The train from Kings Cross brings a legion of bodies all moving in one direction. Thick-soled boots and the occasional Fred Perry collar brushing against strangers in the heat of a carriage that no longer belongs to TFL but to something else—anticipation, maybe. Someone’s already drunk. Another lights a cigarette thinking they can get away with. It feels like a slow burn before impact.
Alexandra Palace is too grand for this kind of music. It should feel like a contradiction, post-punk sneer in a venue that has hosted the Queen and the snooker finals, but doesn’t. The moment Fontaines D.C. walk on stage, the ceiling might as well not exist. Grian Chatten prowls the stage, a man wound too tight, lyrics tumbling out of his mouth like he’s been carrying them in his chest for too long.
“Romance” kicks things off, and it isn’t pretty. It isn’t meant to be. The synth-bass growls underfoot, Grian Chatten’s vocal and red strobes slicing across the faces of a crowd that’s already writhing. The band’s latest form – less guitars, more menace—feels like a fight breaking out in slow motion. They don’t ease the crowd in, they’re thrown in at the deep end.
Launching into “Jackie Down the Line,” a mass singalong kicks off, voices rising with that kind of desperate, collective intensity usually reserved for football chants. Chatten didn’t ask the crowd to join in, but they do… They always do.
Somewhere round “A Lucid Dream” someone in the pit goes down. Up again within seconds, arms slung over anothers shoulder, grinning through the sweat. The whole set feels like this, an exercise in endurance, the kind of gig where the air is thick with something unspeakable. Tumult? Joy? A weird mix of both? Gears shift without warning—one moment Chatten whispers like he’s trying to tell you a secret he’ll regret in the morning, the next howling into the void. It’s not a performance. It’s an exorcism.
There’s a moment in “I Love You” where time stops. It has to. The guitars stretch and sigh, the vocals are almost spoken, then—something breaks. A riff cuts through like a guillotine, and suddenly, it’s no longer just a song. It’s an accusation, a sermon, a last-ditch plea. It’s hard to tell whether Chatten is singing to himself, to Ireland, to all of us. It’s impossible to separate the personal from the political in a track like this. By the time it’s done, people are gasping like they forgot to breathe.
The encore doesn’t feel an encore, its an extension of something bigger, something unresolved. “Starburster” is all forward momentum, a song that doesn’t build so much as detonate. If there was still any oxygen left in the room, it’s gone now, consumed by Chatten’s narrative. The synths no longer shimmer; they pierce. The drums aren’t just keeping time. They’re dictating the end of the world.
And then—it’s over. No grand farewell, no moment to collect ourselves. The house lights come up too fast, too bright. Strangers wipe the sweat from their brows, look at each other like they’ve just been through something. They have. Tonight Fontaines DC created a rupture, an unhealed wound of a night. People will go home and try to explain it to their mates, but they won’t get it right. Some things you have to be there for. Some things never really leave you.
Words & photos – Richard Isaac
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