After a summer of abnormal, scorching warmth and weeks-long stretches without so much as a drop of rain, day one of Reading Festival 2026 feels almost quaint. The sky is an ocean of dark, angry grey; rain clatters down over throngs of inadequately waterproofed revellers. During a set from the US rock band Geese, the tented stage springs a leak, dousing a metre-by-metre patch in the middle of the crowd. The mud is fiendish. In other words, fear not: the British Festival Experience lives!
Like most festivals of its size, Reading has only a loose musical identity at this point. Its bookers don’t tend to discriminate between rock, pop, and hip-hop; if young people listen to it, they’ll have it. With the notable exception of a set by grime pioneer Skepta, though, Friday’s bill is distinctly rock-focused. There’s even a Gallagher on the lineup – not Noel or Liam, but Liam’s son Gene. His grunge band Villanelle were booked to play Reading’s new Canopy stage, which controversially replaces the longstanding BBC Introducing stage. The ostensibly grassroots-oriented Canopy has since been dubbed the “nepo baby stage” thanks to its platforming of various industry children-ofs, from Gene to Violet Grohl (daughter of Foo Fighters’ Dave) and Cruz Beckham.
There are few rock bands around buzzier than Geese, the New York outfit fronted by the soulful and shaggy-haired 24-year-old Cameron Winter. Pulling mostly from their 2025 breakout album Getting Killed, Geese put on a robust, seamless show that brings a lot of energy out of the audience. They do, it has to be said, have the feel of a band who have spent months now touting the same set of songs around Europe; their dispassionate, almost lackadaisical stage manner feels a little too genuine. But there’s no faulting the musicianship here, or the material; these things cannot be shrugged off.
Whether or not Charli XCX’s latest album Music, Fashion, Film fits the definition of rock music has been a tedious point of discussion this year. (The answer is sort-of-but-not-really, though there’s not much to be gained from quibbling over labels.) Her set on Reading’s main stage splits the difference, presentation-wise; for tracks off the new album (including the glitchy-vocaled “Rock Music”, and the faux-coy “Wink Wink”), she brings out live guitarists as backing. When she switches back to the snappy electropop of Brat, the band disappears.
Though she’s made every effort to move on from the Brat phenomenon, Charli wisely features plenty of it here. “Here’s a classic for you, Reading,” she drawls, introducing the song “Apple”. The song is barely two years old but she’s not wrong. This is, it has to be said, a markedly better live show than the one that accompanied her previous album. She’s more deliberate in her movements, more varied in her choreography; the setlist is stitched together with elegance and the capacity to surprise. I’ve seen her live a few times over the past few years, and this was the best she’s been.
But is it rock music? If you’re one of the people for whom that question matters, then Friday’s main headliner offers a less ambiguous alternative. Ascendent Irish band Fontaines DC take to the stage – only slightly late – and provide a slick, sullen setlist of hits such as “Boys in the Better Land” and “Jackie Down the Line”.
Fontaines are renowned as a superlative live act, and they are clearly that: a propulsive, well-oiled machine of a band. Not that you’d necessarily guess it by looking at them – frontman Grian Chatten has a sort of ramshackle quality as he floats around the stage in an oversized football shirt. His singing is flat, but in a sort of Ian Brownish way where this isn’t really a criticism.
In a way, Fontaines are a great live band but an even better festival band, performing the sort of big, jangly rock ballads that seem tailor-made for the biggest arenas. There are shades of Oasis in some of these songs, shades of Coldplay in others. Chatten keeps the intra-set patter to a minimum, speaking only to express support of Palestine, and, later, to dedicate the song “Favourite” to the band’s late manager Trevor Dietz, who died in June aged 47. “Love you Trev,” he says, as the final notes ring out.
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After a day of technically proficient if slightly aloof rock music, Fontaines ultimately leave the crowd swaddled in sentiment. This is their trick, I suppose: they care more than they let on, letting sensitivity seep through in their music. The crowd, meanwhile, care just as much – and they aren’t afraid of letting it be known.