We get it. It’s Saturday afternoon, but it may as well be the crack of dawn. Last night’s fun is taking its toll. Bleary eyes, croaky voices, sore heads – The Japanese House is going to fix them all.
Even Amber Bain herself acknowledges she’s probably the perfect hangover cure on a day like this. As other stages spew forth riffs, she’s dealing in something more textured. ‘Sugar Pill’ becomes a woozy, reassuring embrace, ‘Teeth’ a pulsing, binaural joy. It’s hard to imagine why you’d want to be anywhere else.
An example of how Reading has moved to draw in more music to properly represent what’s going on each year, there’s a sizeable audience for a lunchtime slot on the middle day of a heavy weekend too. As the scenes change, and the audience follows, the event evolves with it. Tired dinosaurs should take note, The Japanese House is the future, the past is irrelevant, and that headache from the night before is well and truly gone.