Bring Me The Horizon covered Oasis‘ ‘Wonderwall’ and brought a fan on stage during a towering headline set at Reading Festival on Saturday night.
- READ MORE: Reading & Leeds 2025 liveblog: all the action as it happens
The Sheffield metal band first played at the festival in 2008 and co-headlined alongside Arctic Monkeys in 2022, but they stepped out on their own this time around on Saturday night (August 23).
“Reading, how the fuck are we feeling tonight,” frontman Oli Sykes asked the crowd during opener ‘DArkSide’. “We are Bring Me The Horizon and we’re gonna rock your fucking world,” he added, before the band erupted into the industrial, metallic riffage of ‘MANTRA’.
Midway through the set, they played the rocket-speed version of ‘Wonderwall’ that they released in January – a cover that prompted Liam Gallagher to say: “I fucking LOVE it”.
When NME caught up with BMTH at the BRITs this year, Sykes said he was surprised that Liam “didn’t slag it off to the high heavens”. Drummer Mat Nicholls added: “We were expecting [Liam] to absolutely rinse us, but he said some actually nice things! It was cool and I think it went down as good as we wished it could.”
Anyway, here’s ‘Wonderwall’@bmthofficial x @oasis pic.twitter.com/1n0DQRxT63
— Andrew Trendell (@AndrewTrendell) August 23, 2025
BMTH headlining at the Reading Festival 2025 pic.twitter.com/ddkohd3pRT
— bmthstanforlyfe.2 (@bmthstanforlife) August 23, 2025
Bring Me the horizon performing Wonderwall is wild #Reading
— Ian G (@nuthall1862) August 23, 2025
Bring me the horizon covering wonderwall just when i thought their performance couldn’t get better
— PUSB 🏴 (@ccfc_07) August 23, 2025
BMTH smashing it at Reading. MGS throwback was glorious. Even the cover of Wonderwall was genius. Love it!
— Pablo (@pabloscouse) August 23, 2025
Bring me the horizon showing how a headliner performance is done at Reading fest 😍😍
— hollie (@hollieteaches) August 23, 2025
Damn, Bring Me The Horizon are such a good live band.
🔥 🔥 🔥 #ReadingandLeedsFestival
— Stefan (@steftweetshere) August 23, 2025
I’m Sorry, but how fucking good are Bring Me The Horizon?!
— Brett Hayter (@BrettHayter93) August 23, 2025
Elsewhere, Sykes goaded the crowd into forming an enormous moshpit during ‘Happy Song’, while during ‘AmEN!’, the big screen augmented reality effects showed Sykes transforming his way through a rogue’s gallery of characters.
The familiar faces from the band’s Nex Gen saga populated the show, and later on the band picked out an enthusiastic fan named Lily from the front of the crowd to sing lead vocals on ‘Antivist’.
As they left the stage after an encore featuring ‘Drown’ and ‘Throne’, the band bid farewell to the crowd while waving Palestinian flags.
Bring Me The Horizon wave Palestinian flags during performance at Reading & Leeds Festival.
Image credit to @sophiiieporter pic.twitter.com/XhONI8etLF
— State of the Scene (@SOTSPodcast) August 23, 2025
These headline shows are the only dates that the band will play in the UK in 2025, and Sykes suggested that it might be the last time fans see the band before they “go away for maybe quite some time”.
UK readers can find the full set on the BBC iPlayer here.
Bring Me The Horizon played:
‘DArkSide’
‘MANTRA’
‘Happy Song’
‘Teardrops’
‘AmEN!’
‘Kool-Aid’
‘Shadow Moses’
‘Wonderwall’
‘Kingslayer’
‘Antivist’
‘Follow You’
‘LosT’
‘Can You Feel My Heart’
‘Doomed’
‘Drown’
‘Throne’
Other headliners at Reading & Leeds 2025 include Hozier, who made an impassioned and lengthy speech in Reading on Friday in which he spoke out in support of Palestine Action, Kneecap, free speech and equality.
Chappell Roan also played a energetic, hits-packed set on Friday in Reading. In a five-star review, NME wrote: “Throughout the performance, there’s a feeling of camaraderie and community in the crowd. Strangers become new acquaintances, the ‘Hot To Go’ dance unites everyone in clumsily trying to remember the moves and in the right order, and before ‘Red Wine Supernova’, everyone raises pink cowboy hats and pink bandanas aloft. It feels like tens of thousands of like-minded people who’ve all got the same memo and have been brought together with the same intentions.”
Festival organiser Melvin Benn also told NME on site that he has already booked two of the three nights for next year’s instalment of Reading & Leeds.
Fans watching Reading & Leeds from home can follow the NME’s liveblog here. Also find out how to watch and listen on TV and radio here.
