It isn’t that long ago a band like Oh Wonder would have been eaten up and spit out by Reading Festival. These days, we don’t even have the traditional ‘rock’ day, never mind the run of the site. It’s a good thing, too. As the festival moves on, so does its ability to find voices of different hues.
Oh Wonder paint in a spectrum that sparkles more than your average Reading second stage band. There’s joy and beauty in their songs – the kind that’s really rather welcome on a sunny Friday afternoon in a Berkshire field. ‘High On Humans’ could well end up coming across as cloying sentiment, but here it’s an enthusing mix of brilliant pop.
Because that’s what Oh Wonder do. As Josephine proclaims she promised as a fifteen year old to never attend the festival until she played it, you can’t help but feel that holding out was a smart move. Reading Festival 2.0 is a different place – but a better one too.
