So.....

Reading.
Well, same as ever, really. Enjoy the atmosphere, try not to get distracted by too many bands (!) and sit in that backstage area and get wasted.
Franz Ferdinand as headliners was a mistake, I think: at the end of the album cycle, with no new material, it all felt a little flat. Certainly there wasn't the same level of expectation as there was around Muse on Saturday. I managed to inveigle some DJ time in the VIP tent (partly as an insurance policy against rain) which meant hanging around with The Towers Of London; this was EXACTLY as Rock'n'Roll as you would expect :)
The interesting thing about Reading was the increasing level of corporate involvement: from swanky backstage tents, to targeted marketing, the entire thing seemed more money-orientated than ever before. It's no surprise: we live in an era when physical record sales are plummeting, it was always obvious that the live music market would therefore be squeezed even harder to extract every penny that was being lost to downloads, P2P, file-sharing...Or whatever the major companies were blaming this week. But there was a desperation, a blind rush for profit evident at this years festival that slightly depressed me.