Fontaines D.C. performed at Glastonbury and it was a show full of transformation, growth and energy. The frontman, Grian Chatten, stood in a pale green spotlight with a kilt and stomping boots, ready to embark on this new era of the band. Chatten enters the stage during opener ‘Romance’ with a raspy and scratching voice. The vulnerability and rage of the band come through especially during ‘Starburster’.
Their music feels more swaggering and cryptic than ever before. The Park Stage crowd even jumps into Fontaines D.C. football chants during ‘Televised Mind’. Guitarists Carlos O’Connell and Conor Curley stand heroically, if more subtly committed, to the melodrama never once flinching from the massive musical climaxes. Drummer Tom Coll and bassist Conor ‘Deego’ Deegan hold down the rhythm section through sudden shifts in pace and intensity.
Most of all, the audience brings unexpected moments of levity throughout the show. There are flares, bubble guns and fistfuls of confetti filling the sky during the performance. There’s a shared understanding that there may be teenagers here experiencing the full guts and potency of guitar music for the first time, as well many older fans feeling reinvigorated by this emotional spectacle.
Chatten communicates a quiet tenacity to the audience. During their new single ‘Favourite’, he bellows “But if there was lightning in me / You’d know who it was for”. The band played tracks from across their discography, showing the growth from their loud but more bashful and insecure days to the near-intimidatingly assured act they are now.
Their setlist was: Romance, Jackie Down The Line, Televised Mind, Roman Holiday, Big Shot, Chequeless Reckless, A Hero’s Death, Big, Nabokov, How Cold Love Is, A Lucid Dream, Sha Sha Sha, Boys In The Better Land, I Love You, Favourite, Starburster. This show was an emotional spectacle and a testament to the Fontaines D.C.’s transformation and growth
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