MY READING FESTIVAL 2012 REVIEWS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED ON STRICTLY READING & LEEDS WEBSITE

So, as you know (if you've read my previous blog) I was at Reading Festival last weekend. When I got back I dictated 6 reviews on a few of the bands I saw, and submitted them to the Strictly Reading & Leeds fan website.

I'm over the moon to say that they have ALL been published! You can read them (and other excellent reviews) here:

You Me At Six
Dear Prudence
Hadouken!
Kaiser Chiefs
Santigold
The Joy Formidable

I plan to write further blogs on various festival and live music themes (including further band reviews from Reading 2012) over the coming months, so stay tuned!

LEARNING LESSONS THE HARD WAY - PETULANT TEENAGERS

Yesterday I spent the day in Festival Comedown mode, having spent the previous 3 days, my favourite weekend of the year, at Reading Festival. In fact, I love Reading Festival weekend so much that I start preparing for it months in advance by adding the bands to a big spreadsheet as they are announced, and then listening to tracks by all of the bands I don't know or have not seen before and adding notes on whether I want to see them or not.

Now, I know that sounds really nerdy, but I'm a massive live music fan, and Reading Festival is my favourite opportunity to discover bands that make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, and give me that little flutter in my chest. It never fails to deliver - I've discovered at least one of these gems every year. I'll be covering those in a forthcoming blog, but for now I want to share an experience I had yesterday, on Festival Comedown day, that nearly finished me off.

Festival Comedown day is not a good day to be with me. I'm usually so tired that I can't be bothered to open my mouth, let alone find the energy to formulate a coherent sentence. I feel like I have been run over by a herd of stampeding wildebeest. I am utterly distraught because I am not standing in a field with all of those fantastic bands, being whisked away from real life and into a euphoric trance where I am up on THAT stage with THAT band, dancing with glee and happiness. In short, I am a miserable cow.

So, yesterday morning I dragged my achy, knackered carcass out of bed and into the shower in an attempt to wake myself up and to remove the remnants of a dubious liquid that landed on my head as The Black Keys stomped their way through their set the night before (the thought of which sent me into a shampooing frenzy). I eventually stumbled down the stairs and into my little studio, thinking that I would check Facebook to see what my gigging buddies had posted about the weekend, in an attempt to postpone the inevitable slide back into the real world.

And then I heard it. Silence. The PC wasn't on.

I stood, confused, trying to cast my befuddled mind back to Thursday night, the last time I used the PC. Had I switched it off?!? Now, I should point out that I very rarely shut it down because we have a very difficult relationship. It is like a stroppy teenager. If it doesn't like something I'm attempting to do it will go into a huff, scowl and stick its fingers in its ears so it can't hear me. So I try not to antagonise it by giving it too many jobs to do.

I looked at the box. The light definitely wasn't on. I sat down at the desk and spied the external hard drive and adapter on the desk beside me, and a worrying thought crept into my mind. On Thursday it had blue-screened after I printed the spreadsheet, and I'd got the hard drive out with the intention of carrying out a full back up today, on Festival Comedown day.

I sank to my knees in front of the box and tentatively pushed the start button.

Nothing.

I pushed it again, this time a bit more urgently. I heard a tiny "pfffft" noise, and the light briefly came on and went off, albeit with all the illumination of an expiring gloworm.

I pushed it again, this time with more vigour as a rising panic started to grip me. EVERYTHING is on that computer. My entire 16,000 track music library. All of my Nikki Noodles tracks. All of the photos and videos I have ever taken with a digital camera and phone, including footage of my own gigs with my band, footage of gigs I've been to, photos of festivals, family, friends, holidays....

Again, a tiny "pffft", and nothing else.

I stared, for what seemed like a very long time, at the box. Festival Comedown day is not the day to be trying my patience. It stood there defiantly. I could sense the teenager within was smirking.

As I sat there I realised that I had not done a full back up of my files for probably around a year, so if the PC was dead all of the work I had done on my last track, "Insane" and my new track, "House Of Cards" would be gone. All I had, other than what is on the PC and Soundcloud, was two solitary mp3s that I'd added to my ipod just before Reading Festival.

I admit it. In my tired and utterly exasperated state I put my head to my knees and sat and cried, and turned the air blue with expletives at my frustration for being such an idiot. What possessed me to postpone the back up until today? Why didn't I set it going on Thursday night? I realised I had no idea how to rescue the situation. I had no idea whether I would be able to retrieve what might be lost.

Eventually I sat up and stared angrily at the box. I leant forward and switched it off at the wall, threw one last expletive at it, and stomped off to sulk in the front room. My other half, who is an absolute star and always tiptoes around me on Festival Comedown day for fear that I might take his head off with the blunt end of a spoon, put the Reading Festival footage of the Foo Fighters on the TV for me, and I slowly drifted back out of the real world and into a better mood. As they started to scythe their way through my favourite FFs track, "All My Life", I took my frustration out by yelling the lyrics as loud as I could and stamping my foot with the kick drum.

As the song finished I sauntered back into the studio, flicked the switch at the wall and jabbed the start button of the PC.

And it started up!

Hastily I plugged in the hard drive and set it on a full back up. I'm pleased to say it completed this morning.

So the morals of this story are:

1) When techies say, "Have you turned it off and on again" they might be onto something

2) If you ignore a petulant teenager they will get bored and give in

3) MAKE SURE YOU DO REGULAR FULL BACK UPS!!!!
I, for one, will be making sure one is performed on this PC at least once a month, and definitely after any major additions or changes to any files. If this blog only helps one person avoid a similar fate it will be worth it.

I told you I could talk for England....