| INFO | Reading Festival Launch Party
Point 101 bar
101 New Oxford Street
London
Hosted by Colin Murray See some photos of the night by clicking on the top right-hand links |
Despite Colin Murray's best efforts to create an element of surprise, everyone knew who he was going to announce as the closing headline act. The Radio 1 presenter, reading from documents only handed to him "a few minutes ago", really needn't have said: "I'm going to save Sunday's headline act til last". There wasn't a soul in the room that didn't know it was Iron Maiden, especially since frontman Bruce Dickinson was actually in the room. When he did finally name the world metal act that would be closing the festival this year, an expected cheer resounded from the hundreds of music journalists and industry professionals at Point 101 bar in London, the home of the festival launch party. This all came after Colin announced the other none-too-surprising acts on the main stage and the Radio 1/NME stage - see right-hand links for more info on the line-up - including a little gibe at hot new band on the block The Killers, who will be treading the main stage boards. "Give 'em six months" he remarked with a smirk. Handbag Colin! Admittedly compared to Iron Maiden, who have been around for more than 20 years and last played Reading in 1982, these new bands could be seen as young upstarts. This hammered home even more when Bruce himself, sporting a smart short back and sides haircut (thankfully not the long-haired mullet of old), bounded onto the stage for a quick talk, including how the band will be playing songs from the band's first four albums: Iron Maiden, Killers, Number Of The Beast and Piece Of Mind. | "There will be a lot of songs that fans have been asking us to play for years along with fan favourites." | | Bruce Dickinson on what we can expect from the Reading Festival gig |
He said of the band's only UK festival performance: "Following the great reception received by our recent DVD The Early Days, which chronicled the Maiden story over the first four albums, we decided to give the fans a special treat. "There will be a lot of songs that fans have been asking us to play for years along with fan favourites like Number Of The Beast, Run To The Hills, Hallowed Be Thy Name and The Trooper. "In keeping with this we have put together a massive show where the stage sets, production, pyros and backdrops will recreate aspects of the shows we toured around. Except bigger - much bigger!" Afterwards, while everyone enjoyed the free booze and titbits, we chatted to Neil Pengelly, in charge of organising the festival line-up. He said, when asked about which band he's most excited about: "I'd say Razorlight. They played last year but they're one of the best Brit bands around." The band aficionado, who has been booking the line-up since 1991 and started off organising acts for the comedy tent, will be booking more than 100 acts over the next three to four weeks. Of the Reading festival he said: "At Reading you can really rock out, at festivals like V you go to see Maroon 5, at Reading you can go and see more established acts." It wasn't long before Bruce himself grabbed a pew with us and joined in the chat: find out what he said in our exclusive interview with him via the top right-hand link. Colin Murray, ho will introduce the bands on the Radio 1/NME stage in Reading, said he actually preferred the sister festival at Leeds: "Reading is too easy to go home to for me, but if I'm at Leeds I can completely mosh out at Leeds for the whole three days." And moshing out is what tens of thousands of you will be doing from Friday 26th August to Sunday 28th August. Three day weekend tickets, including camping and parking, are priced at £125 each plus booking fee. National Credit Card Hotline - See Tickets, Wayahead: 0870 060 3775 Online: www.meanfiddler.com, www.readingfestival.com, www.seetickets.com See you there!
See some of the photos of the night by clicking on the righthand links. | 
