The chilly night is drawing in and the massive crowd is growing restless with Fontaines D.C. now half an hour late to the stage, through technical/logistical issues it seems rather than Grian Chatten going all Axl Rose on us. As the lights dip for a rousing Irish language intro speech and the band arrive to burst into the effervescent ‘Boys In The Better Land’, it’s plain to see that the band have been itching to get on this stage. Headlining this hallowed arena of Reading & Leeds is where they’re meant to be.

They’re co-headlining with Charli XCX, quite a fitting combo given that ‘Romance’ was the evil indie twin to her ‘Brat’ summer in the neon green musical equivalent of Barbenheimer of 2024 that saw both acts reach their long-awaited breakthroughs. For Fontaines, that peaked with a huge show to 40,000 fans at Finsbury Park. Their comeback for fifth album ‘Dopamine Chamber’ could only be something as monumental as this.

Seizing the moment, Chatten charges down the gangway for the punk-edged ‘Here’s The Thing’ before the anguish of ‘Nabokov’ nearly collapses in on itself as he bellows: “Well this is what it is now, pain, pain”. These aren’t the ‘365 Party Girl’ bangers we were just treated to. These are anthems from the seedy underbelly of modernity, but they still don’t half slap. The cinematic new single ‘Marianne’ proves a hypnotic hit before ‘Jackie Down The Line’ makes the darkest sing-along of the day so far, but the first of many. Who can resist the fields of Reading hollering back “shit, shit, shit, BATTERED” on ‘Death Kink’? Fontaines have got the measure of the mindset of their generation. “I don’t feel anything in the modern world,” offers Chatten to a crowd with arms outstretched. “I don’t feel bad…”

Fontaines D.C. live at Reading 2026. Credit: Andy Ford for NME

Just as the vast sidescreens slowly rising reveal themselves, tonight’s is a set of tension and release, with the whole band feeling every moment while retaining a horizontal, effortless cool. For the crying guitar wails of ‘Skinty Fia’ there’s the euphoria of ‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’. New number ‘Six Shot Morning’ is a synthy nightmare, bubbling with the paranoia of this digital hellscape that surrounds us (“It’s you and I living for a million years, always”), matching the all-out exorcism of ‘I Love You’.

“Are you ready?” asks Chatten after a particularly gnarly outing of ‘Big Shot’. “It’s been a hard time for us the last couple of months, and it’s nice to be back here,” he continues, emotional at the memory of their late manager Trevor Dietz, who died in June. The words ‘Trevor Forever’ are scrawled on the side of one of their guitars, and it’s clear that Fontaines – waving flags for Ireland and Palestine – intend on leaving absolutely everything on this field for him and what he stood for. The following peak of ‘Favourite’ and the love it inspires could go on to be the moment of the weekend.

Fontaines D.C. live at Reading 2026. Credit: Andy Ford for NME

“Sorry for the short set,” ends Chatten before the pure anxiety explosion of the full stop of ‘Starburster’. We hear that ‘Big’, ‘Hurricane Laughter’ and another new one ‘Happy For You’ were reportedly 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.

Fontaines D.C. played: 

‘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’

Fontaines D.C. live at Reading 2026. Credit: Andy Ford for NME

Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Reading & Leeds 2026.

The post Fontaines D.C. live at Reading 2026: an emotional coronation for the modern indie kings appeared first on NME.