There were talking points all over the place on the first day of live music at the 2026 festival. Charli XCX put on a show. Fontaines D.C. divided the audience.
What do you need an opening act to do? Get the party started! After a steady start, secret set Jamie T unleashed a string of hits towards the end. ‘Sheila,’ ‘Sticks ‘N’ Stones’ and ‘Zombie’ all generated massive sing-alongs and early signs of dancing. Did he manage a 33 minute and 10 second set, as promised, because of the name of his new single? No idea, we didn’t look at our watches.
Another festival tent with Bleech 9:3, another one rammed beyond capacity! They are already less of a band than a total cultural phenomenon. You would have had to be down at the same time Jamie T was starting for a decent spot. Yet again, everyone knew all the words. Are they future headliners? Maybe. This was a stunning set, even if the audience interaction was very limited.
Yet again they were all attitude and all business, coming out to that slightly creepy version of Danny Boy that is their trademark. It was absolute scenes. The first major mosh pit of the weekend, loads of crowdsurfers and even shoes and boots were flying through the air. When the Festival Republic Tent got a glow up to become The Ballroom I am not sure if they expected footwear to be hitting the chandeliers!!!
This was the third time we have had an opportunity to watch Keo and the third time we have missed them. Sorry Keo, I am sure you were great. The reason this time was the least secret set in the history of secret sets, Royal Blood in The Gallery. Doing a Radio One and NME interview about your secret set days in advance is a new thing, for sure. The Gallery was a big improvement on The Chevron from last year. It had three sections to it, so there was zero chance of a repeat crush from the overcrowding in a couple of sets last year.
Royal Blood are an incredible live band with their crunching guitar riffs and feel-every-hit drums. Pure rock and roll in every sense of the word. This was an insanely stacked set with hit after hit being delivered. Old material like ‘Out Of The Black’ and closing track ‘Figure It Out’ sounded great, but so did newer ones like ‘Trouble’s Coming’ and new single ‘Ten Over Ten.’ Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher are both phenomenal musicians and this was a controlled demolition job from start to finish. They were a good chunk better than anyone else we saw on Friday and would have made for much better headliners than Fontaines D.C. in terms of energy and excitement. Without the late announcement of their attendance and Jamie T’s, this day would have felt an awful lot flatter.
Have Festival Republic finally figured out the formula for Reading? The DJ stage, The Warehouse was full from about 45 minutes after opening, with a queue of up to an hour to get in by mid-afternoon. Unfortunately, there were some teething problems this year with the layout that led to some on/off closures across the weekend. The issues were also repeated at Leeds. Dance music clearly deserves a big space at the festival though, even if we are very biased towards the live music.
Torn between James Marriott and People I’ve Met we went with the new band from New York. The Canopy is similar to the old BBC Introducing Stage, but is like two of the old canopies stitched together. So a bigger enclosed space, but less room going back if someone really popular plays. The quieter tracks were also in danger of being overpowered by the fairground, which feels like another teething issue. Speaking of the fairground, it was the first time we had noticed that dynamic pricing seemed to be in full swing, with prices altering according to how busy it was throughout the day!
Being deep in The Overpass crowd in The Ballroom brought back memories of The Royston Club at Reading in 2023. A great, but fanatical crowd, singing along to every word. The Birmingham band have established a solid following at this point and it was much busier than we had anticipated. They bought out Nieve Ella to help them out with ‘Fall In Love,’ a secret set from her would have gone down nicely.
Of the CaNEPOpy bands on The Canopy Stage this weekend, Villanelle always looked the weakest offering. Three tracks of them that we watched did nothing to change this impression. Violet Grohl has genuine talent, Cruz Beckham is not doing Spice Girls style pop, and his line in 90s indie is actually quite decent. Gene Gallagher has all the sass of his father, but lacks the snarling delivery formed by a Manchester estate style upbringing and the quality song-smithery of a much more talented older brother. The playing is okay, but the knock-off Liam vocals derail it all rapidly.
What are Geese? The indie-est of indie bands? Some kind of jazz fusion band that lost most of the jazz instruments? They are neither the Emperor’s New Clothes or The Second Coming. It is entertaining, but neither is it an instantly classic set.
Following on from ‘Cobra’ and ‘Taxes’ It all ends with ‘Trinidad.’ It initially feels like an odd track to be ending with, until we hit the “There’s a bomb in my car” sections where gathered circle pits explode into action and crowd surfers are flying left, right and centre.
Charli XCX was the star attraction today and this was very much her movie that we were all attending. This was throughout the set a mix of substance, style, sometimes style over substance and sometimes substance over style.
She started off with ‘Rock Music,’ flanked by her live band for the first few tracks, before dismissing them and bringing out a team of dancers to backing tracks. Like all the best headliners she appreciated the need for on stage levels, being higher up allowing the most people to get a proper look at what was going on without relying on the screens.
Whilst there were references to brat, Music, Fashion, Film and and Wuthering Heights were given prominence. Has a pop act ever given the teenage Reading crowd such a nihilistic message as “Oblivion is Freedom?” Finishing on ‘No One Lasts Forever’ instead of one of her many earlier classics, that were mostly absent from the set, was such a bold statement. Director David Cronenberg repeating “They are dead, they are gone, no one lasts forever” over and over whilst Charli, dancers and band stood frozen on stage. Surprisingly, there was no in-person special guest, Lorde and Billie Eilish were merely played on the backing track. In total we got 23 tracks. It was enjoyable, it wasn’t as memorable as Chappel Roan last year even if it was more visually arresting. Charli XCX, doing it her way, all the way.
We love Fontaines D.C. as a band, their albums are stunning. However, this is the second time we have seen them at Reading and it was again not what we were expecting. Firstly, the technical set-up overran by more than twenty minutes and at least one song got cut from the set. There were clearly issues with the screen set up and they spent ages on one of the guitars. Was this partly the dismantling of the Charli XCX set? Really, she should have been on last. The sound quality was murky at best, it may not have been helped by the huge bursts of rain having soaked the speakers. Watching some of it back on BBC Iplayer it sounds a bit better.
A Reading headline set should be a strong statement. It should be memorable. Chappel Roan and Bring Me The Horizon last year were epic. Imagine Dragons, Sam Fender and Billie Eilish in 2023 were extraordinary. Few tracks here felt like that level. The crowd at the front who were there for them sang every word and loved it, so perhaps we are being harsh, but it felt flat. ‘Boys In The Better Land’ should have have been raucous, it felt mid afternoon on a smaller stage. Maybe they are just a marmite live band. However, the longer the weekend went on the more this set felt diminished by true examples of headline showmanship.
There were other strange decisions. The amount shown on the screens to each side was limited in line with the height of a lighting bank hanging over their heads. Initially this was right above them so only the bottom sixth of the side screens was showing them. We assume the rest of the screens should have been filled with visuals but because of the tech issues they were just blank. Only two-thirds of the way through the set was it high enough to where the screens were filled. Plenty of people further back discussing it later felt really removed from being able to enjoy the set as they couldn’t see anything. A lot of music publications gave this set a very strong review, one has to wonder how much that was just down to not wanting to lose access with new album Dopamine Chamber due out in October and a tour shortly after. We still love their music, only a few tracks felt like part of a headline set here though.
How was your Friday? Who did you see? What did you make of Fontaines D.C.? Tell us in the comments.
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