With the return of the Reading and Leeds festival this weekend, Dirty Soup's Raife Burchell shares his favourite artists from previous years with LBB.
Raife says: I’ve played at and attended music festivals all around the world, and Reading and Leeds is one of my favourites. It’s given me some of my most memorable musical moments, both onstage and off. Undoubtedly the best year I had there was 2002. The Prodigy, The Strokes, and The Foo Fighters were headlining. I played shows at both sites - Friday Leeds, Saturday Reading. My god, I was nervous, but my god, did I have fun up there. It was loud as hell, and the crowd didn’t disappoint. They were fully committed, genuine music lovers. Hardcore to the very core!
The moment that’s stuck with me most, though, was something that happened after I’d played the Saturday show at Reading. I was milling about backstage, behind the main stage. I wanted to see how the big bands operated. Incubus were getting close to the end of their set, and Slipnot were up next. There was a sudden shift in the energy in the backstage area. I turned around and could see a few heavy-duty security guards moving through the crowd - they were pretty much shoulder barging anyone in their way out of their way—even the other bands and their security guards. Then, behind them, I suddenly saw all of the members of Slipnot appear - fully masked and ready to play. They were moving at a decent pace, and they looked really (f*****g) intimidating! Everyone, and I mean everyone, moved out of their way.
They were about 20 feet from me when the lead singer suddenly turned around, stopped and looked directly through the crowd at me. I did one of those comedy double takes, like, “Jesus, is he looking at me?” He then suddenly broke away from the pack and made a b-line through the crowd in my direction. My girlfriend grabbed me and said ‘oh god, what’s happening?”. I didn’t have time to think as it was all happening so quickly. I just stayed still as he marched straight up to me and got directly in my face - he was about an inch from me. His eyes were caked in black eyeliner and I could feel his less than minty fresh breath on my face. I didn’t give an inch. Not because I wanted to front him out. I just didn’t know what else to do? We were face to face for what felt like... FOREVER, but It was probably only a few seconds. Then, in the creepiest Chucky style voice, he said, “have I got a bee on my faaaaaccccce?”. I replied in my most polite nervous English bloke way, “I’m sorry?” “I said, have I got a bee on my faaaaaccccce?” - he calmly asked again. “Erm, no, you don’t” - I replied. He chuckled to himself, turned around and made his way towards the main stage to play the show. I won’t lie, I nearly shat my pants. Have fun listening to my playlist.
