Reading 2007. A festival of queues.

Don't get me wrong, I had a fucking brilliant time and saw loads of bands who were fantastic but the abiding memory is going to be that of having to queue for an hour and a half to get across that bastard river from my car to my campsite every time I needed to bring stuff over. I still bear the scars. As a friend of mine said, "this must be what war feels like."

But anyway, the highs for me were Smashing Pumpkins (who I fully expected to be disappointing so extra bonus points for the surprise factor there), Interpol, Metronomy, Long Blondes and The Horrors. Low points, apart from the poor organisation, were the rest of my campsite companions carking out early by 5am leaving me to sing Bon Jovi and Nik Kershaw songs (yes, I have nothing but the best compilation CDs) by myself around a dwindling fire, and the Chili Peppers from what I heard from my seat where I was drinking beer and trying to ignore them.

Hope anyone else who was there had as good a time as I did, feel free to add any comments about bands or post pics on here.

Secret Kanye Show For Vodafone TBA Awards

So, last Monday I went to the super secret Kanye show in Westminster (right next to the Houses of Parliament... nice)

After stupidly queuing in the wrong line for 20 minutes, we swiftly managed to get our label passes, get into the building, and into our seats in the golden circle upstairs.

The show was good; Kanyeeze has stage presence for days and bounded into the spotlight rapping whilst tour DJ A-Trak and the 30-piece orchestra energetically kicked the show off with 'I Wonder', an achingly beautiful song from the new album 'Graduation'. The Chi-town rapper then proceeded to perform a plethora of tracks from both old albums and new, including 'All Falls Down', 'Through The Wire' and current number one single 'Stronger', before culminating in an awesome flourish with a powerful rendition of 'Touch The Sky'. This final song was accompanied by immense bursts of confetti, people freaking out, and of course, the dulcet tones of adoring screaming fans.

I have to admit, having been blown away by the 'Graduation' playback last week, I was a little disappointed with the show; I expected Kanye to perform more tracks from the new album and stay on stage a little longer. That was my only reservation, and it's a small one at that. The fact is that this cat knows how to rock a show silly, and he's one of very few mainstream rappers out there who can leap and run around the stage, exercise excellent breath control AND get the crowd hyped all at the same time. For that, you've gotta admire him.

Here's a lovely download of a phat Diamonds Remix featuring Jay Z to brighten up your wet summer's day.

And don't forget, 'Graduation' is out in stores September 10th - be sure to check it out!