Jamie T may be planning a secret set at Reading & Leeds 2026, telling organisers online that he wants to join the line-up as a “last minute” addition.
The gates to the 2026 edition of the dual festival open today (Thursday August 27), with Kasabian set to headline in Leeds tonight, and the main bulk of performances at both sites commencing tomorrow.
Already the festival has a stacked line-up for this year, with Charli XCX, Florence + The Machine, Fontaines D.C., Dave, RAYE and Chase & Status, headlining, and other names on the line-up including Skepta, Sombr, Role Model, JADE, Kneecap, Geese, Skye Newman, Holly Humberstone, Gurriers, Westside Cowboy, Declan McKenna, Maisie Peters, Paris Paloma, Overpass and Duke Dumont.
Now, just hours before things kick off, Jamie T has hinted that he could be making a surprise appearance at Reading.
At time of writing, he isn’t on the bill, but has recently made a plea to festival organisers online, asking if he can join as a “last minute” addition.
“Reading Festival, do you think I can get on the bill at the last minute?” he said in a new Instagram video. “Please? I’ll play any time, any stage, all I need is 33 minutes and 10 seconds. That’s it. Short and sweet.”
If the slot does come together, it will come ahead of the indie icon dropping his new album, ‘Ghosts (100 Days of Morning)’, on October 9 via Polydor Records. That album will mark the highly anticipated follow-up to his fifth album ‘The Theory of Whatever’ which dropped in 2022.
Ahead of the album’s release, he’s already shared the lead single ‘3310’ and previewed other new material during a last-minute, intimate gig at London’s Scala.
A potential R&L appearance would also come ahead of his 2026 UK tour kicking off in December – for which, tickets are on pre-sale now before going on general sale from 10am on Friday August 28 – See full dates here.
It would also mark another “secret set” planned for Reading & Leeds – with rock duo Royal Blood also set to make a last minute appearance tomorrow (Friday August 28). For Royal Blood, the slot comes on the heels of them announcing their fifth album ‘Dead Company’ with the pummelling comeback single ‘Ten Over Ten‘.
Speaking to NME about the set, they shared: “The first time we played Reading was pretty mental… If my memory is correct it was when we had ‘Out Of The Black’ and ‘Figure It Out’ on the radio. We were doing a UK tour of about 100-capacity rooms, some of them were selling out and some of them were not.”
“We were in that very early stage of touring and trying to get fans. We rocked up to Reading and we went from playing to 100 people to playing to a tent that was rammed with thousands. I remember it being quite intimidating. It was a huge surprise because we didn’t think we could do that. It was scary but the energy was great.”
As for other Jamie T news, since dropping his last album, the artist has played his largest-ever headline show at Finsbury Park in 2023, and more recently had Fred Again.. sample his single ‘Lights Burn Dimmer’.
The pair performed the track live at a gig at London’s Alexandra Palace, which was one of the producer’s ’10 Shows in 10 Weeks in 10 Cities’ series.
