The Crimea

• This Event
• Line-up
• News
• Reviews
• Photos
• Interviews
• Forum
• Event Home

Reading Festival 2005

Friday 26th to Sunday 28th August 2005
Richfield Avenue, Reading, Berkshire, England MAP
£125 for weekend (including camping) - SOLD OUT, £60 any day

Daily capacity: 55,000

How the heck do I review this lot? Their music is pretty diverse and bittersweet, hard to label. I arrive in a not very packed tent to find the lead singer, ex-Crockett Davey McManus hugging himself as though he’s on a bad trip and calling out mumbled prayer as a backing track run over the proceedings. He’s trembling and a string of almost streaming consciousness springs from his lips accompanied by wild guitar.

The lyrics are terrific, if complex, well written ‘Opposite Ends’ is staggering and by the end of it you feel he’s close to a breakdown. Then suddenly he changes, no longer fragile and broken and I don’t know which song it is but the lyrics seem apt, “You are just a bunch of Buffalo, who like Indians love your water.”

The tunes are a mix of almost infectious guitar licks with heavier beats and half spoken vocal melodies and it creates a strange effect, not brooding but broken and melodious. Very original and very strange, I look forward to their debut album with interest.