We pulled into the pretty village of Audlem at about 3pm The Reads were listed as being on at The Bridge Inn at 4pm so plenty of time to wander and find the venue. The sun was beating down as we walked through the center, you could here music coming from alleys, shops and the volume increased as we passed The Lord Combermere pub on the corner. We paused briefly to take in the bluesy sounds being watched from the front of the Church then carried on to The Bridge Inn.
The stage was setup around the back of the pub on the car park. Once I'd fought my way to the bar and got the drinks in we checked out the remaining songs of a covers band Gambler who were doing a great job of the U2 classic 'Where The Streets Have No Name'. We found a shaded spot under the canopy (so we didn't get sunburn rather than trying to avoid rain another first) and waited for The Reads.....
Now I have to say that normally when I've seen bands at these smaller festivals or carnival type events the sound is crap but hats off to the event organiser. There was a proper sound desk and sound engineer and when The Reads had finished directing him to get their levels the sound was great. It really struck home when they broke into Galaxy Egg with the harmonica sounds that I thought might get a bit lost in this sort of a performance. Even with the distractions of dogs, wasps and kids I was enjoying the mellow sounds that really suited the warm Sunday afternoon. The thing that struck me most was that the band actually looked like they were having a laugh even if the audience didn't seem to be in on it at times as Stu Bennett described himself as looking like Wordy because you couldn't see his legs from the audience( I cracked up but the rest of the audience including my daughter seemed to be saying Who? which made it even funnier to me :]). The banter did seem to be breaking down the barriers though as Stu announced their return from a massive US tour while Clare shook her head in the background putting the audience in the know, he then followed this up by introducing the next song as their last US number one ;] It was all very funny to watch and he seemed to be enjoying that some of the people were going with it. The high point came for me as they played my favourite song off the album 'Nothing Bound' it really is a superb sound and deserves to be enjoyed on a warm chilled out day. As the set progressed the audience grew as did the audiences connection with the songs which was confirmed as they called for an encore after the announced final song Aud-l-em (Avalon). This seemed to throw them a bit but they finished on the wonderful Good Omens to a standing ovation (To be fair there were no seats so I might be milking that a bit).The only thing missing from this performance was that I think Stu Bennett forgot to thank Ian ;]
Having seen The Reads live I wouldn't hesitate to go and see them again and I suggest you go check out the wonderful Stories from the Border.
If you want to find out more about The Reads and how their 2nd album is progressing here's a few links
https://www.facebook.com/The.Reads.Music#!/The.Reads.Music
http://www.pledgemusic.com/artists/the-reads
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/stories-from-the-border/id424042436
http://thereads.tumblr.com/
Just as a final note we really enjoyed the time we spent at The Audlem festival and we'll definitely be back to check out more music next year......
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