BACK IN THE sweatbox and loving it, Royal Blood marked their return to live action with a mid-afternoon secret set at Reading 2026’s Gallery stage — and they pulled a huge crowd for it.

Mike Kerr said the pair were “really happy” with how it went, describing the gig as a milestone after time away. “We’re playing live again after two years of not doing anything, so we’ve had a real road to Reading,” he said, adding they’ve been doing smaller shows to “dust off the cobwebs”. By the time they hit Reading, Kerr said, it felt like they’d “arrived”.

Those underplays have been doubling as a warm-up for album number five, ‘Dead Company’. It’s been previewed by the single ‘Ten Over Ten’ and is due for release on November 13.

And no, they’re not pretending the smaller rooms are a gentle re-entry. Kerr said those gigs “never feel small” and come with their own nerves — partly because live shows can always go sideways. “When you play, things can break and go wrong,” he said.

The duo also rewound to their first Reading appearance in 2014, when they went from playing 50-to-100-capacity rooms to facing “thousands of people” at the /Radio 1 Stage. Kerr called it a “baptism of fire” — terrifying, but a “very memorable experience”.

As for ‘Dead Company’, Kerr’s pitch is simple: intensity that doesn’t quit. “Can we make a record where it never lets off?” he said, calling it “pretty brutal” with “not really any breathing room”. Ben Thatcher reckons it carries the energy of their first record, but with four albums’ worth of experience — and says this time they were back “playing in a room together” to chase a “raw, unedited” rock feel.

Reading 2026 continues with sets from Dave, RAYE, Gunna and Radio Free Alice among others.