Sometimes even all the words in the world can’t describe the essence of what something is. The reality of Reading Festival is one of these things. No phrases can describe the thick stench of post-A level hedonism that fills the air. No adjectives can truly capture the toilets. This, after all, is a place where Limp Bizkit, The Wombats, and Kendrick Lamar can play alongside one another without so much as the bat of an eyelid. This, dear reader, is a festival that imprisoned Evian Christ in a small cage.When the Noisey review of Reading runs later, I'll renounce all this because it will be A* obviously, but until then, come to @SpottedReading. For @SpottedReading is the only place where one can truly understand what happened at Reading Festival. Over two years, it has amassed 25,000 followers, empowering the person behind it until they have become the mighty and flaming eye of Sauron that surveys the site.
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It finds the lad who repeatedly set his pubes on fire; it captures the friends who put their trunks on and Klinsmann’d through the shitty bogs; it champions the man who sits bare assed on the campfire for a bet; it consoles the girl who did too much MDMA and turned into a lizard on the last night; it cements in history the brave warriors who put Strongbow boxes on their heads and ride piggyback into battle. If Chris Morris and Werner Herzog had co-directed You've Been Framed, this is how it would look. Simply put, it is Reading’s Chilcott Inquiry, but with jokes, Vines, and ketamine.Shoutout to the girl from G6 who fell asleep and become a game of human buck-a-roo pic.twitter.com/8EKlkjqXjS
— Spotted:Reading Fest (@SpottedReading) August 31, 2015
At times it's ugly, and although it claims to be compiled with user submissions, it's not always clear whether those submissions are from the people the tweets are about. Shaming people who are just trying to have a good time at a festival is ugly and obviously wrong, but it does seem that most of the people on Spotted Reading are proud performers revelling at the majesty of their achievements. I do not doubt that if you told Beatty, who reportedly hotboxed his rain poncho and gained x-ray vision, that he should feel ashamed, he would guffaw in your face while staring straight through you. SpottedReading accepts any requests for videos or photos to be taken down immediately.Marlon vs Mr pump pic.twitter.com/gav7yTLHvW
— Spotted:Reading Fest (@SpottedReading) August 31, 2015
Yes we know it's not pretty, but the truth so rarely is.— Spotted:Reading Fest (@SpottedReading) August 31, 2015
The Battle of Purple pic.twitter.com/OcCZHXywGi
— Spotted:Reading Fest (@SpottedReading) August 31, 2015