life anthems continue to defy boundaries, with the likes of ‘Lose Yourself’ and ‘My Name Is’ no matter what your core music tastes this was a sight to be seen.

There was plenty of banter, Eminem paused to tell the audience that he was "not going to name names, but I f**king hate Donald Trump" and instigated a massive chant of 'F**k / Trump'. The set also had plenty to look at, visually staged like a massive boom box and with intense burning city projections through 'Lose Yourself'. He ended the set saying "thanks for making us feel at home ... lets end it like this" with both middle fingers held proudly aloft.

Headlining the Festival Republic stage were The Black Lips. From garage punk to fuzzy rock and roll riffs the set was bluesy, psychy with a retro vibe and the highlight for us 'Can't Hold On'. Despite some technical difficulties early on they gave a great performance and left us pepped ready for the final day of the festival.

Reading Festival 2017 - Friday Evening

After our morning of awesomely loud punk noises we continued on with British pop-punkers WSTR in The Pit. 

The quintet played tracks from their 2017 debut ‘Red, Green Or Inbetween’ a highlights were their latest single ‘Eastbound & Down’ and 'Fairweather' where they inspired plenty of sing-a-longs and encapsulated the essence of pop-punk.

Switching up the mood we headed off to the Festival Republic Stage for guitar-pop gang The Big Moon. 

While slower paced than the bands we had seen earlier, there was plenty of attitude oozing from the stage as they played the slick and hooky 'Cupid' and the anthemic 'Sucker', both from their debut album 'Love in the 4th Dimension'.

The set went down really well and if you want to check them out the indie girl gang are also off on an extensive UK tour this September and October.

We wandered back to The Pit for Counterfeit's as we have heard they give a great live show.

Their debut album 'Together We Are Stronger' was released earlier this year and yet they seem more established, tightly executed with great onstage chemistry and frontman Jamie had great audience interaction.

'Enough', 'Romeo' and 'Washed Out' were highlights of the set and the change in pace for the emotional 'Letters To The Lost' was poignant and captivating.

Next up in The Pit we caught Tigers Jaw's folky indie-rock which has a touching purity to it. Sometimes vulnerable, building and falling between pop melodies and heartfelt musings this was a great set.

'I Saw Water' pulls in Brianna's vocals with Ben's for outstanding harmonies between the two expertly using the rise and fall of the music to effect. 

'The Sun' is an upbeat summery tune perfectly place in the set with the rising anthemic lines "what about your friends, do they make you happy?" while 'Plane Vs. Tank Vs. Submarine' showcases Ben's beautifully raw vocal in a folkier stripped back song that still packs a pop hook.

When we arrived over at the Festival Republic stage for Cigarettes After Sex the ambient electro dreamy pop was already floating over the crowd. Their self-titled debut album came out earlier this year and the dreamy-pop set really had a feeling of lazing in bed with a touch of melancholy - beautiful to witness and an ethereal contrast to the raucous bands we saw earlier in the day.

Queens Of The Stone also played a secret set on the NME Stage which was a highlight for many. The set had the classics 'Little Sister' and 'No-one Knows' as well as a couple of tracks from their new album 'Villains' that was released yesterday.

Main Stage headliners for Friday were Kasabian, with several hugely successful albums one after the other and massive sell-out gigs they have gone from dance-rock outsiders to one of the biggest rock bands in the country. Earlier this year they released their new album "For Crying Out Loud" and along with all the classic tracks the set was great entertainment, cementing their headline credentials.

'Fire' was met with flares let off amongst the crowd which was an amazing sight to see. Kasabian are one of the few bands that really translate differently live, the sound was almost more acoustic in feel - the rich textural noise that normally accompanies their music is still there but somehow different in a good way, for example 'Underdog' was more of an epic experience with extended solos and great crowd interaction.

As well as a bit of Daft Punk's 'Around The World' spliced into the set, the Nirvana cover 'All Apologies' was strangely fitting, an acoustically gentle take on the song with sing-a-longs of "in the sun we feel as one" a great choice for what was a scorching day.

Canadian punk rockers Billy Talent headlined The Pit with their upbeat and diverse anthems. 'Rusted From The Rain' was a more plodding grungier sounding track that although ballad-esque still packed a punch.

'Falling Leaves' and 'Red Flag' were always going to be a highlight of the set, the closing track 'Viking Death March' was a frenzied performance delivered with such explosive energy and passion it was a fitting end to our first day.

Reading Festival 2017 - Friday

Brimming with the a varied selection of musical genres across the site and headline sets from Eminem, Muse and Kasabian, Reading Festival is primed to be the defining festival weekend of the summer and completely sold out a few days ago!

First act of today for us was Hull's LIFE on The Pit stage. Their debit album 'Popular Music' came out in June this year and the title track is a belter live.

The chorus of "totally off my face I listen to popular music" is somewhat of an anthem for the disaffected with Mez's vocals echoing a Mark E Smith attitude and made a fitting start to the weekend. 

Showcased by their raucous onstage presence, LIFE package political comment and pop hook laden punk into a captivating live set.

LIFE

LIFE

LIFE

Continuing our delve into all the punky primal noises Reading has to offer this year, next up were FREAK - the alter ego of Connar Ridd.

It was a great live show with boundless energy, both the EP title track 'I Like To Smile When I’m Sad' and the storming 'Cake' are well worth a listen. 'No Money' was also good to see live, introduced as "for our glorious NHS".

First song 'What Happened' was almost over when the power cut but they guys handled it admirably brushing it off with the quip "f**k the power". 

