Friday was the day the majority of our camp got massively overexcited about Rage Against the Machine playing. I wasn't particularly bothered by this, opting instead to get really drunk with some random people in Red Camp who I was never to see again.
The first band I saw were of course, the lovely Blood Red Shoes. Turning up a few minutes into the set didn't really work to our benefit, and we didn't realise the joys of going in at the side entrance of the tent so we had a pretty shit spot of people standing around doing nothing, and my friend Sorcha and I jumping about like idiots until we realised we looked like complete twats. They premiered a new song which was really rather snazzy, as well as going through the majority of their Box of Secrets album. Awesome stuff.
Opting to miss out on Dizzee/BYOP to go and get pissed for whoever we chose to see next, we ended up chilling out with Strongbows until about 4.30 when I dragged Sorcha and Lucia to come and see Florence and the Machine with me. We ended up missing her, but found ourselves in a good spot at the Festivaln Republic stage to see Esser next. It may just have been being pissed, but he was absolutely brilliant. Why isn't Headlock a huge hit of That's Not My Fucking Name proportions? We shall never know, but he's really one to watch.
In comparison, Ida Maria just doesn't match up. Mainly because you can tell the majority of this crowd are all waiting for one infamous song to be played, but also the rest of her songs are really quite lacklustre and I found myself getting really bored towards the end of her set. I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked's a song which really seems to get people going though, myself included. So it was good to end with.
And about an hour passes between Ida and MGMT, which I think a load of us came in at a few songs into the set. Whichever song Electric Feel was anyway. We were back being sober again, and back near the back again but to the side. The overall opinion on MGMT's set seems to be very divided. I've spoken to people who thought it was amazing, but the overall opinion from us near the back was a disappointed one. There's a massive lack of crowd interaction as well which doesn't seem to help. I imagine in a tiny venue they'd be absolutely amazing - festival, not so much.
The last band I saw were Late of the Pier in the Festival Republic tent, which was ... interesting to say the least. At the time of Reading, "Fantasy Black Channel" had just been released and it was pretty much the only thing I was listening to. I ended up going to see them on my own after three cans of Strongbow and ended up losing one of my favourite items of clothing, my Tartan Converses (lesson learnt), as well as managing to fall over. A very good set however, although it was really odd hearing the songs off the album being played out of order having listened to the album non-stop the past two weeks. They're really at the top of their game though, and definitely a band I need to see again.
But band of the day? Not technically a band, but Esser was just awesome.
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