Reading Rock Festival 1988
 

Found this piece online about the infamous 1988 Reading Rock Festival - some interesting accounts of what went on and some great photos.

Andy I've checked the crowd pics, couldn't see you ;)

http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/reading-88.html

You won't have seen me, I wasn't at Reading :p

I was being kind by crediting you being at an event during my lifetime, as opposed to Knebworth before I was born :))

Wow, what animals. Throwing bottles of piss?

I remember when Duff McKagen got hit with a bottle of piss, knocked him out and ended the concert.

IMO the artist has a right to shut down a show a show if stuff is being thrown at them. If the crowd wants to kick the shit out the thrower(s) than that is their prerogative. Didn't Axl Rose shut down a show in Dublin a couple of years ago because the crowd was throwing shit?

:twisted: I think Axl is more likely to be the one throwing stuff at the audience :lawl:

If you take a mic stand to the face, you'd know it :doh:

I totally agree with that.

The article said that Meat was actually hit by one of the bottles and that had to have hurt. Do the crowd honestly think that the artist should just ignore the stuff being thrown at them? I'll bet that if it was them up there, they wouldn't be carrying on with the show either.

I never understood that about festivals; don't like the singer/band?Walk away! Same thing happens to My Chemical Romance every time they play a festival over here

Which is exactly what Meat did at Knebworth in 1985 when the same thing happened, he left the stage mid way through the set, came back a few minutes later and performed Bat and then left called it a day.

Plus, I believe, Meat went on stage in Knebworth with a broken leg to begin with

Indeed he did

I was at both Knebworth and Reading, i distinctly remember talking to Steve Buslowe before the Reading show about how surprised the band was that Starship were headlining over Meat...

Ironically, I just heard this morning that Axl is being sued for exactly that:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...icrophone.html


They could have at least offered to pay for the guy's dental work. :roll:

:twisted: Point made lol.

I know he didn't mean to hurt anyone, but it was a dumb thing to do.

I agree he should pay for the dental work, and maybe put in a little something extra for compensation, and throw in (no pun intended) some merchandise and tickets to his next show.

How ? On crutches or in a wheelchair ?

I've heard stories about how he performed the final concert in 1978 at Nassau (?) in a wheelchair after falling off the stage the previous concert. As the story goes they only did Nassau because it was a radio promo. Always thought it was bollocks though ! Anyone know for sure ?

At Knebworth he had a lightweight cast on his leg and was walking unaided, albeit with a limp. If I remember correctly he'd broken it a while earlier in Australia after falling off a stage during a show.

Yep, was in the news over here last week I think. Yes, throw guitar picks, drum sticks, spray water from your bottle even, but a mic? That's just silly.

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Actually, even a drum stick could hurt somebody, now that I think about it.

The report I heard on the radio made it sound like it was an accident, but when the fan approached the organization to ask what they were going to do about it, they offered to have Axl autograph the mic for him. :roll:

Even pro sports teams usually pay for medical bills if a fan is injured accidentally at a game- it's the right thing to do, even if they're not technically legally liable.

Common decency... But then, this IS Axle lol

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Axl has being throwing his mic into the audience at the end of the show for years, i doubt he means to hit anyone, just unfortunate that it hit someone this time. Im sure the mic has made a nice souviner for the fans over the years.

He's done this for years.

I hope this guy doesn't get anything. If you're at a GNR show and Axl gift wraps his microphone to you and you take it off your chin like a momo you deserve to lose a few teeth.

Ya I know. I'm mean. :-P

It was probably off the back of their huge no.1 hit the previous year. They wouldn't be above Meat on the bill now!
As a young green lad making his festival debut at Reading, I do distinctly remember the bottle throwing. But, at the time, I thought it was the norm for this sort of event.:oops:
When Meat eventually disappeared from the stage for good, my life was a lemon and I wanted my money back. Any chance of that refund Meat? :lol:
It was over 20 years later before I returned to the festival scene.

Bottle throwing was somewhat the norm in those days, although generally it was contained to within the crowd. I went to Donington Monsters Of Rock in 85 (or was it 86 I can't remember ... the year Bon Jovi were early on in the bill and Marillion and ZZ Top headlined) and fell asleep during Metallica thanks to a few beers and the hot sun, woke up to see I was laid out on a bank with about 100' diameter of clear space all around me and surrounded by what seemed like thousands of rock fans hurling bottles at each other!

Rock and roll at its best my friends :up:

Maybe they were using you as the net.

:twisted: If he had a twin brother you could have used them as the poles to hang the net from :lawl: