The Archive.
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Created Jan 2009. view at 1280 X 1024 for best results
Updated Feb 2021
The Reading Festival.
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Reading August 24-26th 1990. |
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Heavily retouched but still crap quality main stage ad- anyone got a better version ? |
The second year under the Mean Fiddler banner offered a bit more of the same as 1989,( five acts from that year making a comeback on the main stage and a couple on the Mean Fiddler stage ), but the festival also saw some new blood in the form of up and coming grunge band Mudhoney . Relatively old blood was represented by The Fall , The Cramps and The Buzzcocks. There was perhaps a heavier feel to the main stage in 1990. Faith No More and Janes Addiction were there to satisfy the headbangers ( although Janes did not perform as Perry lost his voice) and Living Colour returned after their successful appearance in 1989. It was also interesting to see amongst the support bands, elements of funk, trip hop and industrial/Kraut rock emerging in bands such as Tack>>Head, Stereo MC's ,Psychic TV , The Young Gods and The Telescopes.Bands such as this would have most likely been bottled at the old Reading festival. The headliners might not inspire much joy in todays context, but at the time Inspiral Carpets were riding high in the charts in the UK . Both the Pixies and the Cramps had very strong UK followings, both bands being far more popular abroad than they were in their home country . Attendance figues bandied about are supposed to have been around 40,000, about right for Reading at the time, which was not a gigantic festival. Compared to Glastonbury in 1990, it was still relatively minor league . The Mean Fiddler stage was now becoming quite varied in its programming with a lot of folky acts such as Luka Bloom and the Oyster band mingling with Tom Robinson , weird acoustic band The Lost T Shirts of Atlantis (who played a bath tub as an instrument) and other long lost alt bands such as Furniture .
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Telescopes fans at Reading 1990 used under creative commons licence by permission of Diegos Sideburns |
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alternative advert with Pere Ubu on the bill. |
Images courtesy Benno |
Main stage .
Friday 24th Aug. In order of appearance on the bill |
Sat 25th Aug In order of appearance on the bill |
Sunday 26th Aug In order of appearance on the bill |
* Did not perform |
*Replaced Pere Ubu and The Chills ? |
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NB : Acts are listed in order of appearance as far as we can ascertain. There also MUST have been some changes in the eventual line-up, can anyone supply details ?
Mean Fiddler stage
Friday 24th Aug. In order of appearance on the bill |
Sat 25th Aug In order of appearance on the bill |
Sunday 26th Aug In order of appearance on the bill |
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Recollections
Didn’t go for the whole weekend. These were the days when the reading festival was really on its knees, It was trying to reinvent itself I think – and appeal to a more Indie based crowd. We just turned up on the Friday to see Janes Addiction and Faith No More , who I had seen not so long ago at the marquee club in London . We paid around £30.00 I think for the day ticket if my memory serves me well ,only to find out Jane’s Addiction had cancelled at a moments notice ( great ) .
Brought some really dodgy hash which didn’t work , Some girl asked to use my 6ft 5 frame to sit on my shoulders so she could see Faith No More .Not a bad day . Woke up Saturday morning at home with chicken pox . so not a bad start to my festival life don’t u think ..
Freddie Thorne
Pixies
Reading '90 headline as the most memorable festival headliners I've had the
pleasure to see.
That night was made even more remarkable, as they were preceded by bands playing
sets that I thought couldn't be topped, only for the band following them to
promptly blow them out of the water! The Fall and a phenomenal pre-Extricate
set (I'll never forget the mesmerising version of 'Zagreb' they played)...then
finally Pixies, on that post-Doolittle pre-Bossa Nova cusp, playing an incandescent
greatest hits set. A phenomenal evening's entertainment.
Letter O
Reading 90
Most famous thing about this year was that Jane's Addiction didn't play but turned up and got the idea for Lollapoloza IIRC.
Mudhoney were the main draw for us on the Friday – billed as there last ever gig (grunge taking off put paid to that) and they drew a big crowd. Did a furious set and a lot of handstands (see photo). Nick Cave was good, Faith No More were fun only caught a few songs by the Cramps and didn't get it at the time.
Saturday had OK sets from Ride and Billy Bragg (who wasn't as good as in '89). Buzzcocks were great (with Mike Joyce from The Smiths on drums). Wedding Present again were not as good as the year before and had problems with the bass. Though they did an intense What Have I Said Now a recording of which ended up as a B-Side, danced down the front in the mosh-pit with Steve Turner from Mudhoney, lots of laddish hugging and yelling “they fucking rock” in my ear.
Inspiral Carpets got a lot of grief before in the press for only having 1 album and headlining. In fact a lot of the crowd had started filing out when huge searchlights beamed out and a pantomime cow started dancing across the stage! When they started playing with a massive firework display in sync with the music people started filling back in on mass. By the time a full majorette squad performed with them they had totally won the crowd over. We met them the next day (lovely lads and a nice roadie who went onto better things) they told us they'd ploughed all of their fee into the show.
Only saw the last two acts on Sunday. The Fall were the highlight, Mark E Smith coming on with a carrier bag with his lyrics and singing behind a lectern. They did a version of the hymn Jerusalem with the sun setting as if on queue behind them which was magical.
Pixies weren't as good, admitted by Kim Deal as they started “weren't The Fall great.” They didn't get going until about half the way through but from then on were fantastic. Biggest crowd for a head-liner, with Nirvana in '92 that I've ever seen at Reading.
Paul Troy
Photogallery
Faith No More
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Setlists and recordings
Once again the BBC was conspicuous in their absence, bah humbug !
However, tapers responded to the call and produced an absolute plethora of audience recordings .....
They have not however, managed to produce much in the way of cover art , so if you have know of any send it along and we will add it here....
Friday
| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 8-24-90
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Faith No More 8-24-90
Soundboard source looking for artwork |
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The Cramps 8-24-90
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90 mins Audience looking for artwork |
Saturday
Neds Atomic Dustbin 8-25-89
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Wire
8-25-89
Audience source looking for artwork |
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Half Man Half Biscuit 8-25-90
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The Buzzcocks 8-25-90
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| Loop 8-26-90
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Audience source looking for artwork |
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Jesus Jones 8-26-90
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Audience source looking for artwork |
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The Fall 8-26-90
45 mins Audience |
Audience source looking for artwork |
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The Pixies 8-26-90
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90 mins Audience -both video and audio , but from different sources looking for artwork |
Can we get a witness ?
We need more info on this and Reading festivals 1986-1990, we are now in the curious situation of having better documentation on some of the earlier festivals, so c'mon goths and alt fiends , get yer photos out and fire up whats left of the aging brain cells .Send your recollections , scans of tickets, posters, crowd and band photos to us NOW ! !!Contact us
we are also going to cover the festival until 1995 as we want to cover the grunge years, so if you have any info that will help us cover those years, please send it along ....
External Links
Reading in the 80s to date- Fat Regs excellent site covers Reading from 1982 onwards .
Photos of Reading in the 80s at the Reading Musuem.
The early festivals.
You can find out the complete line ups of the first festivals if you follow the links below .
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Festivals 1965-1990
Most of these have fairly complete documentation .But new contributions of any sort are always welcome regarding any of the festivals.
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