Fontaines D.C. played the new song ‘Happy, For You’ for the first time during their headline set at Leeds Festival – watch footage below.
The Irish band closed the festival’s main stage – now known as The Grid – at Bramham Park last night (August 29), one day after their headline performance at Reading.
The set saw the first ever performance of the new song ‘Happy, For You’, taken from their upcoming fifth album ‘Dopamine Chamber‘, which is set to be released on October 16 via XL Recordings.
Fontaines had intended to debut the song at Reading a night earlier, but the band arrived on stage approximately half an hour late due to technical and logistical problems, and it was one of three songs cut from the final setlist, alongside ‘Big’ and ‘Hurricane Laughter’.
Fans at Leeds did get to experience ‘Happy For You’, a slow-burning, bittersweet track that sees frontman Grian Chatten attempting to accept the end of a relationship, repeatedly insisting: “So you know, I’m just happy for you, I swear“.
Check out footage here:
Fontaines also found room for ‘Big’ in their Leeds set, although ‘Hurricane Laughter’ still did not make the cut. The other two ‘Dopamine Chamber’ songs that have been a regular presence in the band’s setlists this month, ‘Marianne‘ and ‘Six Shot Morning’, also made an appearance.
‘Boys In The Better Land’
‘Here’s The Thing’
‘Nabokov’
‘Marianne’
‘Jackie Down The Line’
‘Televised Mind’
‘Roman Holiday’
‘Death Kink’
‘Big’
‘Big Shot’
‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’
‘Bug’
‘Happy, For You’ (live debut)
‘Before You I Just Forget’
‘Favourite’
‘In The Modern World’
‘Six Shot Morning’
‘I Love You’
‘Starburster’
NME gave their Reading show four-and-a-half stars, writing: “’Sorry for the short set,’ ends Chatten before the pure anxiety explosion of the full stop of ‘Starburster’. We hear that three songs – and reportedly another never-played-before new one – were cut from the setlist due to the delay, and we envy the people at the sister site in Leeds who we assume are going to get the full Fontaines R+L headline experience as it was intended. Either way, tonight was a deserved coronation from the band of our time, even if we didn’t get them in full.”
The shows were Fontaines’ first Reading & Leeds headline performances, with the band having recently returned to the stage following the death of their longtime manager Trevor Dietz in June.
At Reading, the words “Trevor Forever” could be seen written on one of the band’s guitars, while Chatten told the crowd: “It’s been a hard time for us the last couple of months, and it’s nice to be back here.”
‘Dopamine Chamber’ was produced by James Ford and will serve as the follow-up to the band’s 2024 album ‘Romance’. They announced the record earlier this month alongside the cinematic lead single ‘Marianne’.
Fontaines recently announced a UK and European arena tour in support of the album, including shows in Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds and Birmingham before the run concludes at The O2 in London on November 27. Before then, they are due to perform a homecoming set at Electric Picnic in Ireland tonight (August 30).
Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, photos, interviews and much more from Reading & Leeds 2026.
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