U2 and Martin Garrix debut new track Fireflies at Belgium’s Tomorrowland festival
The live premiere of a new U2 and Martin Garrix collaboration at Belgium’s Tomorrowland festival signals a strategic cross-genre push ahead of the Irish band’s first new studio album since 2017.
Dutch producer Martin Garrix welcomed U2 guitarist The Edge to the main stage at Belgium’s Tomorrowland festival on July 17 to premiere an unreleased track. The song, titled ‘Fireflies’, features vocals from U2 frontman Bono and builds toward a repeated chorus of the track's namesake.
Garrix confirmed the partnership on Instagram, stating the single is scheduled for release on July 24. It remains unconfirmed whether the track will appear on forthcoming albums by either the Dutch DJ or the Irish rock band.
This live debut at one of Europe’s largest electronic music festivals highlights a continued strategic alignment between legacy rock acts and contemporary dance producers. Such cross-genre collaborations allow established artists to access younger festival demographics while maintaining commercial relevance in the streaming era.
Garrix and U2 have a proven track record of successful partnerships. They previously collaborated on ‘We Are The People’, the official song of UEFA Euro 2020, and Garrix produced the band’s contribution to the ‘Sing 2’ soundtrack. Earlier this year, he also co-wrote ‘Scars’ for U2’s ‘Easter Lily’ EP.
The single arrives as U2 builds momentum for their 15th studio album, their first collection of newly written material since 2017’s ‘Songs Of Experience’. The band recently previewed the upcoming record with ‘Street Of Dreams’, a Jacknife Lee-produced track featuring Spanish lyrics from Bono and the return of drummer Larry Mullen Jr.
Mullen had previously missed the band’s high-profile Las Vegas Sphere residency across 2023 and 2024 while recovering from surgery. His presence in the new promotional video, which was filmed on a Mexico City bus and a local balcony, signals a full return to the group’s core lineup.
U2 has already tested new material this year through two distinct extended plays. The politically focused ‘Days Of Ash’ arrived in February, followed by the more reflective ‘Easter Lily’ on Good Friday.
Speaking during the ‘Easter Lily’ release, Bono outlined the band’s current creative direction. He described the forthcoming album as a “noisy, messy, ‘unreasonably colour xerox’ album to play LIVE”, adding that the band still looks to “vivid rock’n’roll as an act of resistance against all this awfulness on our small screens.”
