Charli XCX joins The Strokes on stage during their Outside Lands headline set

Charli XCX joined The Strokes on stage during the New York rock band's headlining set at Outside Lands in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on August 8, performing their 2001 track "Take It Or Leave It," NME, Pitchfork and SPIN all reported. Frontman Julian Casablancas brought her out as "a special little guest; a big guest. Well, a superstar," before referencing that both acts had released new albums on the same day the previous month: "We had a great battle. You defeated us."

Both Reality Awaits and Charli's Music, Fashion, Film came out July 24. Music, Fashion, Film debuted at number 3 on the Billboard 200 before slipping to number 34 in its second week, while Reality Awaits opened at number 13 and fell out of the top 50 the following frame, SPIN reported. Casablancas returned to the gap after the song ended, telling the crowd "she won. She won by a lot," which NME reported him following with a line crediting the pop star as "the queen of album sales."

It was not the pair's first pairing: Casablancas appeared on a rework of "Mean Girls" for Charli's 2024 remix album Brat And It's Completely Different But Also Still Brat, calling the collaboration "serendipitous" and saying he admired how she handled fame after 2024's Brat Summer, telling NME "she's aware of the moment... but also is humble." Charli has returned the admiration, describing The Strokes as a band who understood how to "capture that kind of energy" of old downtown New York nightlife.

Charli had headlined Outside Lands herself the previous night, making her debut at the festival, part of a run of festival dates that also saw her play her Music, Fashion, Film show in full at Lollapalooza. Two nights later, she turned up on video during a set from Djo, real name Joe Keery, leaving him a surprise voicemail cameo during his song "Charlie's Garden." The bit swapped out the track's original spoken-word feature from Keery's Stranger Things co-star Charlie Heaton: "Hey Djo, it's Charli. I had no idea that you'd written a song about me," she said in the recording. "That is like, so sweet of you."

The Strokes continue touring behind Reality Awaits through December, including a stop at Brazil's Primavera Sound Sao Paulo, part of the same festival family that will see The Strokes headline Primavera Sound Buenos Aires alongside Gorillaz and FKA twigs. Charli XCX begins a North American arena tour on September 11 in Philadelphia, with limited $25 tickets already on sale.