FIGHT SAID FRED

Reading proves its culture-leading spirit is alive and kicking but headliners Lana Del Rey and Fred Again face a battle to be heard over nearby rave thumps, writes Mark Beaumont

- Mark Beaumont

Is pop metal dead? Looking down the bill of Reading 2024’s second day, you might well think so. Here’s Glasgow’s Dead Pony, benefiting from the morning’s sudden downpour to introduce a rammed Festival Republic tent to their melodic metal outcast anthems and Garbage-lite rave rock (as well as their inflatable black mascot Derek the Dead Pony). And out on the main stage, Boston’s Dead Poet Society are doing likewise, sadly minus a blow-up Wordsworth.

Both bands prove there’s life in melodic metal yet, but it’s alternative rock that’s really caught mid-resurrection today. The Last Dinner Party arrive on the main stage looking like a shelf full of haunted Victorian dolls come to life and sounding like the theatrical rock fantasy of a festival that would kill to have actual Kate Bush headlining.

Their flamboyant drama pop deserves – and owns – a stage this big; singer Abigail Morris prowls, twirls and collapses into screaming meltdowns through songs like the billowing, Byronesque “Portrait of a Dead Girl” that sound like a travelling cabaret troupe have broken into the Metropolitan Opera House and started throwing squat parties. Throw in their generational anthem of no-baggage sex “Nothing Matters” and a cover of Sparks’ “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us”, which could have been written for them to camp up, and it’s a true blooming.

Fontaines DC have a stylistic blossoming here too. The Dublin poet rockers stalk onstage sporting what you might call an acidpunk look: purple tracksuits, tiger-print jackets, blood-orchid hair and, in singer Grian Chatten’s case, a jacket so green it embodies the Brattiest of summers. Heavy on the stylistic experiments of new album Romance, it’s a set of sharp left turns.