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Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten has revealed why he wore the shirt of Cwmbran Celtic football club during the band’s headline set at Reading Festival 2026 this weekend.
The frontman donned the green and white jersey as he delivered an epic headline set at Reading – where they aired out new singles ‘Six Shot Morning’ and ‘Marianne’ from upcoming album ‘Dopamine Chamber’, and faced some technical issues that cut their set short.
The shirt was the design made in collaboration with Mogwai, which launched last month as the Scottish post-rock icons – as well as Super Furry Animals, Panic Shack, and Loose Articles – joined forces with the football team for new 2026/27 kits.
An exclusive, limited edition design was made for each band and proceeds from every sale were donated to the Music Venue Trust – helping support grassroots venues and emerging talent across the UK.
Speaking to BBC Wales about why he chose to get the Mogwai design, Chatten shared: “I love Cwmbran and I love initiatives that support independent venues.”
“Cwmbran Celtic is a club run by volunteers who have a sense of solidarity with the plight independent music venues are facing. I think that’s class,” he added. “Also, I love Mogwai”.
After he wore the shirt at Reading, Cwmbran Celtic shared their thanks and said that it lead to pre-sales of the design almost doubling – and that they were sending him “a lifetime season ticket”.
“We’re still in shock and can’t thank Grian enough for the support,” the club said, and Matt Jarrett, joint commercial manager for the team, shared that they didn’t consider that a member of another band would be interested in the designs.
“[We] never expected a totally different band, who weren’t on the shirt to end up wearing it on stage,” he shared, adding that it was a friend of the club who worked as the monitor engineer for Fontaines, and helped him get a shirt ahead of the festival slot.
“In all honesty, we thought we’ll give it to him. It’ll be nice for him to have it. Maybe he will wear it backstage or something… We were as surprised as anyone when we saw him walking out on stage with the shirt on,” Jarrett shared.
“Our pre-sale orders have almost doubled from last Friday,” he added. “Fontaines fans have gone crazy over it.”
The shirt is available to order here, and 10 per cent of proceeds will be donated to the Music Venue Trust.
NME awarded Fontaines D.C.’s Reading headline performance 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.”
At the following headline slot at Leeds Festival, Fontaines played new song ‘Happy, For You’ for the first time live, before they played their first Irish show since the death of longtime manager and “sixth member” Trevor Dietz when they took to the stage at Electric Picnic.
The Dublin rockers will embark on an arena tour later this year, kicking off in Lisbon next month. The UK leg starts with a show at Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena on November 20, with further shows in Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, Birmingham and London.
For 2027, they have already announced two massive shows at Slane Castle, which will see them play to up to 160,000 over both nights and enlist support from Hayley Williams, Damien Dempsey and Madra Salach.
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