“The crowd got ugly – they were just being assholes, throwing mud at us the whole set, hitting us hard on our bodies and on our guitars”: Donita Sparks tells the story of L7’s infamous set at 1992’s Reading Festival

L7’s trailblazing performance at the 1992 Reading Festival has been etched into rock history. Despite being faced with a series of technical difficulties and an increasingly hostile audience, the band – comprising guitarists Donita Sparks and Suzi Gardner, bassist Jennifer Finch, and drummer Dee Plakas – delivered what The Independent then called a “blistering set of infectious political punk-metal”.

“The airline lost our gear, like our pedals, and stuff,” Sparks recalls of the experience in an upcoming interview with Guitar World. “We recovered our guitars, but our pedals were non-existent. We were borrowing stuff from other bands, and when you play festivals, you don’t get a soundcheck unless you’re the headliner. We were not the headliners. We were like the third band or something.”

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