{"id":876703,"date":"2026-08-30T06:12:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T06:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/876703\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T06:12:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T06:12:22","slug":"charli-xcx-live-at-reading-2026-a-stylish-cinematic-but-sometimes-underwhelming-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/876703\/","title":{"rendered":"Charli XCX live at Reading 2026: a stylish, cinematic, but sometimes underwhelming performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charli XCX<\/a> thrives in the dark. It\u2019s where her songs make most sense, the shadows allowing you to cut free from your inhibitions and just be. But when her Reading 2026 headline set kicks off \u2013 the bill has her performing before co-headliners Fontaines D.C.<\/a> \u2013\u00a0the sky is still so light you can spot a huge rainbow arching over the festival site.<\/p>\n

As pretty as that sight is, it\u2019s also unfortunate for the star. The first chunk of her set feels a little flat in these sub-optimal conditions, the glitchy electronics of \u2018Track 10\u2019 and \u2018Pink Diamond\u2019 diluted by the lingering light. But the show must go on, and Charli\u2019s brought with her a production that\u2019s both simple and staggering \u2013 a multi-level system of platforms that\u2019s topped with a giant speaker stack, which her band, dancers and she herself scale as the performance ticks on.<\/p>\n

Charli\u2019s well-deserved ascent to the top of the bill comes in tandem with her latest album, \u2018Music, Fashion, Film\u2019<\/a> \u2013 a record that finds her grappling with the levels of fame \u2018Brat\u2019<\/a> brought to her and toying with the world\u2019s perception of her, while doing a hard reset on her sound. \u2018Rock Music\u2019, the album\u2019s first single, wiped the slate clean and ushered this new world in, so it makes sense that she sets the tone with it first tonight, playing out the lyrics (\u201cI\u2019m really banging my head\u201d) on the same storey as her band.<\/p>\n

\"CharliCharli XCX live at Reading 2026. Credit: Henry Radcliffe<\/p>\n

From there, she immerses us in the universe of \u2018Music, Fashion, Film\u2019, dancers strutting like models down a runway for \u2018Card Declined\u2019, and snippets of David Cronenberg\u2019s monologue in \u2018Nothing Lasts Forever\u2019 woven in throughout the set \u2013 an utterance of \u201coblivion\u201d here, a mention of \u201cfreedom\u201d there. To maintain the atmosphere, our headliner largely keeps schtum, her only address to the crowd to (perhaps prematurely) declare, \u201cHere\u2019s a classic for you, Reading\u201d before dropping \u2018Apple\u2019.<\/p>\n

The set really comes alive after \u2018House\u2019, when John Cale<\/a>\u2019s recorded voice booms out of the PA over black screens, before Charli re-enters the fray for her part of the Wuthering Heights song, crawling across one of the platforms as lights flash artfully around her. As sparks fall from the roof and fire bursts up in the background, it passes the baton to \u2018Dying For You\u2019, that soundtrack album\u2019s far poppier cut, before she leans into \u2018Brat\u2019 with a megamix that ends with underwear shooting into the sky at the end of \u2018Guess\u2019.<\/p>\n

Then, it\u2019s back to \u2018Music, Fashion, Film\u2019 territory with B-side \u2018If You Take Away The Music Then What Has She Got?\u2019, a song so good it should have made the album. Charli works through her existential crisis, punching the air and throwing her body around to the beat, but her doubts just bubble back up in \u2018Camera\u2019 minutes later. It\u2019s in this headspace that \u2018Nothing Lasts Forever\u2019 strides in, Cronenberg a voice of assurance as he muses on the nature of art, legacy and permanence.<\/p>\n

As his sermon gets chopped up and repeated for effect (\u201cThey are dead. They are gone. No one lasts forever\u201d), Charli and her dancers gather on one platform, the star in the centre, frozen in a power stance staring straight out at the crowd. It\u2019s an incredibly powerful ending \u2013 almost emotional in its confidence and confrontation. If only the whole set could have landed quite as hard.<\/p>\n

\"CharliCharli XCX live at Reading 2026. Credit: Henry Radcliffe<\/p>\n

Charli xcx played:<\/p>\n

\u2018Rock Music\u2019
\u2018Yeah\u2019
\u2018Apple\u2019
\u2018Wink Wink\u2019
\u2018Card Declined\u2019
\u2018Track 10\u2019
\u2018Girl, So Confusing\u2019
\u2018Pink Diamond\u2019
\u2018House\u2019
\u2018Dying For You\u2019
\u2018Club Classics\u2019
\u2018365\u2019
\u2018360\u2019
\u2018Sympathy Is A Knife\u2019
\u2018Von Dutch\u2019
\u2018Guess\u2019
\u2018If You Take Away The Music Then What Has She Got?\u2019
\u20182007\u2019
\u2018Camera\u2019
\u2018Party 4 U\u2019
\u2018Playboy Bunny\u2019
\u2018SS26\u2019
\u2018No One Lasts Forever\u2019<\/p>\n

Check back at NME here<\/a> for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Reading & Leeds 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charli XCX thrives in the dark. It\u2019s where her songs make most sense, the shadows allowing you to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":876704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341,2742],"class_list":["post-876703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-pop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}