Escape from the rain happens just in time for Charli xcx’s takeover of the Grid (main stage), one of Reading and Leeds’s most highly anticipated shows of the weekend. 

A walkthrough in time, Charli’s seamless, penultimate headline set features songs from each epoque of her career. With a strong cinematic vision behind her new production, the film noire-leaning display sees the artist appear solo, and with a full cohort of dancers. 

Striking the balance between rock and pop, this year’s album release is rock enough to fit the category and sufficiently pop to satisfy the ever-growing thirst for more. 

The insatiably recognisable guitar riff of ‘Rock Music’ suitably opens the set, before ‘Yeah’ and ‘Apple follow. The enticing ‘Blame It On Your Love’ is a breath of nostalgia. Similarly, pinpoint numbers ‘Von dutch’, ‘Guess’, ‘360’ and more get the crowd dancing, screaming, with phones, of course. 

Techy, real-time switches are used to simulate the jumps in time; digital production technology is used to identify the specific epoque in question. The minimalistic, pitch-black stage design is made up of what looks like stacked amplifiers. 

When a sound effect that’s supposedly placed to emulate the click of a rewind button on a video or tape recorder is heard, it signals the return to a different artistic era. Namely, the throwback opening the door to more than one room; the rooms of SOPHIE and Brat, with anchor producer A.G. Cook. It does not stop there. Rich in detail, the career overview also refers to collaborator John Cale in the context of Wuthering Heights. 

Fuelled by a 23-track-setlist, the 60 something minutes are gone in a heartbeat. The singer hardly speaks to the crowd during the cinematic affair, perhaps there genuinely is no need to. But it’s possible that the filmic quality would have felt more intimate, if not personal, had she chosen to do so. 

But this not does not take away the fact that this is Charli xcx, the rockstar, who gets things right, with this prime-time slot being no exception.