Sunday at Reading festival can always be a bit dodgy. As ever the holy day is filled to the brim with a scrap yard full of metal. To say that this year’s Sunday line-up is aimed at a niche market is generous, and to the average Reading festival veteran this ‘Rock Day’ can usually become excruciatingly grating.

First up on an overcast Sunday morning is Mastodon (2/5), with their bizarre brand of mathematical metal. Since Mastodon’s set is stuffed to the hilt with sums and integrals and all that shit, it is difficult to understand why anyone in their right (or wrong) mind would freely give up time to listen to such daftness. It only gets fractionally better when Killswitch Engage (2/5) grace us with their presence. This time the quadratic equations are swapped with American pie and humorous jokes about fucking your mother while she is on fire – I suppose you had to be there.

Tapes n Tapes (3/5) provide some sort of haven, although after the initial appeal of their opening tracks it is hard to see why these guys get so much hype from your music weekly. There tunes certainly have character and a few good riffs, but they are as accessible as Natwest on a bank holiday and have no personality.

The American pie is handed out yet again with Taking Back Sunday (3/5). They really should have turned up on Sunday with the rest of the pop-punk fools. Although they play their hearts out, the result is overly average with nobody being left overly impressed. Thank God Less Than Jake (4/5) turn up to actually entertain a so far lacklustre main stage crowd. Their tunes may just be nostalgic pop-romps but their insistent natter, audience interaction and general acting the goat manage to lift the mood. They even manage to get the shirts off the blokes in the packed out crowd, as well as get them to swing said shirts in time to ‘All My Best Friends are Metalheads’ – crazy stuff.

Having missed most of Hope of the States’ set (and let’s face it, who cares?) the next band on the schedule is Kerrang! golden boys Bullet for My Valentine (3/5). Famed for putting on a solid rock show, the Bullet boys churn out standard rock tunes that pale in comparison to the likes of Lostprophets and Funeral for a Friend. An unimpressed crowd just goes to prove that Bullet for My Valentine are just relatively-pretty boys with guitars. Perhaps the pokerfaced crowd were actually waiting for gods of metal: Slayer (3/5). Their fans are seriously ecstatic; there are around 50 of them, at the front going hell-for-leather. Meanwhile, the Slayer virgins just look confused, shocked and bemused. Heavy metal godfathers they may be, but that doesn’t make their set anymore palatable.

My Chemical Romance (3/5) prove to be a highlight in today’s car crash of a line-up. Not because they are fantastic musicians (although, taking into consideration that they appear to be 12-years-old, they are doing quite well), but because lead singer, Gerard Way is a raging fool. Not only does he attempt to enrage the bottle wielding audience and address Reading festival as generic ‘England’, he also declares that his fan base is not a cult – oh no – they are an army! After leading Reading festival in a chant of ‘fuck the Daily Mail’ (who would need the encouragement) the pre-pubescent Gerard thanks England from the bottom of his “black heart” and with a nervous twitch he is off stage, much to relief of most of the punters in my vicinity. This set may be remembered by the class of Reading ‘06 for many years to come, but so will 50 Cent’s massacre of ’04: not something you want on your CV.

By the time the sun sets it comes as a relief that rock professionals Placebo (3/5) are here to save the day and for the first four tracks, that is exactly what they start to do – all four tracks off new album, Meds and all lapped up by the adoring audience. And then it all goes wrong: Brian’s amp blows. Now you would have thought that any sensible bunch of seasoned musicians would have a plan ‘b’, but oh no. After five very embarrassing minutes Brian and Stefan disappear off stage, and all we are left with is tits (most of them saggy) on a big screen (Nice! – Ed). After a total of ten minutes a stroppy Placebo are able to return and play a bunch of hits, what they play is great – but there is a bitter taste left – one left by a band that can’t deal with the odd hiccup.

By the end of the evening, Pearl Jam (3/5) roll on to the cheers of thousands and the start of Reading 2006’s nostalgia trip. Playing a perfect mix of the classics and the new, Pearl Jam certainly manage to take their fans down memory lane. However, like Slayer, it seems that if you aren’t a fan, then you aren’t on the same ride as everyone else. Instead you are probably on the M4.