News : Pendulum perform ‘Tarantula’ for “the last time” at Reading & Leeds 2024

Pendulum have performed their hit song ‘Tarantula’ for the last time at this year’s Reading & Leeds festival.

The rave-rock icons broke out the track at Reading seemingly for the last time during the third and final day of the festival, when they took to the main stage this afternoon (Sunday August 25).

After opening with new track ‘Napalm’, which they shared earlier this week featuring Joey Valance and Brae, the band ripped through classics and fan favourites ‘Propane Nightmares’, ‘Come Alive’, ‘Nothing For Free’ and more, before introducing the track as the penultimate song of the set.

“This is the last time we’re ever going to play this song,” frontman Rob Swire told the audience before launching into the hit. “We’ve played it for 16 years… it’s time to put it to bed.”

Elsewhere in the set, Swire and co. also shared their support for Reneé Rapp, who had her set on the main stage cut short due to a technical issue, before ending with a performance of their 2010 hit ‘Watercolour’.

The performance at this year’s Reading & Leeds comes shortly after the band spoke to NME about their latest single, and revealed that they were initially pushed by their label to make a song that centred more on drum’n’bass.

“The label pretty much came to us saying, ‘Make some more drum’n’bass. As you know, I’ve got a weird relationship with that! We decided to go in and make it as heavy as possible, rather than make something that would fit into DnB sets. We wanted to make it our own way,” Swire said.

Looking forward, he added: “I want to take it much heavier. I know drum ‘n’ bass is having a moment again and we keep getting every Tom, Dick and Harry across our entire work team being like, ‘You guys have to get in on this and start making some DnB that fits in Hedex’s set’, but it’s just the last thing I want to fucking do.

“I feel most comfortable when we’re in between worlds. As soon as it goes too metal or too DnB, then I start to feel weird about it. The middle of that ground is the perfect zone for us. I want to take it much heavier if we can.”

R&L 2024 kicked off on Friday (August 23) and has seen headline sets so far from Blink-182, Lana Del Rey and Fred Again.., with Liam Gallagher set to close the Reading main stage tonight.

Meanwhile, in Leeds, Storm Lilian brought “extreme weather” conditions to the festival site, forcing the cancellation of multiple sets on the first day of the event. The BBC Radio 1 and Aux stages were deemed too unsafe to be used at all this weekend by the festival’s health and safety team.

Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Reading and Leeds 2024.