Reading TR part2 +WCOOP

Well it's been a long 24 hours since I promised i'd put part 2 up (mostly because it was closer to 72) but that's mostly because other than 2 short trips to the gym i've been glued to my computer screen. Last night I made the final table of the Daily 30k Guaranteed but ran Queens into Aces vs the chipleader to come 6th for a mere $1500. FML!

So back to Reading;

Saturday;
I woke on Saturday morning with the familiar headache and bad back that I'm now growing quite fond of, almost like I couldn't be having fun at a festival without them. I managed to resist the urge of Fightstar on the main stage and decided to accompany Lizzie, Abbie and Laura to Spinnerete on the NME stage who gave a good rocky half hour of songs that despite not knowing, I was more than happy to dance along to. Unfortunately, the BBC chose not to record this set for TV, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

After the set I left the girls to walk back to Tom's campsite to meet up with him, and we decided to go straight back into the festival and chill in the comedy tent for abit. It was pretty good to sit there and chill for a few hours, even if some of the comics were abit suspect.

Firstly we saw Jessica Delfino who, although showed some merit was stifled by a) not being very funny and b) because she wasn't very funny the crowd begun to talk so it became harder to hear her. She occasionally hit upon some genius one liners but finding a laugh seemed quite similar to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Then we saw Gary Delaney, who strikes me as everything you might find at a Jimmy Carr concert. He stood there for about 30 minutes and delivered roughly 150 simple buildup-punchline jokes, which were admittedly very funny in places. Although I enjoyed his set, I kind of felt cheap for enjoying such a basic brand of comedy afterwards.

Lastly and most controversially, Doug Stanhope an American comic who can only be described as a cross between Frankie Boyle and Jerry Sadowitz. If Gary Delaney made me feel cheap for laughing at his set, Stanhope certainly made me feel dirty for his racist/sexist/masochistic/narcissistic view of life. Tom's girlfriend Fiona did, however, not laugh and actually started heckling him (safely from the back of the tent) and got up and walked out before the end of his set. Luckily she returned after and we all went back to our respective campsites.

As I got back to the campsite, everyone was there getting food and tanked up for the evening bill of the Prodigy, followed by the Arctic Monkeys and as the time came nearer we slowly trundled towards the main stage.

In short it was an evening of incredibly ups and downs. We got to witness one of the really great live bands of our generation in the Prodigy, who made close to 100,000 people dance/mosh/sing along to their rocky dance tunes. The one small downside of the performance for us was that we were just in front of the second set of speakers, putting us in quite a quiet spot, making it a bit too quiet for our youthful ears that are used to music on full volume.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/readingandleeds/2009/artists/prodigy/

(You may need to confirm you are over 16 to watch this video)

Unfortunately for us, whatever comes up must come down as we went from one of the best live bands of our generation to one of the worst. The Arctic Monkeys did not only have the same 'fuck you' attitude as the Kings Of Leon, but they couldn't back that up with a really good quality set. They played almost all of their new album which was released about a week before the performance (and in that week was completely panned by the press), leaving the crowd with not much to do but stand there and wonder how a band like this could ever headline a festival of this stature, much less win a Mercury music prize. I wouldn't really advise watching, but I may as well keep with the rest of the report

http://www.bbc.co.uk/readingandleeds/2009/artists/arcticmonkeys/video3.shtml#emp

As it's 4:30 and my tournaments are just starting now, I shall have to leave Sunday until tomorrow. Good luck to all my poker people in the $215 Pot Limit Omaha tonight as well as the $200 rebuy NL Single draw and the $109 8 game.

Later taters xx