Charli XCX performed her first full UK set of new album Music, Fashion Film at Reading Festival on Friday 28 August, debuting her new era to a crowd that visibly perked up only when she returned to brat-era favourites.
The 34-year-old singer took to the festival's main stage, The Grid, after heavy rain that had plagued Skepta eased off. Dressed in black and white, she performed to a sea of people in 'brat' green. Huge cheers greeted her opening single Rock Music, but the drenched audience struggled to muster much energy for the new material.
New era met with polite head bobbing
Backed by a live band, Charli ran through Yeah, her take on Blur's Song 2, and Card Declined, for which she was joined by a large cast of dancer/models who posed along a three-storey set of scaffolding. During the set, she sang about how the "dance floor is dead" - a line that sparked controversy with Madonna - and perhaps proved right by the polite head bobbing in one reporter's section of the audience.
For fans who loved brat but didn't know Charli's other music, the new songs were not what they had spent all day waiting for. Many had crammed under tents to hide from the rain, paid over the odds for mediocre pizza and queued for loos, all hoping to relive the brat days.
Brat-era tracks ignite the crowd
The change in the audience was instantaneous when Charli finally played 365 and party 4 u. The beleaguered kids wiping wet strands of hair from their faces were replaced with hyperactive screamers, belting lyrics and jumping in the air. When Charli started to play Guess, one woman begged the person next to her to "guess the colour of my underwear".
Charli herself was relatively reserved throughout the set, shedding her party girl persona. Though she wore ripped shirts and shorts so small they could be knickers, she also wore a blazer and stood stoically for her final song Nothing Lasts Forever. She did not interact much with the crowd during her Music, Fashion, Film songs, instead staring into the far-off distance.
Fans leave as Fontaines DC prepare to take stage
When she left the stage, those around sighed and shifted awkwardly. Fontaines DC were expected on stage soon, but for the girls with 'XCX' painted on their legs, lime green extensions in their hair and dresses replicating what Charli wore to her 34th birthday party, it was time to go.
