The Reading Festival
by Ian Carroll

Music, mud and mayhem… It can only be Reading!

The longest-running outdoor extravaganza in British rock started life as the National Jazz Festival and arrived at Reading in 1971. Over 36 years it’s metamorphosed into what it is today, and this coffee table paperback is intended to celebrate it. Historically, this falls down in not even attempting to document who played when, nor is there more than a brief analysis of the music scene the bill represented. Maybe this is because the bigger names are often inevitably absent from the contributors’ list. That said, first-time author Carroll has turned many a stone to obtain artist/audience recollections of previous festivals. While one or two seem to have been lifted from books or articles, the range of views, from profound to idiotic, is entertaining. With pages-per-year upped from four to six for the current millennium, the book is clearly aimed at today’s festival-goer, rather than music historians with long memories. Photographic backup from the local paper’s archives is excellent, though the occasional airy-fairy caption reflects a lack of specific knowledge (“Phil Lynott takes a bass solo”… right!). All you need to relive your own Reading experience, with the possible exception of the mud. Just don’t expect anything too definitive.

3 stars 3 stars 3 stars

ISBN 9781905287437

Reviewed by Michael Heatley
<< Back to Issue 343

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