Dave live at Reading Festival 2026 review: a headline set for the history books

It’s seven years since Dave picked a lad called Alex out of the audience and made Glastonbury history, but it feels like many, many more. A lot has happened since that mind-bogglingly brilliant performance of ‘Thiago Silva’ – for the planet and for Dave himself, who broke America with the massive Central Cee team-up ‘Sprinter’ and responded to his career level-up by retreating from the limelight. The result was last year’s ‘The Boy Who Played the Harp’, a deeply introspective album that saw him grapple with fame and question his calling even as he scaled new heights of lyrical dexterity. As the 28-year-old bounds onto the main stage at Reading Festival for his co-headliner slot (shared with RAYE) on the Saturday night, though, it soon becomes clear that he’s in party mode. During an opening salvo that packs in the hardboiled ‘Verdansk’, a slinky ‘Clash’ and a groovy ‘Location’, he floods the stage in yellow smoke, conducts the crowd who are singing along and deploys pyro that warms you even from behind the second barrier. Dressed simply in a black boiler suit, the top half of which he soon wraps around his waist to reveal a fitted jumper, he looks momentarily overwhelmed, smiling b...