Fontaines DC
Main stage, Friday
★★★★★
Grian Chatten, the Fontaines DC frontman, must feel he’s come to All Together Now underdressed, as he seems to be the only person on Curraghmore Estate on Friday night not wearing a Bohemian FC jersey bearing his band’s name.
He makes up for the fashion lapse by leading the band through an all-conquering homecoming gig at which the biggest Irish group since U2 hit ferocious new highs.
They open with the title track from Romance, their fourth album, a psychedelic onslaught that showcases the quintet’s talent for guitar pop that is both feather-light and hard-hitting.
Fontaines have defied the convention of flogging one or two ideas to death. The album which they released 18 months ago, is a leap forward full of piercing pop moments that would have stunned anyone who caught the band sharing a bill with Shame and The Murder Capital in 2018.
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They proceed with stately briskness through their hit parade. Beginning with an onslaught of guitar, Boys in the Better Land is The Dubliners if they’d got really into punk in 1977. Nabokov is Yeatsian art-rock with a hint of the surreal in its lyrics (“He’s selling insurance, selling clouds in the sky) – Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground meets David Lynch’s Blue Velvet.
Banter isn’t their thing. Chatten introduces I Love You by proclaiming “F*** the far right,” as the video screens proclaim “Free Palestine”.
The singer elsewhere compensates for his lack of loquaciousness by wearing a sort of cyberpunk sarong with shades of Shane MacGowan replacing Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. He is accompanied by a light show of intense pink and green that suggests a trip to a psychedelic sweetshop.
Fontaines DC have been playing festivals through the summer. This show could easily have been just another ticket punched at the end of a busy year of touring. But as they finish with Starburster, a mash-up of trip-hop and nu-metal, they make it clear that they want to leave an impression.
At the end of day one of the biggest All Together Now to date, this is the supersized gig with pep in its step.
