We were up at The Reading Festival to raz it up proper stylee. So we did.

Workaholic Canadians, Alexisonfire, were up for two sets on Friday: a main-stager at lunchtime, and an evening slot at 8pm. I sprinted out of work on Friday to make it to Reading in time to see Alexisonfire. I decided to not go past go, not collect £200 and not dump my unfeasibly heavy bag, so arrived with a sore back to which I would soon be adding a sore neck. Alexis’ new album is possibly their finest work so far, which is really saying something, especially when comparing it to 2007’s amazing, ‘Crisis’. And it’s awesome live, as the band proved back in June at their three Borderline shows in London. You tend to get two types of crowd – particularly with ‘tent bands’ – at festivals: people who check out a band they’ve heard of, hear the single and feck off; the other is the band who have ONKY devotees. Alexis are the second. It was awesome to see every mouth singing along to Alexis classics like ‘This Could Be Anywhere In The World’ and newbies like, ‘Young Cardinals’. They still didn’t play ‘Hey It’s Your Funeral Mama’ but with such an amazing set, which saw the band on predictably energetic form, who can argue. A band who will never let you down. There was no way any band could top this, so I went and got battered instead.

Enter Shikari may be divisive in ‘credible’ rock/metal/hardcore circles, but out in the real world they are simply a massive band who get mad love as well as mad behaviour from a huge and still growing number of people. Despite frustrating volume limitations the second half of the set seems louder, or at least we are able to hear the synths cutting through the mix. There was lots of new material in the set, with no ‘Return To Energiser’, but the crowd were mad for the new album songs, in particular, the single, ‘You’re Not Getting Any Sleep Tonight’, which had people right back to the icecream van singing along.

Another favourite is Atreyu: a band who seem to have finally shaken off the involuntary crown of metalcore, to become simply an unmissable 00s band. I was seven minutes late (OK, so I went to the wrong tent) but by the time I arrived the tent was bursting at the sides. The band mentioned that they were having some technical difficulties (which may have been lead guitar levels) but no one in the audience seemed to give a fuck as every body writhed and convulsed along to frontman, Alex Varkatzas’ urgent screams. The band used the space and all sides were visited by members who – with the benefit of wireless – came to rock the fringes. Treating us to a new song, the band ripped into Bleeding Is A Luxury, and despite no one having heard it, people were la-la-la-ing along to the chorus by its second round. Another festival highlight, one which only served to make the gathered thousands more excited about the new material ready to drop.

Now, through every fault of my own, I missed Faith No More at Brixton and at Download, so now was my chance. In the tent in the dark Faith No More stole my heart, my ears and my loins. Having loved this band since I had dubs of ‘The Real Thing’ and ‘Angel Dust’ on a TDK90 I’d never managed to catch them live, and tonight was a long-awaited meeting. The band pounded the hits, from opening with the soundtrack from ‘Midnight Cowboy’ to ‘Epic’, ‘Be Aggressive’ and a surprising airing of the Eastenders theme – which took a moment to place due to too much cider. And then they played it again. Despite not being their actual tune, I’m sure FNM wouldn’t mind me saying that ‘Easy’ was a transcendental experience, like coming up on imaginary ecstasy and needing someone to hug: from the security, to the bar staff, the fans and the people who had passed out on the grass everyone sang along. With a crimson velvet backdrop and Patton leaping around in his rock ringleader suit the whole event was a magical circus-like spectacle. Alexisonfire was going to be hard to beat, and I’m sure THEY wouldn’t mind it being Faith No More.

I know it’s not music, but on Sunday I took Mark from Atreyu and some of the Canadian Alexisonfire label/management team down to see comedian, Milton Jones. Much ROFLing and LOLing. If you like your surreal comedy awkward and awesome you’ll love Milton Jones.

Oh, and I saw Gavin from Gavin And Stacey, Adam Buxton from Adam And Joe, Ian Brown and someone pointed out that we had been standing next to Peaches Geldof – although to be honest I wouldn’t have been able to pick her out of the masses of identikit (wannabe)rock daughters in wellies and trendy blazers.

What a totally awesome weekend.