Review: Poets in tracksuits and T-shirts conquered Prague. Fontaines DC have finally arrived
The Czech capital experienced its first big club concert “after covid”. Two years ago, tickets started selling on Irish Fontaines DC, which was applauded by sold-out Roxes on Sunday. They didn’t say a word for the whole evening, but they played for their lives. Today they continue in Brno.
They became famous as a band that pays to go against the flow of time. In the digital age, Fontaines DC attracted attention with Old Guitar songs and poetry. But anyone in the frontman waiting for a torn elegance with a bottle of wine in his hand could be disappointed. Singer Grian Chatten burst onto the stage in tracksuit bottoms and a pulled-out Puma T-shirt. But it wasn’t about the face that evening at all.
Just Mustard from Dundalk, Ireland, performed as a frontman, contrasting the gentle voice of singer Katie Ball with instruments that sound like a monster.
Their post-punk variation was impressive. None of the five members of the group left the position for a second, they looked like a group of statues built on the most honorable monotonous genre, which speaks of intensity. Drummer Sha Maguire spared exactly in the sobriety of post-punk, as if their ghost rations continued to punch him before the tour rounded in half. And he properly enjoys every impact of the mallet on the drum kit.
Bassist Rob Clarke also recalled that post-punk at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s partly took over the emphasis from Jamaican music. Its dense bass could easily sound at a reggae or oak party. Just Mustard played guitars like saw blades, used effects to build sound walls, and whipped the hall with furious echoes. The intensity of the sound escalated, and Roxy fell silent.
Tu tu tu, la la la
Even as Fontaines DC were picking up the instruments, Grian Chatten waved his arms furiously in front of the sold-out hall and pounded the microphone stand into the hollow stage.
They were known to taste. The next hour and a half then confirmed that even in shape.
Singer Grian Chatten. | Photo: Jan Kuča
Right in the opening track TV mind demonstrated the momentary flight. Since the release of the three-year debut album, they’ve played and found out how to adjust the sound so that it doesn’t resemble a rolling spiny ball. Until recently, they were performing noise instrumental beats, everything could be heard in Roxy. And in fact, it wouldn’t hurt to turn up the volume a bit.
Since they started selling tickets to the Prague concert, they have recorded two albums – the latest, called Skinty Fia, will be released on April 22. So far, there are three singles out there, which seem to be a compromise between the relentless sound of Dogrel’s debut and the dreamy atmosphere of last year’s A Hero’s Death. It sounds conciliatory at first, but the live performance has revealed their potential.
While the band built its hits so far on annoying slogans, Jackie Down the Line contains exactly the kind of chorus that Fontaines DC’s repertoire lacked. Although the song was released only a few months ago, the audience immediately identified it by the careless “here and here” and “la la la” in the introduction.
The hall assisted Chatten with singing and began to clap to the beat without any heckling. No “I want to see your hands”, they flew upwards. Even because everything worked musically, even Conor Curley’s twelve-string guitar rang nicely with the noise.
Recording of the song I Don’t Belong, as played by Fontaines DC in Roxy. Photo: Jan Kuča | Video: Youtube / apatsg
No bullshit
The musicians did not say a word among the songs. No “thanks, the next song is called…” Not even greeted on arrival. They just came, played and left. They forgave the embarrassed speeches between the songs, Chatten instead just pacing nervously across the stage, hungry for another piece.
He didn’t fall out of the role for a second. The others also held a strict image, the guitarists and the bassist never once looked at the audience. They just stared intently at the ground, throwing themselves to the beat. It is these contrasts between tumultuous, emotional music and seemingly absentee that are appealing to Fontaines DC.
When Chatten in the current single I love you women clichés to the extreme and sings “I love you, I love you, I told you I love you / It’s all I’ve ever felt, I’ve never been so great”, he looks like he’s falling asleep on a sedative. In Prague, during the second chorus, he beat his heart frantically, as if he really needed to pump it up.
Fontaines DC’s songs feature echoes of the British classics The Who, The Clash and, of course, Joy Division. Grian Chatten seems to have watched all the videos and his choreography from time to time in the evenings. But it’s not about copying, young Irish people have grown up with this music. They have it encoded in DNA and pass on its legacy by current means.
The Prague concert showed that the Dublin rock quintet did not lose any of the ferocity of the award-winning debut album. His later work may sound dazzling and monotonous, but thanks to it, concerts are gaining new dynamism and fullness.
On Monday, Brno will experience the opportunity to see Fontaines DC in a medium-sized club, which will most likely be repeated next few years.
Concert
Fontaines DC
Front band: Just mustard
Roxy, Prague, March 27.