Fontaines DC live at Reading Festival review: Irish giants dance through the darkness

There’s a poignant moment late on into Fontaines DC‘s first ever Reading headline set when frontman Grian Chatten reveals that his knuckles have been freshly inked with the name Trev, in tribute to their late manager who unexpectedly died earlier this summer.

Though tragedy has struck this band, there’s a palpable sense that playing their hearts out tonight would be the ultimate tribute to their late leader, who was a champion of the group since their earliest days at Dublin’s Workmans Club. The result is a band dancing through the darkness to deliver one of the most exciting sets of their career.

After a delayed start, they kick off with the jagged punk of 2024 track ‘Here’s The Thing’, immediately igniting mosh pits from a heaving crowd who, for the most part, were probably still in primary school when their debut album Dogrel dropped in 2019.

There’s plenty of cuts from that album tonight, but it’s tempered with everything that’s happened since and the sound of their upcoming fifth album too. The widescreen sound of ‘Marianne’, only one of two new tracks tonight, is immediately greeted like an old Fontaines favourite.

In fact, the only thing at risk of derailing the evening is the apparent technical difficulties which mean that both of the main stage’s screens appear to be half broken for most of the evening, resulting in a weird situation where the band are only seen at the bottom. Though TV viewers have criticised the sound mix, they sound crystal clear in the Reading fields.

Chatten is light on speaking to the crowd, but offers a customary ‘Free Palestine’ at one point and alludes to the death of Trevor Dietz when he admits it’s been a hard couple of months, but they are glad to be back.

By the time they reach the latter portion of the set, it’s a chance to prove why they’ve got the songs in the arsenal that have allowed them to get to this point. The dewey-eyed romance of ‘Favourite’ sees hordes of teenagers climbing on shoulders, while a closing rendition of ‘Starburster’ sees a giddy young crowd on the edge of going understandably, and brilliantly feral. When they depart and a camera hones on a guitar printed with the words ‘Trev Forever’, it feels like the ultimate tribute has been perfectly paid.

The first day of Reading has been a great day for young new bands, from the alt-rock of Keo to the generational greats of Geese over on the second stage. But tonight proves why Fontaines D.C. were always bound to end up in slots like these. With an arena tour on the horizon for late 2026 and talk of even bigger shows in 2027, here was a band tackling the biggest of stages and owning every single minute of it.