Fontaines D.C. headline the Reading and Leeds festivals and debut Happy For You

Fontaines D.C. headlined Reading Festival on August 28 and Leeds the following night, their first headline slots at either site.

Reading did not go to plan. The band arrived on the main stage, now called The Grid, roughly half an hour late after technical and logistical problems, and three songs came out of the setlist as a result: "Big," "Hurricane Laughter" and the planned live debut of a new one, "Happy For You." They closed anyway on "Starburster," from their fourth album Romance.

The shows were also among the band's first since the death in June of their manager Trevor Dietz, whom they have described as the sixth member of the group. At Reading the words Trevor Forever were written on one of their guitars, and frontman Grian Chatten told the crowd, "It's been a very hard time for us the last couple of months, and it's nice to be back here."

Dietz shaped the new record directly. Bassist Conor Deegan has explained that "Marianne" had been discarded from the album until Dietz told the band they were absolute lunatics for leaving it out, and the song is now dedicated to him. It got its first outing at Spain's Baluarte de la Candelaria, on the same night as another new song, "Six Shot Morning."

At Bramham Park the next night the missing piece arrived. "Happy For You" was played for the first time, a slow-burning, bittersweet track in which Chatten works toward accepting the end of a relationship. "Big" came back into the set as well; "Hurricane Laughter" still did not.

Dopamine Chamber arrives on October 16 through XL Recordings, and NME gave the Reading show four and a half stars, calling it a deserved coronation even in truncated form. The weekend is logged on the festival tracker with the rest of the rock and indie summer, after the band confirmed the fifth album, previewed it with Marianne and played the BBC's last live session at Maida Vale.