Broken Social Scene

Reading Festival 2006

Friday 25th to Sunday 27th August 2006
Little Johns Farm, Richfield Avenue, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 8EQ, England MAP
£135 for weekend (including camping), £60 any day

Daily capacity: 55,000

Last updated: Mon 4th Jul 2005

I'm not sure Reading is the best place for this atmospheric music. It'd work much better at a more relaxed festival where these Sunday tunes reminiscent of Sigur Ros would work really well. It's not really indie or rock but beautiful soundscapes of huge vistas of noise.

There's a horn section and lovely floaty music made by half the members of Metric, another Canadian band in the Arcade Fire wave of musical brilliance. As if to compound this fact the lead singer of Metric the lovely Emily Haynes joins them on vocal duties, but there's still many less on stage than their album credits.

The songs are great melodies to dance to and the music is fantastic, I'll be popping out to buy their album once I get home. The most shocking thing is that they appear to be simply going through the mechanics to make this glorious noise when they turn to us and say, "We're playing the Reading festival cos we were told we had too!" Before delivering to us even more soothing music that's a delight to listen to.

My god, imagine what they would have sounded like if they had wanted to be here! Great stuff by a load of musicians on stage but a little lost on a Reading crowd, but ohh to see them at sunset at a more chilled festival they'd be the biggest thing of the weekend.

review by: Scott Williams