Culture 3 min read By Morgan Griffin
Fontaines D.C. debut new song ‘Happy, For You’ during Leeds Festival headline set
Fontaines D.C. performed the unreleased track ‘Happy, For You’ live for the first time at Leeds Festival, after it was cut from their Reading set due to technical delays. The song appears on their upcoming fifth album ‘Dopamine Chamber’, due October 16.
Fontaines D.C. gave the first live performance of their new song ‘Happy, For You’ during their headline set at Leeds Festival on Saturday night, one day after the track was dropped from their Reading show due to technical problems. The Irish band closed the main stage at Bramham Park, now known as The Grid, and used the slot to premiere the slow-burning, bittersweet track from their upcoming fifth album ‘Dopamine Chamber’.
The song sees frontman Grian Chatten wrestling with the end of a relationship, repeatedly insisting: «So you know, I’m just happy for you, I swear.» Fans at Leeds also heard ‘Big’, another track that had been cut from the Reading setlist, although ‘Hurricane Laughter’ remained absent for a second night. The band also performed ‘Marianne’ and ‘Six Shot Morning’, the other two ‘Dopamine Chamber’ songs that have featured regularly in their sets this month.
Fontaines had intended to debut ‘Happy, For You’ at Reading a night earlier, but arrived on stage roughly half an hour late because of technical and logistical issues. That delay forced the band to drop three songs from the Reading setlist: ‘Big’, ‘Hurricane Laughter’, and the new track. NME gave the Reading performance four-and-a-half stars, calling it «a deserved coronation from the band of our time, even if we didn’t get them in full.»
The Leeds set opened with ‘Boys In The Better Land’ and closed with ‘Starburster’, spanning tracks from across the band’s catalogue. The full setlist included ‘Here’s The Thing’, ‘Nabokov’, ‘Jackie Down The Line’, ‘Televised Mind’, ‘Roman Holiday’, ‘Death Kink’, ‘Big Shot’, ‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’, ‘Bug’, ‘Before You I Just Forget’, ‘Favourite’, ‘In The Modern World’, and ‘I Love You’.
The Reading & Leeds shows were Fontaines D.C.’s first headline performances at the twin festivals, and marked their return to the stage following the death of longtime manager Trevor Dietz in June. At Reading, the words «Trevor Forever» were written on one of the band’s guitars, and 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 serves as the follow-up to 2024’s ‘Romance’. The album was announced earlier this month alongside the cinematic lead single ‘Marianne’. Fontaines have also lined up a UK and European arena tour in support of the record, with dates in Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds and Birmingham before the run concludes at The O2 in London on November 27. Before that, the band is due to play a homecoming set at Electric Picnic in Ireland on Sunday night.
