Reading Festival 2026: Day One Review

Words by Martyna Rozenbajgier

Reading Festival Day One arrived with the sort of weather that makes a field in August feel like a questionable life choice. The rain wasn’t constant, thankfully, but when it came, it came heavily. One minute the site was grey and manageable; the next, everyone was sheltering from a downpour and wondering whether their shoes would ever recover.

Photo by Wiktoria Wolny

The weather, though, did little to dampen the mood. The crowd felt noticeably young, with plenty seemingly fresh from finishing their GCSEs, giving the festival the familiar feeling of a post-school rite of passage. Across the site, there was a sense that Reading was trying something slightly different this year too, with its revamped stage setup and increasingly genre-fluid bill putting artists from very different worlds side by side.

The day began in The Canopy with Lamb, whose vocals provided a calm introduction to what would become a much more hectic afternoon. Their set didn’t rely on spectacle, instead allowing the voice to take centre stage before the crowds were sent back out into the rain.

Over at The Grid, Beth McCarthy brought an immediate change of pace. Her set leaned heavily into rock, with a cover of Chappell Roan’s Good Luck, Babe! Proving an early crowd-pleaser. More importantly, though, McCarthy used the festival to introduce Pretty Villain and signal the start of what feels like a new chapter.

The change was visual as well as musical. After an outfit change, McCarthy returned entirely in black — a sheer corset, leather shorts, long leather boots, a long leather coat and gloves, finished with silver accessories on her teeth. The transformation gave the new material its own world. Pretty Villain didn’t feel like a random new addition to an existing set; it felt like the first glimpse of what comes next.

Watch our new series Stars vs Freaks with Beth McCarthy

Keo kept that momentum going on The Grid. The London alt-rock quartet have been building a reputation as a fast-rising live act, having already graduated from smaller festival appearances to bigger stages, and their Reading slot felt like another step in that progression. There was no need for excessive production — the appeal came from the sense of a band growing into a stage that could soon become considerably more familiar territory.

A move to The Canopy brought The Guest List, adding another layer to the festival’s emerging-artist atmosphere. On a day already packed with established names, their set was a reminder of what makes the smaller stages worthwhile: the chance to catch artists before they become the names that dominate the bigger ones. It was less about spectacle and more about discovery, fitting neatly into a stage programme designed around newer voices — even if the Canopy itself has attracted controversy this year following the replacement of BBC Introducing.

Photos by Wiktoria Wolny

One of the afternoon’s most distinctive performances came from ADÉLA at The Gallery. The choreography immediately set her apart, particularly in the way ballet was worked into music built for movement. Rather than treating classical dance as a gimmick, the performance made it feel like part of the show’s identity, creating a striking contrast between the precision of ballet and the energy of contemporary pop.

Photos by Wiktoria Wolny

Back at The Grid, Declan McKenna offered something different again. His set wasn’t built around huge production or elaborate staging, but that almost became the point. With the songs and performance doing the heavy lifting, McKenna demonstrated that a festival set doesn’t necessarily need to throw everything at the audience to hold its attention. On a bill increasingly interested in spectacle and reinvention, there was something refreshing about letting the music speak for itself.

Then came Geese at The Gallery, just as the weather decided to make its presence impossible to ignore.

The rain was now coming down hard, turning the journey between stages into a battle against increasingly muddy ground. Inside the tent, however, the atmosphere was altogether different. Geese brought the kind of restless energy that suited the conditions perfectly, creating a sharp contrast between the chaos outside and the intensity inside. The weather stopped being an inconvenience and became part of the performance’s backdrop — the sort of festival moment that will probably be remembered long after the clothes have dried.  

Photos by Wiktoria Wolny

Florence Road followed in The Ballroom, another change of scenery and another shift in atmosphere. The Irish quartet’s set was centred around strong vocals, which suited the more enclosed feel of the Ballroom after the larger Grid and Gallery stages. Their presence also added to the sense that the festival’s smaller spaces are increasingly important for catching the artists who could eventually graduate to the bigger ones.

Photos by Wiktoria Wolny

By the evening, the scale of the festival changed once again.

Charli XCX took over The Grid with a version of herself that felt deliberately removed from the one audiences had become accustomed to. Her latest direction has pushed further into rock and a much more theatrical visual world, making her Reading appearance feel less like a continuation of the Brat era and more like a full reinvention. Read more here

With Fontaines D.C. following, the contrast could hardly have been greater. Where Charli’s set represented transformation and spectacle, Fontaines brought the weight of a live band, turning The Grid into something closer to an enormous club room than a festival stage. Their headline performance was intense and emotionally charged, with the band proving more than capable of commanding the scale of the stage.

The pairing of Charli XCX and Fontaines D.C. ultimately summed up what made the first day so interesting. Reading has always had a reputation for guitars and big rock moments, but the 2026 edition is far less interested in staying inside one genre. The Friday bill moved from electronic and dance music to indie, pop, alternative rock and everything around it, reflecting a younger audience whose playlists are rarely confined to one scene.

And that variety is what gives Day One its identity. Lamb’s vocals, Beth McCarthy’s new era, Keo’s upward momentum, The Guest List’s emerging presence, ADÉLA’s ballet-infused choreography, Declan McKenna’s stripped-back confidence, Geese battling through the rain and Florence Road’s vocal strength all offered something different before the two headliners took the festival in completely separate directions.

The rain could have made the whole thing miserable. Instead, it became part of the story. The crowd stayed energetic, the stages stayed busy, and the music kept people moving — even when the paths between them became increasingly difficult to navigate.

By the end of Day One, there had been plenty of rain, countless performances and considerably more mud taken home than anyone had expected.