As the chilly night air settles over the festival grounds, the massive crowd at Reading begins to grow restless, checking their watches as Fontaines D.C. face unexpected technical and logistical delays, arriving some thirty minutes late to the stage. When the lights finally dip and a powerful, evocative mashup of Lankum’s ‘Ode To Lullaby’ and Luke Kelly’s ‘For What Died the Sons of Roisin’ blares over the speakers, the band erupts onto the stage with the shimmering energy of ‘Boys In The Better Land’. It is immediately clear that the band has been aching for this moment; headlining this legendary slot at Reading & Leeds is precisely where they belong.
The band shares the bill with Charli XCX, a pairing that feels remarkably fitting. Their latest album, Romance, served as the edgy, indie-soaked dual to Charli XCX’s Brat summer, forming a neon-green cultural phenomenon akin to Barbenheimer. The year propelled both acts to their long-awaited breakthroughs, with Fontaines reaching a peak milestone with a massive show of 40,000 fans at Finsbury Park. Returning with their highly anticipated fifth album, Dopamine Chamber, the band’s resurgence demands a stage as monumental as the hallowed grounds of Reading & Leeds.
Seizing the moment, vocalist Grian Chatten charges down the gangway for the raw, punk-edged energy of ‘Here’s The Thing’. The anguished delivery of ‘Nabokov’ follows, nearly collapsing under the weight of its own despair as Chatten bellows, “Well this is what it is now, pain, pain”. These are not the lighthearted party anthems of the earlier sets; rather, they are sharp, visceral anthems extracted from the seedy underbelly of modern life, yet they still put on an unforgettable show. The cinematic new single ‘Marianne’ captivates, quickly followed by the brooding ‘Jackie Down The Line’, which sparks one of the darkest, most powerful sing-alongs of the day. Who could ignore the fields of Reading hollering back the gritty refrain, “shit, shit, shit, BATTERED” on ‘Death Kink’? Fontaines have captured the exact pulse of their generation’s mindset. “I don’t feel anything in the modern world,” Chatten confesses to the outstretched arms of the crowd, adding, “I don’t feel bad…”
As the massive side screens slowly rise to reveal the band in full swing, the performance tonight is a masterclass in tension and release. Every member of the band feels each moment deeply, yet maintains an effortless, laid-back cool. The weeping guitar cries of ‘Skinty Fia’ give way to the sheer euphoria of ‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’. Meanwhile, the new track ‘Six Shot Morning’ is a synth-heavy nightmare, pulsating with the paranoia of the digital hellscape surrounding us, echoing the sentiment of “living for a million years, always,” before launching into the all-out exorcism of ‘I Love You’.
“Are you ready?” Chatten asks the crowd following a blistering, gravel-filled run of ‘Big Shot’. “It’s been a hard time for us these last couple of months, and it’s really nice to be back here,” he continues, his voice thick with emotion as he reflects on the tragic passing of their late manager, Trevor Dietz, in June. The poignant words “Trevor Forever” are scrawled across the side of one of their guitars. With the band proudly waving flags for both Ireland and Palestine, it is evident that Fontaines intend to leave absolutely everything on the field tonight in honor of him and the causes he championed. The subsequent peak of ‘Favourite’ and the wave of love it inspires might just go down as the defining moment of the entire weekend.
“Sorry for the short set,” Chatten apologizes to the crowd just before the sheer, unadulterated anxiety of ‘Starburster’ closes out the night. Due to the delays, we hear that massive cuts like ‘Big’, ‘Hurricane Laughter’, and the new track ‘Happy For You’ were trimmed from the set list. We find ourselves envying the fans at the sister festival in Leeds, who will undoubtedly receive the full, unadulterated Fontaines headline experience as originally intended. Regardless, tonight stood as a richly deserved coronation for the defining band of our era, even if they couldn’t give us the complete package.
Fontaines D.C. Setlist:
- ‘Boys in the Better Land’
- ‘Here’s the Thing’
- ‘Nabokov’
- ‘Marianne’
- ‘Jackie Down the Line’
- ‘It’s Amazing to Be Young’
- ‘Death Kink’
- ‘Televised Mind’
- ‘Roman Holiday’
- ‘Before You I Just Forget’
- ‘Bug’
- ‘Big Shot’ / ‘Favourite’
- ‘In the Modern World’
- ‘Six Shot Morning’
- ‘I Love You’
- ‘Starburster’
