Charli XCX headlines Reading festival with a Music, Fashion, Film set

Charli XCX headlined Reading Festival on August 28, making her debut at the top of the bill on the main stage, now called The Grid, and opening her first full UK set of the Music, Fashion, Film era with the album's first single "Rock Music."

The staging was a deliberate break from what came before. Where the Brat shows often left her alone onstage, this one carried a full band and a host of dancers, all dressed in black, after a day of heavy rain on site.

The setlist leaned on the new record but reached back too, with high-octane runs through "360," "Von Dutch" and "Guess" from Brat, and material from the Wuthering Heights album released in February. Before "Apple" she told the crowd, "Here's a classic for you, Reading." Before "2007," a dancer handed her a cigarette.

It ended on the closing track from Music, Fashion, Film, with the last words of David Cronenberg's monologue repeating over the main stage: they are dead, they are gone, nothing lasts forever.

NME gave the set four stars, singling out the stretch after "House" when John Cale's recorded voice booms out over black screens and she re-enters for her part of the Wuthering Heights song, with sparks falling from the roof.

The Leeds set the following night was her main stage debut there, and the pair were her first appearances at the two festivals since 2022. A North American arena tour follows in September. Both dates sit on the festival tracker with the rest of the pop summer, after she teased a different show for the weekend, played the album in full at Lollapalooza and put limited $25 tickets on sale for the tour.