Kneecap just tore Reading Festival a new one

Despite the beautiful weather, there is undeniably a sense of fatigue around Richfield Avenue. With many having been onsite for 48 hours already, Reading Festival is struggling to wake up.

American country pop star Dasha does her best to raise the mood as she opens the Main Stage, but her singalong anthems – as pleasant as they are – merely keep a fatigued but crowd awake. Seb Lowe follows, receiving a similarly muted response, despite his best efforts.

But Kneecap won’t be denied. They may about to become movie stars, but the music still comes first and they take the stage – amid a tangible sense of anticipation – for the first BIG set of the day. As they have done so far all throughout 2024, the Irish trio rise to the challenge without even breaking sweat.

Tricolours and balaclavas pepper a by-now enthusiastic audience, which even an abandoned ‘Better Way To Live’ – the sample and video of Grian Chatten’s chorus skipping – fails to deflate. Mo Chara and Moglai Bap are consummate dual frontmen, orchestrating the crowd to create frequent mosh pits on demand. Moglai sets the tone early: “Do we have any English people here?” Cue boos. “Don’t be booing them, it’s not English people we hate. It’s the English government.”

Born crowd-pleasers – and knowing chunks of the set are unlikely to be broadcast – Kneecap take both the government and the BBC to task, the backdrop intermittently flashing: ‘The English government are complicit in a genocide. Free Palestine’ to rapturous applause.