Fontaines D.C., O2 Institute, Birmingham - review
This gig with Dublin's new kids on the block Fontaines D.C. was looked forward to with real anticipation in Birmingham.
We'd heard good things - really good things - and were hoping they'd all be true.
Earlier this year, the post-punk five-piece released their exceptional debut LP Dogrel, a record voted BBC Radio 6 Music's album of the year just before they entered the Second City to hold court.
We were hoping those songs would translate to the stage and we wouldn't be graced with the kind of 'legends in their own mind' performance full of arrogance, faux rock 'n' roll shtick and pretentious promises of grandeur.
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They did, and we weren't. Fontaines D.C. give the most humble of no frills stage shows. There's no real grand entrance. No mid-song patter telling us we're the greatest fans in the world and the loudest crowd on the tour yet. In. Play. Out. It's like listening to a live album as a group.
Frontman Grian Chatten is completely engrossing in an Ian Curtis kind of way. He stomps around the stage. He slams his mic stand into the floor and he growls his Irish drawl over the top of the music with the poise and comfort of somebody who's been doing this far longer - with fist-pumping moves to boot.
The Joy Division vibes are continued with opener Hurricane Laughter. It's that long, deep, spine-tingling bass line that opens the track and allows Chatten to whip the front of the audience up into a mass of bouncing limbs. And those siren guitars that begin wailing in the chorus are a delight.
That slamming guitar intro to Chequeless Reckless caused further kinetic energy from the middle of the room, while the sound was just right for the sumptuous guitars from Carlos O'Connell and Conor Curley throughout the funk-fused Sha Sha Sha.
They essentially played Dogrel in full, minus closer Dublin City Sky, and the crowd lapped the lot up.
Television Screens - the closest they come to a ballad - was executed perfectly and again the amps sounded on point, and the heat and energy were somehow cranked up again for the frantic, angtsy Too Real. They extended that sliding instrumental before the final chorus kicks in with added menace for anticipation purposes - those bouncers front and centre somehow found an extra gear and fists were thrown skywards in unison.
A party atmosphere set in after that. Boys In The Better Land with its more fun-filled chorus and stunning instrumentals had everyone moving, and then Chatten finally broke his silence. "This is our last song," he muttered. "We don't do encores."
And then we were blasted with Big. If this song can cause such a flurry of activity in Birmingham, imagine the reaction it would get in their home city.
Perhaps we should all pop over to find out.
