Weezer at Reading: Piss-take or phenomenal?

This weekend, Weezer played the Reading/Leeds festivals. They hadn't played in the UK since 2005, when Make Believe came out, and because Weezer are one of those bands who have a fan base so rabid I checked my vaccinations before heading to Reading yesterday, the potential for a total and utter let-down was worrying. Sure, the Red Album and (sigh) Raditude were both more useful as paperweights than as records, and expectations of the band's festival shows had probably lowered overall, but the faith in River's genius is still strong in a lot of people, and his band's first three and a half albums (that's right - Maladroit's singles are awesome) constitute a ridiculously good back catalogue. Theoretically, that is. Because someone who sees fit to write and record something as turgid as "In The Mall" might just be capable of leaving "Buddy Holly" off of a festival set list.

In that last respect, we needn't have worried. They played it as their last song and it sounded awesome. It was what came before that was less of a straight-forward affair. Rivers stage persona these days looks like the Woody-Allen-esque nerd he is, but behaves like 8-year-old trying to impress a family gathering. There was a silly wolf hat, a mudbath, high-fives for everyone in the first 3 rows, and some covers. Ah, the covers. Many fans will fume at the fact that they thought it more appropriate to play cover songs and not a single track off of Pinkerton, but my guess is that most of these people will not have been at Reading yesterday - when they started doodling the intro to "Teenage Dirtbag", I thought it was a lovely little joke about how people used to confuse the two bands back in the day, but as it became clear they'd play the whole song, everyone around us just embraced it and sang along like it was a Weezer classic.

"Kids" was played in the same straight-faced way, and you could tell Rivers (like lots of others) just appreciates MGMT and wanted to create a fun moment at a festival. I'd rather watch that than a deadly serious, arty-angsty Foals set, ta very much*.

Sure, "The Good Life" or "Don't let go" would have been nice, but we got "Surf Wax America", "My Name is Jonas" and fucking "Undone"! (New single "Memories" sounded a bit pants though - catchy enough but rather Rivers-by-numbers) And if the rumours are true, we'll get all the "proper" Weezer songs in their full glory anyway. In the mean-time, I'll keep trawling Youtube for some decent footage of Rivers falling over in the mud and the bit where everyone hopped up and down for the 'hip, hip's in "Island in the Sun".

*being slightly facetious here - they probably played a banging set, but my point is that I'd rather see a band like Weezer play a big festival slot than a band like Foals play a small festival slot, if that makes sense.