Sunday, 24 August 1986

Reading Festival

Reading, UK
Audio notedVideo noted8 songsfestival
Flyer

Memories and notes

This one did not stay in the field. The performance became Rude Bootleg — Live at the Reading Festival, 1986, Cardiacs' first live album.

The source was about as gloriously makeshift as the title suggests: a “very rough and ready” cassette recorded from the onstage mixing desk. Somehow, it came out sounding remarkably good for something captured under those circumstances.

Rude Bootleg first escaped as a free cassette with orders of A Little Man and a House and the Whole World Window for a short-lived special value pack. White-label LP copies followed, some with little more than a rubber stamp and a paper insert, before Alphabet Business Concern finally gave it a CD reissue in 1995.

Concert details

Country
UK
Date
Sunday, 24 August 1986
Status
Played

Setlist

  1. The Icing on the World
  2. To Go Off and Things
  3. In a City Lining
  4. Tarred and Feathered
  5. Big Ship
  6. I'm Eating in Bed
  7. Is This the Life
  8. The Whole World Window

Photos

2 photographs
Cardiacs on the main stage at the 24th National Jazz, Blues & Rock Festival, Reading, 24 August 1986Courtesy of Simon Knee, via the Cardiacs Facebook group
Cardiacs performing at Reading Festival, seen from the crowd on 24 August 1986Courtesy of Simon Knee, via the Cardiacs Facebook group

Concert location

Reading FestivalReading, UK

Credits & acknowledgements

Sources, preservation and archive provenance.

Details about the Reading recording and its life as Rude Bootleg were checked against the Wikipedia article for the album. The running order comes from setlist.fm.

Special thanks to Simon Knee of the Cardiacs Facebook group for sharing the two concert photographs in this group post.