“We Just Power Through!” CLASH Meets Courting
In contrast to a scorching first day, the Saturday crowd at Reading Festival 2024 experienced torrential downpours all morning.
Liverpudlian indie rocks Courting were unlucky enough to be performing on the Main Stage as the heavens opened, but it didn’t dent a buoyant, cobweb-blowing set. Indeed, cheekily the band slipped in a cover of the Oasis hit ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ midway through their second number ‘Crass’.
After the set, frontman Sean Murphy O’Neill sat down with CLASH to discuss the set and what next for his group.
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Clash: How are you doing?
Sean: Good, thank you. But very wet. We caught the worst of (the rain). It was arguably completely fine until we stepped on stage. It was sunny as soon as we stepped off, but I can’t say I expected less.
Clash: You caught it the rain at the perfect time, but at least it gave you something to fight against!
Sean: Exactly. I said during the gig, that if – personally – if I’d been in the crowd during that rain, I wouldn’t have left my tent, so I’m very grateful that people even came in that rain at all.
Clash: How many times have you done Reading?
Sean: This is our second festival, first time on the Main Stage. Last time we did the Festival Republic tent. Today was fantastic, could have been sunnier but it was great!
Clash: So, the new album has been out for six months…
Sean: Yeah, it came out in January…? I dunno. But we’re still off the back of that until today. Today we’re stopping that now and moving on to the next one.
Clash: Have the songs grown and evolved in that time?
Sean: I think so. In the time we’ve been playing them, we’ve had time to mess around and keep things interesting. As a process, we tend to move on quite quickly, so we’re already thinking about the next record rather than where they sit. We just power through.
Clash: You’ve had a busy year though, where else have you been?
Sean: To be honest, we had a really busy spring, with like 40/50 dates, and then we had a month off to record, get ready for this and prepare. This has been our main festival of the summer.
Clash: And then what next?
Sean: We’re heading to America in October to do a support bar for Wunderbar. Then after that, who knows?
Clash: How have you worked out your festival set?
Sean: We try to make something special for it. Rather than playing what we do and move it towards the festival, we try and make something a little bit different and special. We built something for Reading & Leeds, and I’m happy with how it turned out.
Clash: Was that the ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ reference?
Sean: Yeah. I just kind of wanted to piss people off. I always think it’s funny, in that situation where people may not know who you are, I always think it’s good to do something to bait them in a little, then ruin it a bit. That’s our game, that’s our move. It was quite fun.
Clash: It was seamless, in the middle of the song. You didn’t do the chorus, I notice.
Sean: Exactly. It’s part of the schtick. We’re getting quite good and throwing unnecessary, seamless covers in the middle of that song. It’s the reason we play that song, solely to do a cover.
Clash: What other covers have you done?
Sean: The last time we were here, we did ‘I Love It’ by Charli XCX. Since then, we’ve done another cover of ‘Last Nite’ by The Strokes… they’re pretty tame, we’ve done much worse. We spent a few months just doing ‘We Are Young’ by Fun, but personally I felt – based on the lineup today – that felt a little unfair. Jack Antonoff may have been in his dressing room, being blasted with a song he made 12 years ago. So we stepped that one out, in the hope that Liam Gallagher may be here.
Clash: Sadly, it’s his day off! You’re at Leeds tomorrow, what do you think are the differences between the two sites?
Sean: Genuinely, until today, my main difference would be that Reading is sunnier. But that’s been proved to be wrong! I dunno, Reading may be a bit more tame? I’m not sure. Not in a bad way though. I don’t mean in terms of crowd or the show, but more like the camping experience of the two festivals. I think people take Leeds a bit more ‘Party Party’ but Reading is a little bit more relaxed, maybe. But I personally find that the crowds are very similar. I think people who try and ‘one-up’ the other…it’s not really fair.
Clash: Like The Last Dinner Party…..SHE said ‘Are you going to be louder than Leeds?’ and they haven’t even been there yet.
Sean: Exactly. I guess people just want to outdo the other festival without even thinking about it. I guess maybe they also don’t know the rotation as well as we do. That’s what I feel.
Clash: Totally. Are you going to check out anyone else?
Sean: We’re going to hang out as long as we can, really. I’d love to see Lana, we just watched The Last Dinner Party’s set and that was really great. Whoever, really. I’m very sad I don’t get to watch Skrillex, that will be pretty good, I’d imagine.
Clash: So what’s next? You’ve done some work on the next album, what’s after that?
Sean: It’s all completely secret!
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Words: Richard Bowes
Photo Credit: Charlie Barclay Harris
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