Reading 2012: FIDLAR, Festival Republic Stage

The Festival Republic Stage is a mystical place. Not like Hogwarts; but every year it throws up something special. A band ends up drawing a crowd, or even a reaction, which genuinely seems to ‘of note’. Today, FIDLAR are having their magic moment.

‘We were told you’d all be stood like this,’ frontman Zac Carper exclaims, folding his arms and looking glum. ‘But actually, you go off harder than American kids.’

He’s right too. FIDLAR may not reinvent the wheel, but what they do, they do well. A punk rock slacker’s wet dream, there’s nothing contrived about it either. In the lineage of Wavves, it’s just goddamn fun. So much fun that a tent full of impressionable young adults, most of whom are doubtlessly only hearing the band for the first time, are going absolutely nuts.

There are circle pits in full flow by the second song, songs about cheap beer (the imaginatively titled ‘Cheap Beer’), LSD (the relatively tripped out ‘The Punks Are Finally Taking Acid’) and cocaine. In any other band, it might get old. Not with FIDLAR, though. Even their name screams an effortless brilliance; Fuck It Dog, Life’s A Risk. FIDLAR are fun.