Be There There Later

Radiohead are playing Reading Festival tonight and it will be live on BBC3. I am, it must be said, quite excited about the prospect of watching one of the greatest bands of modern times doing their thing from the comfort of my warm and dry living room. To whet the appetite, Sky Arts have been showing a Dave Fanning interview with the band from 2008, the ‘OK Computer’ tour documentary, ‘Meeting People Is Easy’, a set from Eurockeenes 2003 and the episode of ‘From The Basement’ upon which the band featured on a near constant loop. All of which are bloody great and if you’ve not had a chance to watch the Dave Fanning interview, do so before it disappears. Thom and Ed are in good form and Fanning asks some quite decent questions which, in turn, prompt some quite decent answers. ‘Meeting People Is Easy’ appears in an edited form, but it still riveting viewing and ‘From The Basement’ features some wonderful renditions of tunes from the last two albums. In addition to all of this, VH1 are repeating the ‘In Rainbows – From The Basement’ show, which can be purchased from iTunes, tonight at 10pm. One to Sky + whilst watching the live show on BBC3. Make sure you have an ornament of choice identified in advance to look at whenever Bowman appears on screen. Don’t want to upset yourself just before seeing what should be a pretty impressive set.

Here’s some bits and bobs from Ver Tube to enjoy:

On the subject of the greatest bands of recent times, if I really want to conform to expectations, I suppose I should take a moment to deride people for caring about Noel leaving Oasis. But, I care. And they were, more often than not, a great group. I shall dwell further on the topic tomorrow. I shall leave you with one of their finer tunes.

How I learned to love silence.

As is always the case, the TV coverage of T In The Park makes it look the swine flu-ridden younger sibling of big brother Glastonbury and as a result it’s been a largely frustrating time spent flicking around the red button in the hope of finding something good. Last night, we were kept waiting until ten to eleven to be treated to all of twenty three minutes of the Manics‘ set, seemingly chopped together by somebody with no ears, so disturbingly shite were the audio edits while the odd bit of the Pet Shop Boys has crept out on today’s red button coverage with as little fanfare as possible. On the plus side, if you like a bit of Idlewild you could have watched it many, many times on the red button. And then a few more times, for good measure.

There’s also been the delights of the ‘InTimate Stage’ – see what they did there? – which has looped round on one of the interactive channels for most of the weekend. A great idea if they actually had lots of intimate performances to show. Instead, they had Glasvegas, Maximo Park and a depressingly awful collaboration between Franz Ferdinand and Edwyn Collins. I wanted it to be good, I really did, but it being shown nigh on fifty times isn’t going to suddenly improve its quality.

As I type, Blur are playing after a delayed start and yet we’re being treated to Keane. Thanks for that. Apparently, Graham‘s been in hosptial and Blur very nearly had to pull out. Reports out of the festival appear to suggest that Snow Patrol‘s set was delayed and extended. Now there was the potential for adding insult to injury – a cancellation from Blur and in replacement even more Snow Patrol. Thankfully, Graham appears to have recovered and Blur took to the stage somewhere around about 10.20pm. I think ruby-faced farmer boy used to sing better when smashed off his tits. Not that there’s much in it.

I’m aware that this is becoming almost stream of consciousness-like in its structure, so I’ll not say much more. Suffice to say, Reggie and Edith continued to be woeful hosts. The one person who presumably had no problem with this was Nick Grimshaw, who in their company appeared to be a presenting colossus. In a scarf. Possibly two. Lily Allen was still great, Lady GaGa still seemed a little unhinged and – just to keep the regular visitors happy – seemed to be dressed to over maximum ladybit exposure risk. Pet Shop Boys looked great from what I saw, Manics were splendid last night, Doves were in good form earlier but, over the whole weekend thus far, it was The Specials who delivered the most enjoyable performance for those sofabound. Bloody marvellous they were. So much so that I actually did a ska dance round the living room for most of the set. Nip over to the BBC site to see some of that set for the next six days.

Perhaps appropriately, as I come to save this post, Franz and Edwyn are on again on the ‘InTimate Stage’ stream. Nope, still shit.