Kasabian Become First-Ever Thursday Headliner at Leeds Festival
Leicester band Kasabian played the main stage at Leeds Festival on Thursday, August 27, 2026, becoming the first act in the festival's history to headline a Thursday night. The set opened Reading & Leeds 2026's northern leg and also christened the newly rebuilt main stage, rebranded The Grid as part of a major site overhaul this year. Frontman Serge Pizzorno told the Bramham Park crowd, "This is history! We're making history!" The set stayed dry despite earlier heavy rain and thunderstorm warnings at the site.
On stage: a new runway and dance-music detours
The band walked out to black-and-white static visuals and opened with "Club Foot," with Pizzorno immediately calling for a moshpit; fans up front waved "Leicester City Champions" flags. On the second song, "Call," he shouted "Let's get this place bouncin'" and used The Grid's new stage runway to move closer to the crowd.
The set wove in several dance-music references: a snippet of Justice vs Simian's 2006 track "We Are Your Friends" led into "Coming Back To Me Good"; Bronski Beat's 1984 "Smalltown Boy" appeared as an instrumental passage; and a riff from The Prodigy's "Breathe" segued into "Vlad The Impaler." The band called their Calvin Harris collaboration "Release The Pressure" a "banger," and Pizzorno introduced touring member Rob Harvey (formerly of The Music) as a "Leeds boy."
Setlist (in order of performance)
- Club Foot
- Call
- Underdog
- Days Are Forgotten
- Shoot The Runner
- Empire
- You're In Love With A Psycho
- Coming Back To Me Good
- Stevie
- Superpowers
- Release The Pressure
- Vlad The Impaler
The main set was followed by a three-song encore.
Act III arrives a week later, plus two support acts
The show landed exactly a week before Kasabian's ninth studio album, Act III, due out Friday, September 4, after a delay. Lead single "Superpowers" carries a G-Funk influence. Pizzorno previously told NME the album is "all that's great about Kasabian" and said he's driven partly by "imposter syndrome." The band previously headlined Leeds Festival in 2012 and 2017.
Manchester band Arkayla opened the night; singer Cal Blakebrough recalled last visiting the site at 16 to see Post Malone, and their song "Fortune Teller" produced the festival's first big singalong of the day. The Lathums, from Wigan, followed with an Americana-leaning set, with frontman Alex Moore closing on "Sad Face Baby" and "How Beautiful Life Can Be" standing out as another highlight.