They're off on a co-headline tour with King Nun next month, so you can check out their energetic garage rock with straight to the point lyrics for yourself!

FREAK

FREAK

Over on the main stage L.A.'s duo Deap Vally were a well polished machine with two snarling and captivating cogs; Lindsey Troy and Julie Edwards.

From fuzzy guitars to massive riffs Deap Vally craft a mixed sonic experience from mellower blues right through to full-on punk angst. 

Yet again we were impressed with another 2-piece who can deliver a massive and raucous depth of sound, the snarling rock and blues is reminiscent of The Kills and Lindsey has a level of showmanship to justify that comparison - bounding about and completely owning the Main Stage. 

Back at The Pit IDLES were next up. Earlier this year they released their debut album 'Brutalism' which is outstanding. The last time we caught them live it was a great show so we were looking forward to catching them again today.

We weren't disappointed despite high expectations as their cutting sense of humour again told us tales of woe with impassioned gravelly vocals, and so much energy from the whole band  in a furious assault on our senses.

'1049 Gotho' was also cracking live, a song about depression singer Joe urged the crowd to make sure they speak to someone and get some help if they are affected - IDLES are one of a whole host of bands at the moment using their influence to speak up about important issues which is really great to see.

Highlights of the set were the angrily spitting track 'Mother', the confrontational lyrics were delivered with piercingly fierce vocals and 'Well Done' which is laced with slicing social comment, raw and relevant. Yet again, they delivered an epic adrenaline fuelled and highly entertaining set.

IDLES

IDLES

IDLES

IDLES

It has been amazing to see so many furious punk bands, with each with a sharp sense of humour to them and something poignant to say and all before the sun has even started to set on day one!

Ghost Of The Avalanche - New EP Out This Friday / Interview

Photo: Ania Shrimpton Photography

Ahead of the released this Friday of Ghost Of The Avalanche's fourth EP ‘Obsessive Compulsive Gender Dysphoria’ we caught up with Nick, one half of the bass and drum driven noise-punk duo.

Nick Wiltone and Mel Per-Hour create the kind of maelstrom that straddles punk, hardcore and guttural rock but in amongst the discordance, you’ll find pockets of pop sensibility.

How long have you been going, how did you come together?

Mel and I met whilst playing in other bands on our local music scene. I told him I was looking to do a side project as a duo and he offered his services. We played on and off together for a couple of years but only as and when we had the time. A few years later we both quit our respective bands and decided to start up what would become Ghost Of The Avalanche again. That was around 2014 so we've been playing as GOTA for about 4 years.

Are you pretty collaborative … do you write your songs together and share similar influences?

Yeah, we are very collaborative. I usually bring a rough idea to practice and we play around with it until it becomes a full song. Without Mel's input those songs would sound very different. We both like all different kinds of music but where our influences meet is usually heavy bands who know how to write a hook. 'Dark Pop' as I like to call it.

How about your creative process, what inspires you to create particular songs?

Each song has a different starting point as an idea and we usually build on that. So sometimes it might start with a line of lyrics or a bass riff but ultimately if it's a goer we have to be feeling it when we come together in the practice room. We know pretty quickly if something is going to work or not. A lot of our songs are socio-political in their lyrical content but we don't like to be too obvious about it. We want people to think and listen and take what they want from it. In terms of the music, we try and write songs we want to listen to so generally they are high energy, a bit riffy, and we try to write good hooks as we believe that's what makes a song memorable. We also try and write songs that let us put on a great show whether we're playing in your parents living room or at an open air festival.

So is there a story behind the new EP?

This new EP has been in the making for quite some time. Last year my wife and I had a baby daughter which meant I didn't have loads of spare time to write so we didn't make it into the studio until earlier this year. Whilst that was happening Mel came out as gender-fluid and so we both had a lot going on (and still do) in our personal lives. The EP is a reflection of change and growing up. I've previously struggled with OCD and always thought of it as a negative thing. I used to be quite secretive about it, trying to hide it from my peers much like Mel with his gender fluidity as I didn't want to be judged by others. But now I have a daughter (she's asleep on me as I type this) I want her to be able to grow up not feeling scared of anything and that these kinds of issues are not taboo. Mel and I decided to call the EP 'Obsessive Compulsive Gender Dysphoria' as it's a combination of the things we've both struggled with but we're transforming them into something positive and wearing them on our collective sleeve. It's recognising we have these issues, being ok with that and you never know, hopefully we help others who may be struggling with their own issues by being honest.

If you had to describe each band member in only 3 words, what would they be?

Mel - Funny, energetic, sassy

Me - handsome, suave and debonair

What's next for you this year?

The EP is out on 25th August and then we start our 'Obsessive Compulsive Gender DysTOURia' which is a bunch of shows in the UK then a few in France. We will also hopefully be putting together a couple of videos to go with a couple of tracks off the new EP and then I guess we'll do more shows and start writing some new songs!

You can check them out at www.facebook.com/ghostoftheavalanche and grab merch & music from: www.ghostoftheavalanche.bandcamp.com.

The special edition pre-order comes with limited edition GOTA tote bag featuring EP artwork. 5-track CD (with additional bonus material) complete with special edition artwork is limited to 100 copies worldwide. Pre-order comes with stickers and badges.

Also check them out on their upcoming tour dates:

27th August – Teapfest, Barnstaple

1st September – The Granary, Frome

2nd September – Mothers’ Ruin, Bristol

9th September – Wagon & Horses, Birmingham

7th October – The Royal Oak, Bath