Reading Festival 2024: here’s what went down during Lana Del Rey’s headlining set

Lana Del Rey took over the main stage at this year’s edition of Reading Festival as the headliner for the second day of the bash – here’s what went down.

The singer was the penultimate headliner on the main stage who was set to close out the second day of the festival alongside Fred Again.. The ‘Ride’ star is set to perform at Leeds tomorrow (August 25) at 7:30pm.

Del Rey showed up roughly 15 minutes late to her set which was slated for an 8:00pm start. To kick off her performance, she treated the rowdy crowd to a shortened version of her 2019 track ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’. “Hello Reading, hello London. Look at this crowd,” she said before jumping into ‘Arcadia’, ‘Without You’, and ‘West Coast’.

After her performance of her 2012 hit ‘Summertime Sadness’, Del Rey told the crowd: “Thank you for singing that song with me for so many years.”

The rest of her 13-track set was filled with a mix of songs spanning her discography including ‘Ride’, ‘Bartender’ and ‘Chemtrails Under The Country Club’. Check out her full setlist below.

Lana Del Rey Reading Festival 2024 setlist was: 

‘Norman fucking Rockwell’ (Shortened)
‘Arcadia’
‘Without You’
‘West Coast’
‘Summertime Sadness’
‘Cherry’
‘Pretty When You Cry’
‘Ride Monologue’
‘Ride’
‘Bartender’
‘Chemtrails Over the Country Club’
‘The Grants’
‘Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd’
‘Video Games’

After wrapping up her set with ‘Video Games’, the singer announced “Thank you so much Reading, thank you. We are going to sing a couple more songs. As long as we can until they pull us off.” Unfortunately, it seemed that Del Rey had gone over her allocated time and the festival may have cut her set. She then sat on stage and watched fireworks go off.

NME‘s review of Lana’s Reading headline set concluded: “Due to a production error (for which the festival later apologised “unreservedly”) that halts the performance five minutes early, the big screens cut to the festival’s graphics, momentarily coming back on as fireworks explode in the night sky and Del Rey looks pensively out into the crowd.

“It’s a disappointing end to a set that had the potential to go down as a classic and, following Glastonbury 2023, a second big UK festival moment in just over 12 months that could have been something much more glorious. We’ll just have to wait for Lana Del Rey’s return to truly experience paradise with her.”

Reading & Leeds Festivals 2024 kicked off yesterday (August 23) at their usual sites of Richfield Avenue (Reading) and Bramham Park (Leeds) – see here for how you can follow along at home on BBC iPlayer and elsewhere if you were not able to secure a ticket.

The festival boasts Fred Again.., Lana Del Rey, Liam Gallagher, Catfish And The Bottlemen, Blink-182 and Gerry Cinnamon as its six headliners this year.

Reneé Rapp, Pendulum, 21 Savage, Denzel Curry, Kenny Beats, Nia Archives, The Wombats, Rachel Chinouriri, Hak Baker, The Last Dinner Party and more are also expected to play.

Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Reading and Leeds 2024.