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Glass Animals fans make light of Reading pineapple ban

BBC Inflatable pineapples at Glass Animals show at ReadingBBC
Inflatable pineapples were brought into Reading Festival after organisers banned the fruit from the event.

Fans of the band Glass Animals used inflatable fruit to make light of a ban preventing pineapples from being brought into Reading Festival.

Pineapples feature in the band's lyrics and are often taken to Glass Animals gigs by fans.

But the fruit appeared on a banned list published ahead of the festival along with items like flares and fireworks.

"People came with giant inflatable pineapples, it was a bit ridiculous," Dave Bayley, the band's front man said.

He claimed he saw "five or six" real pineapples in the crowd, as some seemingly succeeded in smuggling the forbidden fruit into the festival.

"I definitely met a lot of people who had theirs confiscated...it was being totally enforced," he added.

Getty Images Glass Animals at GlastonburyGetty Images
Pineapples feature in Glass Animal's artwork and stage props.

The Mercury Music Prize-nominated band, which formed in Oxford, have a song called Pork Soda which includes the lyrics "pineapples are in my head".

Prior to the event a spokesperson for Reading Festival said organisers were "a little concerned" that hundreds of pineapples could turning up on site so decided to ask fans not to bring them.

'Pineapple confetti'

The band have also tested the limits of the 'ban' telling BBC Newsbeat on Saturday they had brought "thousands" into the festival.

"The joke there was we basically brought in pineapple confetti" said Dave Bayley.

"So we actually brought 20,000 tiny pineapples in the form of confetti and blasted it out into the crowd, it was a bit cheeky."

Later Glass Animals will play at Leeds Festival, which has also banned pineapples from its site.