Reading 2001 Review - Saturday

Saturday

United Kingdom | by Raymond Sayer |

It's a gentle start to Saturday, with the Zephyrs recalling nothing so much as the celestial drift of Galaxie 500 married to the downhome twang of steel guitar. The Soft Parade blow Friday's cobwebs away with a set that tips more of a hat to the psychedelic grind of Loop or early Spacemen 3 than you might expect from the Teenage Fanclub-esque single, 'Silent to the Dark'; however, someone should definitely tell the drummer that rockin' the Julian Casablancas school tie look when combined with a bowl-cut and a cap creates an undeniable resemblance to Wee Jimmy Krankee.

Guided By Voices impress in their 'portly schoolteachers playing the Who' way, even provoking a gen-yoo-wine teenage singalong with 'Teenage FBI', while Gorkys Zygotic Mynci explore the pastoral direction of 'The Blue Trees' some more, wisely forgoing the headache-inducing prog twiddling of earlier albums. But it's too gorgeous a day to spend entirely in a muggy marquee, so it's across to the main stage for Supergrass; aside from Gaz's newly cropped hair, things haven't changed much in Supergrass-ville - same backdrop logo, same covetable retro green guitar, same parade of unabashed 60s psych / 70s glam influences - but as 'Sun Hits the Sky' blasts out into the cerulean blue of the sky it's impossible to be cynical: this is a band that could be designed for kicking back on a sunny afternoon.

By now fully mellow (doubt), it's back to the Evening Session tent for Teenage Fanclub. It's always impossible to resist the harmonies of Norman Blake and Co. melting like butter onto the Gene Clark-jangle of tunes like 'Take the Long Way Around', but the Fannies are hampered by a subdued sound mix and an uncharacteristic lack of ebullience tonight, and it's only older numbers like 'Sparky's Dream' and 'Everything Flows' that provoke serious crowd movement Hopefully just a blip for a band that deserve much better.

Choices, choices....stay in the tent for the angelic/malevolent guitarscapes of Mogwai, over to the main stage to see several hundred feather-boad teenage girls in feather boas with 'Culture Sluts' scrawled along their forearms trying to peer up Nicky Wire's skirt...or across to the Concrete Jungle marquee for some punk rawk (and not of the Rancid 'Exploited roadie lookalike' school).

As usual punk wins the day...and it's time for Rocket From the Crypt. The ska-punk teenies might not be sure what to make of Speedo's Souther preacher schtick at first, but there's no resisting the energy of numbers like 'Do the Jerk', or the strident blast of Apollo's sax ("best use of sax in rock since 'Funhouse'? Discuss"), and the crowd is soon a sea of stagediving bodies. Not too sure about the toe-curling reference to 'fags' before 'Bring Me the Head' (coming from men with brylcreemed pompadours and wearing red-sequinned bowling shirts, let's hope this is an instance of that new craze 'irony' which the kids are all talking about), but there's a grime-under-the-fingernails energy to the Rockets (as no-one calls them) that transcends any doubts.