It’s over! Marking the last major festival of the summer, Reading & Leeds always seeks to go out on a bang and leave us with a little bit of history. Team NME were down there to capture all the action. Check out all our interviews, photos, reviews and more here, and read on below for our pick of the most magical moments…
Words: Jordan Bassett, Rhian Daly, Liberty Dunworth, Andrew Trendell, Kyan-Sian Williams
Kneecap take the Academy Award for good times
Friday was a big day for Kneecap. Not only were the rap trio making their Reading debut as the first band many revellers would catch on the main stage, but it was also the day their self-titled biopic hit cinemas. It’s a riot of a movie, and may even see them nominated for an Oscar. Has anyone ever worn a balaclava to the Academy Awards?
“I’d be very fucking surprised!” replied Mo Chara, speaking to NME backstage just before their set. “Maybe one with a wee dicky bow.”
If their Reading set is anything to go by, it’s going to be a very feral and NSFW do. Irish flags were flown, moshpits were torn open, the case was made to free Palestine, and there were plenty of cheers for a naughty drug reference or two. It was the perfect blend of partying and protest in the name of peace – and all totally unsuitable for BBC broadcast. (AT)
Jorja Smith brought us AJ Tracey, live and direct
If you managed to get under the BBC Radio 1 tent on Friday then you just know how electric the vibes were. The audience hung on Jorja Smith’s every word, but nothing could prepare you for the sheer anarchy that ensued when she brought out AJ Tracey to perform ‘Ladbroke Grove’. Every time the chorus came around, we grew louder and louder until you could barely hear him. (KW)
Read NME‘s full live review of Jorja Smith at Reading 2024 here
Confidence Man’s party of the year
“Do you wanna come to the party of the year?” offered Confidence Man‘s Janet Planet on ‘C.O.O.L. Party’. “Hell yes,” Reading’s Radio One stage replied. You can’t help but feel like every night is Saturday night with these guys, and anywhere – even an overcast chilly field in Berkshire – can feel like the witching hour in Ibiza.
Planet and rave partner Sugar Bones made for the ultimate masters of ceremonies, leading us through their MDMA-mazing futuristic carnival of pure camp hedonism. It’s had it all! Costume changes! A disappearing act magic trick! Alien landscapes! The whole tent up on one another’s shoulders – band included. As Sugar Bones sprayed the front rows with champagne, this was less an early evening warm-up set and very much the part of the year. (AT)
The Prodigy raised the Devil Horns to Keith Flint
The Prodigy are Reading & Leeds Festival. “Our 1994 ‘Jilted’ album [‘Music for the Jilted Generation’] smashed rock and electronic music together,” the band’s Liam Howlett recently told NME, “and they have always supported and been behind us as a band since those early days when we were trying to do something different.”
Until Friday night (August 23), Essex’s finest purveyors of electronic mayhem hadn’t performed at the festival since vocalist and vibes man Keith Flint tragically died in 2019. The new Chevron dance stage, replete with a light show canopy above the crowd, provided the perfect platform for their sonic assault.
When the band unleashed ‘Firestarter’, Flint’s anthem, video screens were filled with neon-green outlines of his silhouette, iconic Devil horns and all. 3D lights were then beamed out into the audience, as if he were still weaving his spell over us. Even in death, the stage was Keith’s. (JB)
Read NME‘s full live review of The Prodigy live at Reading 2024 here
Bleachers’ post exams knees up
It was Jack Antonoff and co’s first time performing at Reading & Leeds festival, and he’d been well warned of what to expect. “Everyone said, ‘Be careful, they’ve finished their exams, they’re feral and really fucked up,’” he revealed, “but you guys are OK, you’re chilled.”
It wasn’t long until he’d be proven wrong. Bleachers‘ sun-kissed, maximalist pomp Americana made for the perfect party-starter – particularly on ‘Rollercoaster’ when he implored us all to “get the fuck up on each others shoulders” to “make it look like a proper UK festival”. That’s how it’s done. Jack gets an A from us. (AT)
Fontaines D.C.’s ‘Romance’/‘Starburster’ bookends
As the band of the moment, Fontaines D.C.’s main stage set always promised to be something special. It came one day after the release of their phenomenal new album ‘Romance’ and had the potential to become their audition for a headline slot in the future.
That’s exactly what the Dubliners did, with a set that was flawless from start to end, but was particularly exhilarating in its opening and closing songs. Fontaines began with ‘Romance’’s atmospheric, eerie title track – spine-tingling on record and even more so live, its brooding layers growing into a crackling, crashing storm. By the time ‘Starburster’ wrapped things up, the band had long proved they could do the business as headliners, but it provided yet more evidence in a giddy, lurching finale punctuated by the crowd recreating Grian Chatten’s sharp gasps. *INHALES DEEPLY* (RD)
Read NME‘s full review of Fontaines D.C. live at Reading 2024 here
Losing our voices to ‘Teal’ by Wunderhorse
A daydream grunge daze, Wunderhorse have – ahem – left this writer a little horse. The sight of the BBC Radio One tent all aboard one another’s shoulders for the absolute belter of ‘Teal’ shall stay with us for a while, but our voice has left us as a result. Get this band in your life, and pass me the Strepsils. (AT)
RAYE made a touching debut
There’s no question that 2024 has been RAYE’s year. Still riding the highs from her critically acclaimed, Mercury-nominated debut album ‘My 21st Century Blues’ and her record-breaking six BRIT Awards, the Camden-born singer can add an unforgettable debut on the R&L main stage to her ever-growing list of accomplishments.
