Saturday 25/08/07 Day Two @ Reading Festival, Richfield Avenue, Berkshire

Paramore are the band who break the indie stranglehold on the main stage on Saturday lunchtime and judging by the huge crowd building for them it was perhaps long overdue.  They open with current favourite ‘Misery Business’ and don’t look back.  Hayley Williams is a great front woman with a surprisingly strong voice for her miniscule stature.  ‘That’s what you get’ and ‘Crushcrushcrush’ are stand outs in a set balanced equally between their two albums.  ‘Pressure’ serves to close the set out with the guitarists using one another’s bodies to perform some guitar acrobatics for the early rising crowd. 

In the Radio 1 tent, Good Shoes are enjoying their promotion from the smaller Carling stage they played in 2006.  They are committed performers and work hard in a set containing ‘We are not the same’ and ‘In My head’ but never quite move to the next level to become an excellent live act.  The Eagles of Death Metal garner a bigger and rowdier crowd on the main stage and enjoy an excellent response.  ‘I Want You So Hard’ is perhaps the silliest crowd sing-along all weekend but ‘Kiss the Devil’ brings out the best in the band with singer Jesse Hughes becoming more and more animated.  Excellent fun for a Saturday afternoon.

If you managed to see Foals in the Carling Tent you’re probably very lucky or unlucky whichever way you look at it.  You will have seen one of the biggest new bands in Britain or you will have simply stretched your body to breaking point.  Gigwise is glad to say the former was true for most despite the crush amid anticipation of the set.  The tent enjoyed a short set with ‘Mathletics’ and closing number ‘Hummer’ displaying why the hype might be justified.

It’s been a big year for The Young Knives and with their second album due soon they needed to show us if it will be worth the wait.  The relevance of ‘Weekends and Bleakdays’ and the refrain of “Hot summer, hot hot summer!” would be ironic were the sun not blazing hot for a change outside the tent.  Four new tracks were aired and seemed to be the sign of some promise.

Tom DeLonge’s new band Angels and Airwaves seem exactly that, HIS band.  DeLonge spends much of the set ranting and talking crap which in turn prompts a steady flurry of bottles to fly stage-wards.  His ego has exploded since the break up of Blink 182 and you can only feel sorry for the other members as he continues to dig a bigger hole in letting the crowd know that they are just “jealous little bastards”.  The fact is that if DeLonge’s band were good enough to rant then maybe people would still listen but they are awful and only have a label because DeLonge is the front man.  He signs off with an arrogant “you’re ****ing welcome” unlikely to be seen anywhere near this stage again. Twat.