Andy Summers from "One Train Later"...
"Held at the height of summer each year, Reading is the number one rock festival in Britain, and to headline it is a clear stamp of success. We arrive in the late afternoon to the sprawling festival site. There is a crowd of thirty thousand out in the muddy field beyond the stage. Backstage we sit in a tent with our feet on planks of wood because of the mud. The smell of mud and canvas mixes with the crowd's buzzing noise in the field, and I remember sitting on a hard wooden bench beneath the big top of Billy Smart's Circus between my parents, terrified as they laughed out loud at lurid clown antics, ice cream dripping down my woolly sweater and pee running down my legs. In the already chill evening we mount the stairs to climb from the dark into the light, and a roar like a crashing wave rolls across the stage, drums explode, and we rocket into the first song. This is the biggest crowd we have played to, and it's like trying to take control of a writhing beast. But we are intense, furious, tenacious. Sting takes command of the crowd, and they are willing conspirators who sing, chant, and clap along until we finish with a roaring 'Can't Stand Losing You.' It's a moment of triumph, and as I descend the steps to the backstage area Lemmy is standing there and he leans forward and whispers into my ear, "'Who smells of roses, then?'"
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