Charli XCX Rewatches Old Sets Ahead of Her First Reading & Leeds Headline Slot
Charli XCX headlines the UK's twin-city festival Reading & Leeds for the first time this week, marking her return to the festival since 2022. The performance follows her latest album Music, Fashion, Film, with a North American tour alongside Underscores set for September. Ahead of the shows, she sat down for a video interview with BBC Radio 1 to rewatch clips of her past sets at the festival, calling her 2017 performance "cringing me out."
Show details
- Reading: Friday, 7:45pm, The Grid main stage
- Leeds: Saturday, 7:10pm, The Grid main stage
- September: North American arena tour with special guest Underscores
Looking back at 2017, 2019 and 2022
The first clip played in the interview was her 2017 performance of "Boys." Charli XCX said she'd forgotten she performed with a live band that year, and recalled the set as feeling "pretty cool." The second clip, from 2019's "I Love It," prompted her to note the extreme heat that day and roast her own short-hair-with-bangs look at the time: "I hate that haircut."
Discussing crowd energy, she said Reading was a festival she used to attend as a fan growing up, making a return to its stage feel "a bit surreal." She described the crowd there as going "quite hard, so it's cool, but also a bit scary." The final clip, from 2022's "Beg For You," had her joking that she's "collected some of the worst hairstyles and hair dye jobs of all time" at Reading & Leeds over the years.
On this year's headline debut, she previewed that it will be "a very different show from anything I've done before," adding that it will be her first UK performance of material from the new album, backed by an entirely new stage design.
Who else is headlining in 2026
Also headlining in 2026 are Florence + The Machine, Fontaines D.C., Dave, RAYE and Chase & Status. The rest of the announced lineup includes Skepta, Sombr, Role Model, JADE, Kneecap, Geese, Skye Newman, Holly Humberstone, Gurriers, Westside Cowboy, Declan McKenna, Maisie Peters, Paris Paloma, Overpass and Duke Dumont.
What's happened since Music, Fashion, Film
This summer, Charli XCX made a surprise appearance during The Strokes' set at Outside Lands, and appeared via video during a set by Djo. She previously recorded a small live session at Maida Vale, and delivered her first full headline set of the Music, Fashion, Film era at Lollapalooza, where she also joined Lorde for a rendition of "Girl, So Confusing." Following the album's release, she "reluctantly" put out a B-sides Edition and released an accompanying video for the original record. The original reporting was compiled by NME.