Featured image: Georgina Hurdsfield

After the considerably grey weather of the weekend, Sunday morning started with a spell of glorious sunshine to wake the people of Leeds Festival, a spot of cheer going into the dreaded final day of the weekend. But, of course, it wouldn’t be a proper festival weekend without the flash downpours, and even a thunderstorm for good measure. Despite it all, Sunday at Leeds was nothing to be sniffed at.

Slayyyter, the moniker of Catherine Garner, takes to The Grid stage with an attitude befitting the woman behind ‘Worst Girl in America’, somehow combining the rockstar and popstar energy to perfection. “Are you doing drugs tonight?” she asks the crowd. We’re just going to pretend we don’t hear the rapturous scream that follows as ‘OLD TECHNOLOGY’ kicks in with a thumping bassline. The hyperpop energy is unmatched as Garner commands the crowd to stop standing around and jump. 

‘CRANK’ keeps the gritty hyperpop energy running high with its bold and unapologetically raw lyricism, while Garner’s decision to use a full live band pays off in spades, taking her performance to another level. Loud and rambunctious, an afternoon spent with Slayyyter is one hell of a way to shake off those last-day blues.

It’s only 4pm, yet The Grid stage is already absolutely bustling as the crowd gathers for the arrival of Jade Thirlwall. A British pop icon during her time with Little Mix, it’s clear that her popularity has only continued to soar since striking out on her own. Back-to-back performances of ‘Gossip’ and ‘Boy Crazy’, collaborations with Confidence Man and Kesha, immediately set the tone and fire up the crowd on an otherwise greying afternoon.

Thirlwall takes a moment to reminisce about her time in Little Mix, reflecting on how the landscape has changed for the ‘pop girlies’, who are increasingly being welcomed onto festival line-ups. With Adéla, Maisie Peters and Charli XCX among the artists performing at this very festival, it’s clear that things are just beginning to shift for women in music. What follows is a medley of Little Mix classics that sends the crowd into a frenzy. Every word is belted back at her, turning The Grid stage into a euphoric singalong.

Stepping away from The Grid, the sounds of relentless, thrashing drums and a howling guitar riff lead us to Gurriers, who are setting The Canopy alight. From the second the music starts until the end of the set, the mosh pits seemingly never refrain, with members of the band even making cameos in the thick of it. 

A standout, quite frankly surreal, moment of the set comes during the driving and pulsating ‘Des Goblin’, as bassist Charlie McCarthy ventures into the forest of punters and suddenly rises above them on a man’s shoulders, guitar and all. McCarthy proceeds to summon a circle pit around them, the speed and ferocity of which only gains as the song approaches its climax. The moshing only fades as Dan Hoff sends the crowd home with the unreleased ‘Crybaby’, the closer of their upcoming album, Nobody’s Coming To Save You.

As the sun begins to set on our time here at Leeds Festival 2026, the crowd pours into The Grid stage for the penultimate time. One sudden thunderstorm later, and it’s finally time for RAYE to have her fun – and fun she has. A pulsing red light and the ‘Amnesia’ intro signals her arrival, she instantly pulls the audience into her grasp, with a full orchestra/jazz band hybrid, a set pulled straight from the American swing-era and her two backing singers. Rachel Keen is well and truly here to entertain. 

Teaching the crowd a call-and-response routine with ‘Beware… The South London Lover Boy’, and comparing ‘Skin & Bones’ to ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’, Keen jokes that she feels like a “successful primary school teacher”. ‘I Know You’re Hurting’, from her new album, THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE, reminds us all that there is always hope to be found, even in the darkest of places. 

The massive hit single ‘WHERE IS MY HUSBAND?’ is an absolute showstopper as the RAYE headline set comes to a close. The entire crowd can’t help but sing every word along with Keen. This impossible to avoid and undeniably catchy anthem showcases Keen and her band at their absolute best, a defining culmination of the years of hard work that it took her to get here. Leeds won’t be forgetting that anytime soon.

For the final time in 2026, all eyes are on The Grid ahead of the grand finale. The crowd is bathed in orange light, the lights flicker as if the stage is powering on, and then the slow, almost haunting piano of ‘Verdansk’ fades in as Dave casually strolls on stage. Just when the crowd’s jubilation finally starts to settle, David Omeregie fires off the first bar and the crowd chant every word back at him without hesitation. 

Dave’s flow never breaks, rattling through iconic tracks like ‘Location’ and ‘Thiago Silva’ with natural showmanship. It’s clear he’s having the time of his life, hearing the words he penned echoed from the front to the back of Bramham Park. Omeregie intends on making tonight special, bringing along three outstanding guests to share in the party atmosphere, the first two being Kano and Central Cee, for ‘3 Wheel-Ups’ and ‘Sprinter’, respectively.

Our final guest is Tems, bringing her elegant R&B stylings and soulful vocals to the atmospheric ‘Raindance’, a melodic song that eases us towards the end of Dave’s set. He admits he never wants to get off that stage and that he will never stop coming to Leeds. As the show reaches its climax, the audience can do nought but look in awe as the pair’s vocals intertwine perfectly, while an epic fireworks display to the beat of the drums signals the end of the massive bank-holiday weekender that has been Leeds Festival 2026.