Fontaines DC are the biggest Irish band in the postband era. Bands are too much trouble – members won’t do what they’re told – and an anachronism in a world where music, as Bono remarks, is increasingly assembled and not created.
That they exist at all in the current music landscape is a marvel, but they are a band that has progressed with each album and kept a multigenerational fan base.
Fontaines DC in the grounds of Dublin’s most famous tourist attraction, the Guinness Storehouse, was a match made in marketing heaven.
The weekend’s Lovely Days Live series of gigs managed to marry top-class music with promotional activities without the flak visited on the Arthur’s Day shindigs a decade ago.
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The Storehouse, which is 25 years old, looms over the concert venue in the old yard at the front gates. Tickets for this concert and for Saturday’s, by CMAT, sold out immediately, via a ballot.
As a music venue, it is not optimal. It feels hemmed in between old buildings, and the ground slopes down from the stage, making the performers difficult to see if you’re at the back. The organisers should include a big screen the next time.
Grian Chatten, the lead singer, stomps around the stage wearing a scarf and shades on a cool and gloomy evening. He prowls and scowls and cajoles the crowd into singing along – not that they really need an invitation.
“Dublin in the rain is mine, a pregnant city with a Catholic mind,” he sings on Big. There’s no rain, thankfully, as there’s no shelter.
Fontaines DC are one of the many Irish acts exercised by what is happening in Gaza and by the looming court case involving Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, better known as Mo Chara of Kneecap.
UK police charged him with a terrorism offence for allegedly displaying a flag in support of Hizbullah at a gig in London last November. He’s due to appear in court in London on June 18th.
Chatten dedicates their performance of Favourite to Daniel Lambert, who is both manager of Kneecap and chief operating officer of Bohemians FC. The club brought out a Fontaines DC-themed third strip last year that is very much in evidence on Sunday.
“Never be scared to talk about Palestine,” Chatten says, which is followed by a smattering of “free Palestine” chants from the crowd. Later he shouts, “free Kneecap, free Palestine,” as he walks offstage following the band’s closing song, Starburster.
Lankum’s brand of Celtic drone music needs a more intimate venue than this – and it doesn’t help that much of their gear hasn’t arrived from Stockholm.
The band do, however, get animated about Gaza, as well. “Genocide is for losers. If you do not call out genocide, you’re an even f**king bigger loser,” comes the cry from the stage. The muted cheers suggest that most of the crowd are here for the music, not the politics.
