Reading Festival

Can I get away with a post with a bunch of pictures of Reading Festival, rather than pubs?

I'll stick a picture of the Nags Head part-way through to meet the Prop Up the Bar modus operandi.  We ended up there on Sunday lunchtime when nothing on the stages took our fancy and we were in need of some decent beer.

Beer on offer in the Reading Festival 'craft' bar included a keg Hobgoblin with a strangely scuzzy head - yours for £7.30.
But I mostly splashed out the extra 20p for Brookyn Brewery's 'Defender IPA'.

I've dug out a picture from 10-years ago, when you could buy genuine real ale straight from the cask in a small kiosk to the side of one of the regular bars.
Look how it's appealing to the youngsters...

I think the cask lasted a year or two after that - after which the stewards looked at me blankly when I once asked if there was any real ale on site and pointed me in the direction of the Carlsberg bar.

Every year I say I'm too old and I'm not going again.
But we had to go this year when Imagine Dragons were announced as one of the Sunday headliners.  As far as Mrs Prop Up the Bar was concerned, Foals, Sam Fender and The Killers were just their support acts.

Friday offered a pretty superb run of bands for me.
Yard Act ("from a recently gentrified suburb of Northern Leeds") brilliantly opened up the Main Stage East, whilst Frank Turner & the Sleeping Souls followed them with a rousing performance on the Main Stage West (?? I'm still not getting this two main stage lark - bring back the NME tent).

The Last Dinner Party provided another mesmerizing early highlight in the Festival Republic tent. 

Despite all the newspaper previews sending parents into panic with tales of feral teenagers celebrating or commiserating their GCSE results, the 2023 crowd was quite varied and I didn't feel quite the old bugger I thought I would.
Although the fact that I was in the 0.05% of punters sensible enough to tie a waterproof around their waste gave away that I haven't just done my GCSE's.  That and the grey hair.

Wet Leg drew a big early evening crowd, treated to a bit of sunshine on a day of unpredictable weather.

And I can be well and truly trusted to be present when the noisiest bands take to the Festival Republic tent...

Knocked Loose instigated the most fearsome mosh pit I witnessed over the weekend. 
Scowl, all the way from Santa Cruz, delivered some proper punk rock.
High Vis did the business with their take on trad hardcore and are a band I'll look out for in the future. 

Three days of trekking back and forth to Reading was exhausting (Camping among'st the teens? - we're not that crazy).
And on Sunday loud guitars were in a minority in a day dominated by alt pop.

So we took it easy and diverted to the Nags Head on Sunday lunchtime.

Getting our fill of fine ales and watching a bit of Sunday Premier League footy.
Of course I'll probably discover that I missed the 'next big thing' playing early on a stage on Sunday, but never mind. 

Eventually making it back to the festival site, I was very contented sat in the sunshine with Rina Sawayama entertaining us from the main stage in the distance.

Mrs Prop Up the Bar raced off to get a prime viewing spot for when the bloke from Imagine Dragons inevitably whipped his shirt off.
Leaving me to enjoy a pleasant half hour in front of the BBC Music Introducing stage watching Matilda Mann, as recommended by online influencer Retired Martin.
And very good she was too.

And here's the ticker-tape explosion during Imagine Dragons - every headline act insisting on launching streamers or bits of paper into the air at opportune moments.

And that was the end of the weekend.  Except for Billie Eilish headlining the other Main Stage, but we wouldn't know about that kind of thing.