With her big band in tow, RAYE beamed from ear to ear as she playfully celebrated the crowd members who had just passed their GCSEs, but it was the touching moments of vulnerability that truly won over the audience, particularly her soul-bearing rendition of ‘Ice Cream Man’, the track she explained helped her overcome abuse. RAYE, you have our hearts. (LD)
Read NME’s full review of RAYE’s Reading 2024 set here
Skrapz and Nines were living it up
Your rapper’s favourite rapper Skrapz brought out quite a few people during his set, including Potter Payper and grime legend Kano. But none impressed as much as Church Road’s own Nines pulling up on his friend to perform his 2012 hood classic ‘CR’. While the crowd was drenched in a crimson hue, we screamed the infamous opening lines (“Skinny n***a with a fat belly / I was selling cheese straight off the Blackberry”). Nines and Skrapz just leisurely walked the stage with huge grins, with their legacy now stretching beyond that of local hood legends – they’re now superstars in their own right. (KW)
Lana Del Rey’s gorgeous ‘Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd’
Let’s get this out of the way – the Chevron stage’s beats threatening to drown out Lana Del Rey’s headline set was not magical. But, if you managed to find the right spot, there were plenty of moments in her Saturday night performance that lived up to the great expectations her arrival at Reading came with.
Among them was a stunning version of ‘Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd’ – a constant highlight in her sets since the release of that album of the same name. At Reading, it felt even more beautiful, a beaming Del Rey and her talented backing vocalists creating a little bubble of emotional reflection, yearning and questioning that, if you surrendered yourself too, shut out the festival hubbub around you – and even those booming beats. (RD)
Read NME‘s full review of Lana Del Rey live at Reading 2024 here
Fred Again..’s big surprise
When you think of Reading headliners, one may tend to think of the likes of Nirvana and Arctic Monkeys writing the pages of rock history on that hallowed main stage. Not everyone needs a guitar.
Emerging for his headline set on a B-stage to play from within the crowd in the round, Fred Again.. started as he meant to carry on: with a surprise.
“Oh shit I’m nervous,” he sheepishly smiled at one point. “I wanna say I know how you’re feeling because when I was 16, this was my first festival”. With one helluva visual show and his emotional house bangers, Fred knew what the young masses wanted, and he gave it to them – showing what a dance nerd and his decks can really do, and redefining what a Reading & Leeds headliner can be. (AT)
Read NME‘s full review of Fred Again.. live at Reading 2024 here
Courting led a timely Oasis singalong
In January, Courting frontman Sean Murphy-O’Neill suggested to NME that we’ve perhaps “entered an era of bands just having fun instead of taking themselves so seriously”. If that’s true, his band still have more fun than most.
The Liverpool indie four-piece’s early afternoon main stage set was packed with lyrical pop culture references, drummer Sean Thomas wore a chainmail neck piece adorned with heart pendants and Murphy-O’Neill joked of the crowd: “Everyone’s just here waiting for Lana Del Rey.”
Courting also made a cheeky nod to the rumours of an Oasis reunion, which swirled around the site all weekend, when they sandwiched a bit of ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ into their music biz satire ‘Crass!” You can only conclude that Liam and Noel, two men who’ve famously never taken themselves too seriously, would approve. (JB)
Pendulum opened a heavy new chapter
“You better open up that mosh pit or we’re not playing another one,” frontman Rob Swire warned from the main stage. You’d be forgiven for thinking that energy may have been waning by the final day of the festival but Pendulum came looking for intensity from the crowd, and refused to leave until they found it.
From opening with the mammoth new single ‘Napalm’ to breaking out what looks to be the final ever rendition of their 2005 hit ‘Tarantula’, there wasn’t a moment that felt like anything less than coming a band on top form.
Just days before the set, the band told NME that they were looking to make their sound “much heavier” than ever before, and given the force and conviction of their Sunday set, it appears they’ve already reached the new heights they hoped for. (LD)
Nia Archives was the undisputed hero of the Chevron Stage
Delivering an electrifying set, the producer, DJ and songwriter proved herself one of the most exciting as she took the energy of the new Chevron stage to a whole new level. From her pulsating remixes of hits like ‘Murder On The Dancefloor’, ‘Hollaback Girl’ and ‘You Got The Love’, to her ethereal vocals on ‘Cards On The Table’, 24-year-old Nia Archives didn’t hold back.
Around the release of her Mercury-nominated debut album ‘Silence Is Loud’, NME praised Nia as one who “put jungle on her back and skyrocketed the genre back into the mainstream”, and now with her epic set at Reading, it’s clear that the Bradford-born star is only just getting started. (LD)
Beabadoobee cemented her rock hero status
Since she first broke through, Beabadoobee has always felt like an artist to believe in – a young star with the potential to be a new rock hero for her generation. On Sunday night, she cemented that status for good, celebrating her first UK Number One album ‘This Is How Tomorrow Moves’ with a headline turn on the BBC Radio One Stage.
In the weeks before the show, Bea admitted to NME she was worried no one would turn up; in reality, the tent was bursting with fans waiting to scream every word back at her. From the first note of ‘Take A Bite’, the star looked every inch a true rock icon, too, more confident and effortlessly cool than ever before. (RD)
And then Liam brought the country together
OK, so Noel didn’t come out with a Union Jack guitar, but Liam’s main stage set was still historic. After looking back with this ‘Definitely Maybe’ 30th anniversary gig, he paved the way for a bright future when, at the end of the show, video screens teased an Oasis announcement to arrive tomorrow (August 27).
The Gallaghers are all over the papers and you can’t glimpse at social media without seeing excitement about their potential return. Who else could bring the people together like that?
When Liam dedicated ‘Half the World Away’ to “Noel Fucking Gallagher” and what seemed like the entire festival sang along to the anthem, it felt a significant step towards the news we’ve waited 15 years for. There we were, now here we are. (JB)
Read NME‘s full review of Liam Gallagher live at Reading 2024 here
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