Name: Crystal Castles
Where and when: Dance stage, Sunday, 5.25pm, Reading
Dress code: Black leather, strong eyeliner and chipped nail polish.
Who's watching: Those ker-azy kids, tranquil jumping afterwards three days.
In a nutshell: A complete fog courtesy of the smoke machine coats the stage to the point where is difficult to see vocaliser Alice Glass make an appearance, though it isn't a problem because she can be heard shouting "Fuck, ass, fuck, roll in the hay, fuck, shag" for no apparent reason. The Toronto duo's set goes off without a hitch, with typically propellent performances of Crimewave and Alice Practice resulting in endless screaming and peppy around from the interview. Their messy techno-punk doesn't cause quite an the reported mayhem of their Leeds gig (with Glass getting right into the dense of the crowd) nor does it result in them having the sound cut (as with their Glastonbury 2008 performance) merely it does feature the singer leaping from the speakers and playing dead, and is received with a great deal of joy.
High point: Courtship Dating, the track that brought them a reasonable degree of prominence for its (hem) similarity to the Timbaland produced cartroad Ayo Technology, and which kicks the crowd surfriding into cogwheel.
Low point in time: The smoke machine. Some people couldn't see a bloody thing.
How hard do they rock?: It must be tiring being Alice Glass, flinging herself and about and tattle in that high-pitched room. Her knob-twiddling partner Ethan Kath has it well-to-do. Anyway, they rocked simply the right side of hard.
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