By Sunday night of the Reading Festival, after three days of being out in the elements and with no money, no drugs and no booze left, the campsites begin to resemble something out of Lord of the Flies: posh kids with muddy faces setting fire to daddy’s tent and braying "Bollocks!" into the night. Myths about the mischief that goes on have been circulating for years: toilets being set on fire, trolley wars, guys getting their balls blown off by exploding gas cannisters. But by far the best story is the one about the cage fights…
Here’s what happens: crowds of kids kick down the security fences and lean them together to make an arena into which they hurl two 16-year-olds on MDMA who then pretend to fight each other. For the past two summers they’ve pitted Emo vs Indie, with the amassed hordes banging on the fences screaming "Emo! Emo!" or "Indie! Indie!" Here’s a low-quality clip from last year’s cage fights.
This year I was so on the lookout for cage fights that I found myself almost promoting them like Don King. The signs looked ominous when it emerged that 19 cars were set ablaze. However, to the best of my knowledge, the fights didn’t happen this year. I did hear reports about a Tunnel of Filth in one of the campsites where Emo kids were bullied into sliding down a tunnel that led them (unwittingly) straight into a stream filled with piss and shit and rubbish. Someone got some photos of it which we’ll put up as soon as we get them back from Snappy Snaps.
READING 2008
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More: The Festival Guide 2008
Reader Comments
August 26th, 2008
You think thats bad go to Leeds, its like those Nazi mass graves but without the smiling Germans
August 26th, 2008
Another highlight from this year’s Sunday night riots: sitting in the campsite with a bunch of buddies all off their tits on Ketamine. Them noticing a tent being set on fire by a bunch of boys and creasing up. Then one of them standing up and going “hang on, that’s our tent” and them all running over to find all their worldly possessions had been burnt to the ground. Hilarious.
August 26th, 2008
i want to put one in the yellow wellies girl.
August 26th, 2008
the worse stuff i saw this year at reading was-
* 2 punk girls walking around Reading with a bag of used tampons, and throwing them at any emos they saw.
* an indie kid so wasted on ketamine (his girlfriend told me that’s what he had taken for 2 days straight instead of food, water and sleep) that he shit himself while waiting to buy an ice cream.
* and some mid aged banker guy wasted on acid thinking that dogs were trying to bite his penis off, so he wrapped his 2 man tent around his penis and hips and walked around with it trailing behind him like a tail.
August 26th, 2008
the worse stuff i saw this year at reading was-
* 2 punk girls walking around Reading with a bag of used tampons, and throwing them at any emos they saw.
* an indie kid so wasted on ketamine (his girlfriend told me that’s what he had taken for 2 days straight instead of food, water and sleep) that he shit himself while waiting to buy an ice cream.
* and some mid aged banker guy wasted on acid thinking that dogs were trying to bite his penis off, so he wrapped his 2 man tent around his penis and hips and walked around with it trailing behind him like a tail.
August 26th, 2008
the worse stuff i saw this year at reading was-
* 2 punk girls walking around Reading with a bag of used tampons, and throwing them at any emos they saw.
* an indie kid so wasted on ketamine (his girlfriend told me that’s what he had taken for 2 days straight instead of food, water and sleep) that he shit himself while waiting to buy an ice cream.
* and some mid aged banker guy wasted on acid thinking that dogs were trying to bite his penis off, so he wrapped his 2 man tent around his penis and hips and walked around with it trailing behind him like a tail.
August 26th, 2008
the worse stuff i saw this year at reading was-
* 2 punk girls walking around Reading with a bag of used tampons, and throwing them at any emos they saw.
* an indie kid so wasted on ketamine (his girlfriend told me that’s what he had taken for 2 days straight instead of food, water and sleep) that he shit himself while waiting to buy an ice cream.
* and some mid aged banker guy wasted on acid thinking that dogs were trying to bite his penis off, so he wrapped his 2 man tent around his penis and hips and walked around with it trailing behind him like a tail.
August 26th, 2008
K won’t keep you up for 2 days, it’ll do the exact opposite in that quantity.
August 26th, 2008
dopes
August 27th, 2008
On sunday night between Purple and Yellow camp
we got an angry mob and ripped the roofs off the toliet blocks, also the wall dividers were destroyed between the toilets so when you finally bucked up the courage to take a shit without throwing up from the smell, a girl walks through the opposite door to the sight of you
also funnist thing i saw was girl cellotaped to a pole with marker pen dicks on her, the guy who did it said he went into his tent to find a passed out random girl. he got the idea of cellotaping her up as he had seen 2 other girls in the same position
August 28th, 2008
The best that i saw was a small children s (pull along) wagon that was being called a trolley, being pulled along then turned sideways to have the people fall out. It was then 1uped as they pulled a girl along on the “trolley” into a tent that had been placed on the road full of shit, piss, and used tampons. She looked like a modern art masterpiece when she finally emerged!
August 28th, 2008
Fucktards
August 28th, 2008
re shit stream near brown camp, i think that’s reaper bridge next to green camp
August 28th, 2008
Reaper Bridge is between Green and Brown isnt it?
August 28th, 2008
swimming in kak for £120 or whatever the ticket it is? While nottinhill carnival is on? very clever
August 28th, 2008
swimming in kak for £120 or whatever the ticket it is? While nottinhill carnival is on? very clever
August 28th, 2008
whoever said leeds was worse than that is a fucking pussy.
August 29th, 2008
you’re all a bunch or retards, the lot of you.
August 29th, 2008
my mate saw a girl who was ketted up to the eyeballs pull her own tongue piercing out, then precede to lie down in the middle of the path and finger herself - all whilst completely naked. her boyfriend then came along and, rather than do the decent thing and carry her back off to her tent to let it all blow over, he began to join in with the sexual misconduct.
i was gutted i missed this. i spent sunday night floating around my campsite preventing all the 15-year-old private school fucktards, who had started a bonfire a couple metres away, from burning our tents and pissing on my valuables.
August 29th, 2008
This is frightening… why do people do this to themselves?
August 29th, 2008
anyone remember the random naked girl starting fights with security guards in yellow 3? may be the same girl from bammm’s comment! she got dragged off eventually and was screaming like mad, then the paramedics pulled her out of the tent with a skirt on and helped her clamber up into the back of the ambulance, at which point her boyfriend thought it’d be jokes to whip up the skirt and bare all again =P
August 31st, 2008
they didnt slide down the tunnel it was a tunnel of people and they ran threw not knowing what was at the end
jokes
September 24th, 2008
I saw a guy fucked on acid with a camera tightly bound to his face with duct tape, and a sign saying “I see life through a lens” round his neck, I didn’t sleep that night.