Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

I have to say to start as always it was an insanely lovely weekend, great weather, loads of hot girls and a nice festival crowd. So mellow and chilled in comparison to reading anyway on with the review.

Iglu & Hartley (Mainstage): Wow this band is so lame, on record there whiny and annoying and live they are equally whiny and awful. However I'll give them credit they had good energy and executed their terrible songs well, the crowd all loved This City but it was just complete bland dated garbage. (4/10)

Ting Tings (Mainstage): Last year at Reading I vowed that I'd never see the Ting Tings again, well one year later and I broke my promise and boy oh boy do I wish I'd kept that promise. This band is unbelievably awful live, it's ridiculous, they are constantly falling behind the beat, Katie cannot sing whatsoever she yelps and shouts and falls ages behind the track with her screeching, it's just horrible. To make matters worse their stripped down beat based sound is limp and pathetic live and certianly doesn't live a festival stage. They had the huge singles but they just don't have mainstage level skills. (1.5/10)

Pendulum (Mainstage): Pendulum were the band in the right place, at the right time, they turned the momentum of the day around in one fell swoop. They brought huge energy and massive drum and Bass-lite beats, and had the crowd bouncing from start to finish. From Propange Nighmares to drum and bass classic Tarantula it was high tempo awesomeness. Now I have some huge issues with Pendulum they are the ultimate one trick ponies and their set is really repetative but clocking in at 45 minutes it was just the right lenght. (7.5/10)

Basement Jaxx (Mainstage): Basement Jaxx should with this set why despite some of the most morose singles in recent memory that they are infact bonified dance legends and slot in above Groove Armada and alongside Prodigy and Chemical Brothers just below the all mighty Daft Punk. They blew through hit after hit from Good Luck to Do Your Thing via Where's Your Head At, Oh My Gosh, Romeo (acoustic), Rendevouz and everything else you'd possible want to see. They brought a cool graphics display and a host of guests and created a real carnival feel. (8.5/10)

Prodigy (Mainstage): Prodigy are just awesome live, it's what Prodigy exist to do, you don't listen to Prodigy in your bedroom, you see them live you dance to them in the club. this was and hour and a half of non-stop dancing and non stop jumping. However Prodigy have managed to get even better since their appearence at the Isle Of Wight three years ago. This is completely attributable to Invaders Must Die, that album has given them huge live anthems like Omen, Warrior Dance, the title track itself and even the morose Hounds turns into an anthem live. It's a massive tribute to Prodigy's back catalog that they can headline a festival now and leave out both Spitfire and much more importantly No Good For Me. Great stuff, after two steps back in the early 21st century they are finally taking a step forward. (9/10)

Paulo Nutini (Mainstage): My God how on earth I've managed to see this waste of breathe three times I do not know. He is just uniformly horrible, he butchered a cover of one of my favorite songs of all time, but at least he didn't resort to singing tracks from the jungle book to keep the crowd awake this time. As Vanilla as it gets. (3/10)

White Lies (Mainstage): I'm a fan of White Lies but I really wasn't sure how they'd translate on the mainstage infront of a huge crowd but I shouldn't have worried. With there slow pulsating beats and the leads singers simply superb vocal performance arguably the best of the week end they won the crowd over with considerable ease. To Lose My Life and Farewell to the Fareground were suitably mamoth sing alongs but the show was of course stolen by set closer the suitably gargantuan epic Death and lucky the only drops of rain of the weekend fell just in time for the songs finale, it was only fitting. White Lies certainly did ensure that it'd be a wonderful death. (7.5/10)

McFly (Big Top): Argh....after unfortunately missing Will Young due to clashes we had to settle for McFly for our silly pop moment. Unfortunately they were pretty terrible, they just don't have the voices or the skills for the live arena. However they do have the songs and the energy, it's not my cup of tea but all the twelve year old boys and girls seemed to adore it. They did do one thing I liked a cover of Black or White by Michael Jackson unfortunately they decided to rap over the final third, yes McFly rap. A take it or leave it set, for fans only. (5/10)

Razorlight (Mainstage): Well this was a real mixed bag, when they were laying on the hits, and there were alot of hits (In The Morning, Before I Fall to Peices, Stumble And Fall, America, Somewhere Else, Golden Touch, Vice, Wire to Wire), they were very good, and they were fun when they played stuff off the first album generally but when they decided to play random ballads Johnny Borrell proceeded to milk every song for everything it was worth in the most pretentious fashion imaginable. All in all the hits out weigh the misses. (7/10)

Ultravox (Big Top): We only caught half an hour of the eighties synth popsters but it was more than enough. It was fun and light, a water down Kraftwerk for the masses but and hour and half was way too much to bear so we left Ultravox to it. (5.5/10)

Stereophonics (Mainstage): Without doubt the worst headliner I've ever seen at a major festival. A complete dirge, me and Gareth left after 45 minutes feeling suicidal, even hits like Mr. Writer and Handbags and the Gladrags were just a long death like dirge, horrible. Not Headline materiel. (1/10)

Simple Minds (Mainstage): Okay me and Nick had a very long raging political debate about the EU and potential world governance so we basically didn't notice that simple minds were playing, but they seemed mild and innoffensive, but one couldn't help but wonder why on eath the Human League were on Thursday for Campers not Sunday instead of the far less relevant, far less talented and far less popular Simple Minds. (5/10)

The Pixies (Mainstage): The Pixies are just a special band and I was privalleged to see them so close up especially seeing as I'd chosen to skip the Horrors to see the College Rock legends for a second time. There is just something different about this band, from dead cool of Black Francis to the smacked up chirpiness of Kim Deal. Frank looked like he didn't want to be there but in a cool way and Kim looked like she was of her face and loving every minute of it. The interplay between the two was fantastic as ever deciding to stop dead in the middle of tracks for some banter. Their crowd grew and grew and by the second half when the Horrors had finished those seeking to get the best of both worlds had arrived to give them the biggest crowd of anyone on the sunday. They had seemingly clearer and louder sound than any other guitar band of the whole weekend and blew through hits and live classics Velouria, Allison, Where Is My Mind, Tame, Debaser, Wave Of Mutilation, Here Comes Your Man and of course the epic Bone Machine. Kim Deal got her moments to shine with Gigantic and I'm in Heaven before they milked a seemingly never ending string of applause as they bowed and wave in delight. (10/10)

Killing Joke (Big Top): Now Killing Joke are one of Gaz's favorite bands but some one I knew very little about but they quickly blew me away with there brand of syth tinged Gothy Industrial. They really developed cool grooves and almost marching beats and judging by the crowd and Gaz's reaction fired through some of their best loved tracks. Their front man was amazing and clearly as mad as a hatter, fantastic stuff. (8.5/10)

Neil Young (Mainstage): Ah the incredibly devisive much debate Headline. Well we caught what we thought would be the last half hour but turned out to be the last forty five minutes (what a gip) and in this time he played four songs. Yes you read that right four songs! To say Neil Young milked it would be an understatement he was practically running a dairy farm bring back the refrain to keep on Rocking at least eight times. The tracks he played were actually pretty damn good, including a cover of the Beatles' greatest ever track A Day In The Life, which I enjoyed greatly. It was an interesting experience, he both showed that he was very capable, still rocked and more deserving of headlining than Stereophonics but failed to show ups why he's truly regarded as special as mainly due to the milking never seemed to reach awesomeness. A good fun ending to the weekend but he could live up to what preceeded him. (7/10)