Reading Festival 2010 was a big deal for me.
For one thing, it was the first time I had camped at a music festival for a full weekend, and for another, I didn’t go to the festival with my usual crowd.
I went with some school friends, and none of us had camped at a festival for the full weekend before.
Now, we had an amazing time and the lineup was absolutely amazing.
2010 was the year of the infamous Guns N’ Roses delay.
This was the festival where I discovered NOFX and the first time I got to see Bad Religion. Fat Mike also joined Bad Religion on stage, which was a fantastic surprise!
And of course Blink-182 headlined, which is always a top-tier experience.
You will also notice on the poster that on the Sunday, Weezer had the 3rd slot on the main stage.
The Set
Now Weezer are, and always have been, amazing.
This set was no different. They played a bunch of their classics and were generally on top form.
Plus, to date, this has been my only chance to see them, and I’m glad I did!
But then, halfway through the set the band absolutely confused everyone.
The band did something incredible, so incredible that it meant I could never tell the story without someone trying to correct me.
The Trolling
About halfway through the set, Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer, turned to the crowd and said “Now we’re going to play a song that really got us famous”.
How exciting, they’re going to play one of their best songs, their breakout song that started their huge career!
So what song was it? What song does Rivers Cuomo consider so important for their career?
Buddy Holly? Hash Pipe? Pork and Beans?
All good choices, but none correct.
So what was the song the band then launched into?
Teenage Dirtbag.
Yes, that world-famous song by Wheatus!*
*Obvious sarcasm is obvious
The Back-story
Okay, just in case you have no idea what’s going on, let me explain.
Teenage Dirtbag is not a song by Weezer.
It was actually recorded by the similar-sounding band, Wheatus.
Both bands got big in the late 90s, and while they both sound different, they could both be classified as alt-rock.
You can definitely see both bands being put together, and each band was frequently mistaken for the other.
Eventually, both bands got sick of the confusion, so decided to do a cover of the other’s songs.
Wheatus did a really good cover of the lesser-known song, My name Is Jonas by Weezer, and Weezer covered Teenage Dirtbag.
This confusion about which band was which, and then actually covering each other’s songs, was what laid the path for this amazing practical joke on anyone who actually came to their shows.
The Story
So having heard a very good cover of Teenage Dirtbag by Weezer, I couldn’t wait to tell people about this amazing experience.
Once I got home from the festival, people started asking me how it was and what the best bit was.
Here is an approximation of every conversion I had about the festival afterwards.
“I had a great time! I saw Weezer, and they played Teenage Dirtbag!”
“Wait, what? No, that’s Wheatus. So you saw Wheatus.”
“No, I saw Weezer. The song was a cover”
“Wheatus don’t sound anything like Weezer, are you sure you didn’t see Wheatus?”
“Yes, I saw Weezer.”
“It’s okay, I know people get them confused. It was Wheatus who did ‘Teenage Dirtbag’.”
“Eurgh.”
Vindication
While researching this (And double checking that I had actually seen Weezer, not the other way around!) I actually found a recording of the song!
Aside from proving that I am correct and Weezer did a cover of Teenage Dirtbag, its just fantastic to see the video and relive that moment from my life.
You see kids, back in 2010, phone cameras did not have fantastic recording abilities.
The meme of ‘Did you record this with a potato’ started around this time, that is how prevalent the shoddy camera work was.
So being able to relive that moment with sorta okay video and audio is a real treat for me.
Wrap Up
Weezer are masters at trolling and they deserve all our respect. The fact that they never released Teenage Dirtbag on any album just makes the live experiences even the more sweeter.
On Weezerpedia, it seems that the number of live performances of the song are very far and few between as well, which makes it even the more fun and rare to meet someone who knows the story.
