By now, it’s a familiar scene: the screens on the side of a festival main stage cut to the crowd and the sea of bodies is endless, not a millimetre of grass between them, and seemingly filling the entire site. After a dizzying 14 months since Chappell Roan’s major breakthrough moment last summer, where she smashed crowd size records at festivals across the US, that’s the case again at Reading 2025.
Where last summer often saw Roan theme her festival sets to the city she was in, now she’s headlining a series of events across Europe, she’s sticking to one set – a fantastical turquoise castle that looks like it’s been pulled from Beauty & The Beast. The big screens show a dark fairytale animation as dramatic orchestral music prepares the humongous audience for the pop star of the moment to appear, and when she does, she does so in black and deep purple lace – part Prince, part Maleficent.
Before her grand entrance, there’s no doubt that Roan can pull off performing to big crowds, but tonight, she makes clear that she’s going to be topping festival bills for a long time to come. She’s only one EP, one album and a handful of singles deep right now, but her setlist is already an embarrassment of riches when it comes to crowd-pleasing pop epics. ‘Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl’ kicks things off in anthemic form, the star letting out an affecting cry in the middle. ‘Femininomenon’ brings her playful side to the fore, and ‘Casual’ unites the Reading crowd in a huge singalong, belting out the spurned chorus, arms around each other’s shoulders and pints waving in the air.
Throughout the performance, there’s a feeling of camaraderie and community in the crowd. Strangers become new acquaintances, the ‘Hot To Go’ dance unites everyone in clumsily trying to remember the moves and in the right order, and before ‘Red Wine Supernova’, everyone raises pink cowboy hats and pink bandanas aloft. It feels like tens of thousands of like-minded people who’ve all got the same memo and have been brought together with the same intentions.
“This is a dream come true, seriously,” Roan tells Reading before ‘Kaleidoscope’, referencing her hard-won journey to this reigning moment. “Thank you for loving me and standing with me. I’m truly so grateful.” After she wraps things up with a euphoric trifecta of ‘Good Luck, Babe!’, ‘My Kink Is Karma’ and ‘Pink Pony Club’, she struts down the runway to get closer to the crowd, waving and blowing kisses to them, a big grin on her face. She might be getting used to seeing scenes like the one in front of her now, but it’s clear they’ve yet to lose their impact.
Chappell Roan played:
‘Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl’
‘Femininomenon’
‘After Midnight’
‘Naked In Manhattan’
‘Guilty Pleasure’
‘Casual’
‘The Subway’
‘Hot To Go’
‘Barracuda’
‘Picture You’
‘Kaleidoscope’
‘The Giver’
‘Red Wine Supernova’
‘Coffee’
‘Good Luck, Babe!’
‘My Kink Is Karma’
‘Pink Pony Club’
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