NOWHERE NEAR LIVE FROM THE READING FESTIVAL, DAY 2 CONTINUED

Hey, the damn thing wears you out.

So about the Arctic Monkeys. They were typically great. Played the hell out of every song and did not look lost on the big stage under those brilliant lights. They were, I think, nervous in a way that came off as nonplussed, just as it was hard to tell whether Alex's exhortations for the crowd to be a little more excited was ironic (but if it wasn't, hey, the place was also full of Muse fans. Though Susan says the fringes of the field were way more crowded for the Monkeys).

The songs are too wordy and Alex's phrasing too adept to really lend themselves to sing-along, but you cannot accuse the man of failing to give the people what they want -- the crowd's takeover of "Mardy Bum" pretty much overwhelmed him, so for "When the Sun Goes Down" he let the "Hungry Heart" thing happen.

As for Muse, my feeling about them is if they were any good, I'd like them. So I know they aren't any good. Sounds circular I know, but I like prog, I like guitar wank, I like sci-fi pretentiousness. But they play bad prog, and it's incompetent guitar wank. Hey, remember when Muse and Travis were the most prominent post-Radiohead bands? Come back, Fran Healy! And what does Thom Yorke's brother do for a living these days?