RAYE headlined Reading Festival for the first time on August 29, on a Saturday she shared with Dave, and opened with the song that broke her. Escapism, her 2022 single, went first and came back as a crowd singalong. The South London singer had played the site for the first time only two years earlier, and that appearance had earned a five star review.
The set was built for the full band she now travels with, horns and strings included, and it moved between pop, soul, jazz and house without stopping to explain itself. Material came from both of her albums, My 21st Century Blues and This Music May Contain Hope, with I Know You're Hurting turning into a crowd chant of it is going to be alright before Secrets and You Don't Know Me pulled the tempo back up towards her early dance records.
Her sisters Amma and Absolutely came out for Joy, and both were on the bill in their own right that weekend. She closed on Where Is My Husband?, a big finish for a set that had spent most of its length shifting registers.
The full running order ran Escapism, Beware...The South London Lover Boy, Skin & Bones, Worth It, The WhatsApp Shakespeare, Oscar Winning Tears, Winter Woman, I Know You're Hurting, Click Clack Symphony, Secrets and You Don't Know Me, Life Boat and Prada, Joy, then Where Is My Husband?
This Music May Contain Hope, her second album, arrived in March with contributions from Hans Zimmer, Al Green and her sisters, and is up for the Mercury Prize. NME gave it five stars. Her first Reading appearance followed the 2024 BRIT Awards, where she became the first artist to win six prizes in a single year.
Earlier this summer she brought Alicia Keys and Mark Ronson onstage at Montreux Jazz Festival for its 60th anniversary, with Ronson on Uptown Funk and Suzanne and Keys on If I Ain't Got You and Oscar Winning Tears. She also has an acting debut ahead in Yann Demange's crime thriller Lineage. The weekend's other pop sets, including a main stage set from Sombr, who headlined his first European festival at Sziget this summer, sat around hers on a bill tracked on the festival tracker, and the site's own programming news ran through its Spotify playlist tie-in.
The facts
- RAYE headlined Reading Festival for the first time on August 29.
- She opened the set with Escapism and closed with Where Is My Husband?
- Her sisters Amma and Absolutely joined her for Joy.
- The set drew on My 21st Century Blues and This Music May Contain Hope.
- Her second album arrived in March and is nominated for the Mercury Prize.
- She won six prizes at the 2024 BRIT Awards, a first for one year.
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