The Strokes Perform ‘Falling Out Of Love’ Live for the First Time While Headlining Bonnaroo 2026

By Laura Molloy

The Strokes played ‘Falling Out Of Love‘ in full for the first time during their headline performance at Bonnaroo – check it out below.

The track comes from ‘Reality Awaits’, the highly anticipated seventh album from the New York indie icons, and the follow-up to 2020’s ‘The New Abnormal’. It’s due for release on July 24, and you can pre-order it here.

Now, Julian Casablancas and co. have played the song in full for the first time while headlining Bonnaroo Festival last night (June 12). They also opened with ‘Killing Lies’, marking the first performance of the 2005 track – taken from their album ‘First Impressions of Earth‘ – since 2022.

Like their other recent shows, the band performed without guitarist Nick Valensi, having recently confirmed he would be taking a “temporary break” from playing live. Steve Schiltz took over guitar duties in his place.

The rest of the set saw them sail through their biggest hits, including ‘Hard to Explain’, ‘You Only Live Once’, ‘Someday’, ‘Reptilia’, ‘Last Nite’ and more, before they closed out the show with ‘Ize of the World’, also from ‘First Impressions of Earth’.

Watch footage and see the full setlist below.

The Strokes at Bonnaroo 2026 played:

‘Killing Lies’
‘Hard to Explain’
‘You Only Live Once’
‘The Adults Are Talking’
‘Going Shopping’
‘Someday’
‘Juicebox’
‘Life Is Simple in the Moonlight’
‘Bad Decisions’
‘What Ever Happened?’
‘The Modern Age’
‘Selfless’
‘Take It or Leave It’
‘One Way Trigger’
‘Falling out of Love’ (First time in full)
‘Reptilia’
‘Last Nite’
‘Ize of the World’

As well as ‘Falling Out Of Love’, the album has been previewed by the lead single ‘Going Shopping’. The band recently pushed the release date to July 24, while announcing a huge homecoming New York show with Beach House and Fcukers.

The new date in New York builds on an already-busy year of touring for The Strokes. They have already performed at Coachella 2026 – where they called out the CIA and the United States government in their set – and are now getting ready for more festival appearances at Summer Sonic and more.

They have also announced a huge tour set to hit the UK, North America, Europe and Japan. It will be their first full run of headline dates in the UK and Ireland in over 20 years, and gigs include stops at London’s O2. Support comes from Thundercat, Cage the Elephant, Hamilton Leithauser, Fat White Family, Alex Cameron and ÖLÜM, and more dates have been added due to huge demand.

The first two songs to be shared from ‘Reality Awaits’ have received a mixed response from fans, with many being divided over the use of a vocoder on Julian Casablancas’ voice – which gives it the same distinctive sound as seen on the hit 2013 Daft Punk collab ‘Instant Crush’ and later tracks like 2020’s ‘At the Door’.

In response to some backlash, guitarist and keyboard player Albert Hammond Jr has hit back at critics and described ‘Reality Awaits’ as his “favourite album” The Strokes have ever done.

He also said that working with Rick Rubin on the record was “one of his favourite recording experiences” as a musician.

When ‘Going Shopping’ dropped earlier in 2026, NME gave the single a three-star review and described it as a song that “doesn’t feel bold” but also “does avoid playing anything safe.”

“You couldn’t definitively place its sound on any of The Strokes’ previous six albums, but the lack of spirit and tenacity – save for a guitar solo at the end – is noticeable,” the review read. “‘If you’re better than me you don’t have to judge me’, signs off Casablancas, with an imaginary raised eyebrow. But perhaps even he would admit that The Strokes are better than this.”

In other Strokes news, Julian Casablancas has been announced as a guest at the prestigious Oxford Union debate society, and the band have also played new material for the first time on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.