With new single “Let Me Die (Curled In Your Arms)” out today, an upcoming EP on the horizon and a manifesto built around trusting themselves, Tough Cookie are entering a sharper, heavier new era.

The Minneapolis shoegaze band’s dreamy but heavy sound filled the tent, moving between soft, hazy passages and walls of crunchy guitar. Their layered vocals and distortion surrounded the crowd, making their set feel less like something to simply listen to and more like somewhere to disappear into for a while.

Her new music pushes back against a world that has spent years telling women how they should look. Claudia Kate has another idea: choose knowledge over insecurity, independence over control, and a stage where you can finally be yourself.

The final day of the Reading Festival started relatively calmly. The weather was windy, but thankfully the rain stayed away for most of the afternoon. That all changed when Florence + The Machine took to the Main Stage.

For Daisy Harris, heartbreak didn’t end when the relationship did. It lingered — in songs, in memories, and in a track she couldn’t quite bring herself to finish. Now, with her new single “Spoon Song” freshly released, Harris is looking at that difficult chapter from the other side.

Despite the mud, the crowd turned up early and in large numbers for Lambrini Girls on the Main Stage. The Brighton punk rock trio immediately set the tone with a huge “Fuck Marine Le Pen”, greeted by cheers from the audience. This political statement was followed by several anti-fascist chants taken up by part of the crowd.