Reading & Leeds 2009: Dananananaykroyd, Reading Festival

Opening a festival isn’t always an easy job. On one hand, it may result in massive good feeling, kicking off the best weekend of the assembled revelers lives. On the other, it may be pissing it down and half the masses may still be in bed. Thankfully for Dananananaykroyd, only one of those factors applied.

It’s midday, the heavens have opened and somebody is lucky enough to be playing the biggest tent on the site. Jackpot. To assume the assembled masses are only present for shelter would seem a bit previous, though. The reception is impressive to say the least.

‘Pink Sabbath’ is bettered in terms of reaction by ‘Black Wax’, the latter provoking a mass sing-a-long. ‘The Greater Than Symbol and the Hash’ sounds brutal, and there’s a fabled Wall of Hugs that manages to encapsulate half the massive crowd. If bands have collective dreams at night, you have to imagine they’d go something like this.

Festivals are usually claimed by some band half way up the smallest stage, placed by a clever record label to ‘do a Franz Ferdinand’. If someone intends to do that this year, they’re going to have to do mighty well to get over this bar. Consider Reading officially on.