Darkness at 3AM: Turn it up

The 3AM Girls are all of a twitter at Metallica:

Rock legends Metallica were so disgusted by the sound quality at Reading Festival that they were ready to pay a £10K fine to crank up the volume. Now there's a band that goes up to 11...

How rock of them. Never mind that the real question is not the 'fine' levied on the Festival, but the question of what happens next year when the Reading Festival comes to ask for a licence. Given that you could happily picture homes being built on the lucrative site in Reading, councillors who would rather help builders than host rock concerts might wonder if taking the attitude that you view environmental controls as something you balance against profits rather than strict regulations is not a sign that the festival doesn't take its licence terms all that seriously.