Reading Festival has long been a battleground for weather, for taste, and occasionally for mosh pits. But the second day of this year’s Festival seemed like a point of the universe testing its capacity to contain fun. Imagine: rain clouds overhead, a national rail strike below, and thousands of sodden but smiling faces stranded somewhere in the middle. The odds seemed stacked against Day Two of Reading 2023, but instead, it delivered one of the most memorable, chaotic, and electric days the Festival has seen in years.
Central Cee, the rap phenom out of West London, braved the storm to perform with the fury that makes the ground shake, and not just from the bass. His performance was a masterclass in controlled chaos, with fans repeating every word in unison like a hymn.
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Just before that, pop’s rebellious upstart Caity Baser served sass and charm in equal measure, the songs feeling like diary entries via megaphone. She wasn’t just preaching, but she was summoning a tribe of believers, and they responded in full voice.
Irish wonderband INHALER, who show they’re not just surfing the crest of legacy but forging their own. Their set was triumphant and assured as they lorded over a crowd that felt truly enormous, gaining new followers with every note. They are having their name sung that much louder around the world with each show.
Ken Carson and midwxst injected the day with futuristic vibes, delivering glitchy, genre-blending sounds that were like an adrenaline shot to the eardrum. And Soft Play, once enslaved people, came back with a roar. Rebranded but still breathtakingly fierce, they forcefully reminded listeners why punk isn’t dead, it just amplifies its anger when you try to kill it.
U.S. rapper Cordae incited a frenzy of his own, handling the stage like an old pro. But the most buzzed-about set of the night belonged to the 1975, who celebrated the 10th anniversary of their debut album with a performance that truly was half nostalgia, half reinvention. Each chord seemed a memory, and each lyric a reminder of how far they and their fans had come.
Day Two sprang to life through the eyes of the photographer Ben McQuaide: disorderly, unruly, and deeply human. Despite the odds or perhaps because of them, Reading 2023’s second day rose above. It was not just a festival struggling against the elements. If nothing else, it was a reminder of why live music still counts: because even if the weather is fighting you, when the right song hammers at the right moment, the rest of it vanishes.
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