MUSIC PREMIERES
You may have seen that meme about how slapping a ‘Directed by David Lynch’ sticker on your window helps this bewildering world make a little more sense. It’s that same prism that Dublin’s Fontaines D.C. view the shitshow through. Arriving to their take on ‘In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)’ from Eraserhead mashed up with a ghostly stripped-back ‘Starburster’, the band drag Finsbury Park’s 45,000-strong crowd through the screen and into the surreal.
The acid, neon and sci-fi of 2024’s ‘Romance’ is a world of its own. As Amy Taylor of support act Amyl And The Sniffers puts it, “Fontaines, especially their last album, remind me of how it feels to be alive today, which is really fucking confusing”. She points specifically to the profound ‘Modern World’ as a soundtrack to these times of horror fatigue and livestreaming atrocities.
That universe is reflected in today’s line-up and their actions – soulful, fierce and independent acts. The fight for Palestine dominates the day, not least from Kneecap (who Fontaines frontman Grian Chatten joins for the cutting polemic ‘Better Way To Live’) and it’s a cause shared by the flag-baring, freedom-calling crowd.
Fontaines are among their people. When they arrive on stage, they’ve got that something that the best bands do – they look like a gang that you want to be part of, and you can. The crowd, dressed in their Bohemian F.C. shirts, continue Fontaines’ anime street gang aesthetic, its brash colours the makeshift uniform of a subculture.
From the acidic sleaze of ‘Here’s The Thing’ through to the punky promise of ‘Boys In The Better Land’ and the recent sunset single of ‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’ feeling like a warm hug at a lock-in, Fontaines are absolutely on one. Chatten stomps the runway, having grown into a fearsome frontman, while Conor ‘Deego’ Deegan III proves the cool anchor of the band, Conor Curley the mystique, Tom Coll the heartbeat, and Carlos O’Connell the wild card.
Highs come with the holler back for that stuttering refrain “Shit / Shit / Shit / Battered” on ‘Death Kink’, the gothic swamp of newbie ‘Before You I Just Forget’, and the Deftones K-hole of ‘Desire’. ‘A Hero’s Death’, ‘Big’, ‘Hurricane Laughter’, ‘Favourite’ and “that violent, ‘How do you do?’” of the stonking ‘Liberty Belle’ continue to incite mosh pits – then we hit peak Lynch.
Images of warped faces, creepy hallways and a two-headed, double-ended, red-eyed pig greet us through snowglobes. “Maybe romance is a place,” offers Chatten, returning for the encore. It is here in Finsbury Park tonight. The “selling genocide” line from ‘I Love You’ lands a sledgehammer blow when the screens declare “Israel is committing genocide, use your voice” to rapturous support, before we end on that short-sharp inhale of “momentary-blissness” with ‘Starburster’.
The show doesn’t hit the same as their dumbfounding ‘Romance’ launch at Glastonbury 2024 or the drama and theatrics of their Ally Pally show last year, but this feels more like a victory lap and proves that the band can totally lay waste to a show of this size.
Their first London show was just around the corner at The Finsbury pub to about 20 people. Now here we are. Headlining Finsbury Park has led to epic folklore gigs by the likes of Pulp, Oasis, New Order and Arctic Monkeys. They more than deserve to be listed among them. They are the most important band of this decade. They’ll headline Reading & Leeds in no time, and maybe Glastonbury needs that fallow year to take a very deep breath and prepare for a Fontaines takeover.
‘Here’s the Thing’
‘Jackie Down the Line’
‘Boys in the Better Land’
‘Televised Mind’
‘Roman Holiday’
‘It’s Amazing to Be Young’
‘Big Shot’
‘Death Kink’
‘A Hero’s Death’
‘Before You I Just Forget’
‘Motorcycle Boy’
‘Horseness Is the Whatness’
‘Big’
‘Bug’
‘Hurricane Laughter’
‘Nabokov’
‘Desire’
‘Favourite’
‘Liberty Belle’
Encore:
‘Romance’
‘In the Modern World’
‘I Love You’
‘Starburster’
MUSIC PREMIERES
Four years on from the ‘Actual Life’ series lifting him into the mainstream spotlight, Fred Again.. continues to feel unavoidable. The London producer and DJ born Fred Gibson has moved at a relentless pace, bouncing between sold out stadium dates in New York and surprise appearances at Sheffield’s 1,000 capacity Forge, while also making history as the first electronic artist to top the bill at Reading and Leeds in 2024.
Where the ‘Actual Life’ releases and his fourth album, 2024’s ‘Ten Days’, leaned into warmth and joy pulled from ordinary moments, Gibson has also sharpened his instinct for high impact club weapons rooted in garage, dubstep and jungle. That side of his output lives on ‘USB’, an “infinite album” first imagined in 2022 as a home for tracks that exist outside any fixed universe, including defining moments like ‘Rumble’ and ‘Jungle’.
‘USB002’, the second vinyl only chapter of the ‘USB’ project, brings together 16 recent tracks, many of which surfaced gradually on streaming services over a ten week stretch. The music was shaped live, in step with ten unannounced DJ appearances across the world from Dublin to Mexico City. Even with a Glastonbury style registration system in place, The Times reported that 100,000 people tried to secure tickets for the opening night in Glasgow.
Appropriately, ‘USB002’ feels alive and constantly in motion, helped along by contributions from close collaborators such as Floating Points and Sammy Virji. The rigid, techno driven pressure of ‘Ambery’ echoes elements of Floating Points’ 2019 album ‘Crush’, while Gibson’s take on ‘The Floor’ builds like the slow climb of a rollercoaster before dropping back to earth without warning.
The guest list stretches beyond the usual dance circles, with two Australian guitar bands popping up in unexpected ways. ‘You’re A Star’ reworks Amyl and The Sniffers’ ‘Big Dreams’ into a breakbeat driven rush, while ‘Hardstyle 2’ pulls the experimental post punk edge of Shady Nasty into an Underworld adjacent space alongside Kettama. Gibson’s real trick is his ability to connect with anyone. These tracks are not reinterpretations but full takeovers.
The visual world wrapped around the ‘USB002’ rollout reinforces the instinct behind the music. Phones were prohibited at shows staged in vast warehouse spaces under sweeping light rigs, while Gibson’s team shared striking black and white footage and created artwork for each single on site. Bottling that sense of urgency, the project is rooted in the thrill of the present moment, something Gibson seems able to summon simply by turning up.
If the ‘Actual Life’ series and ‘Ten Days’ captured passing snapshots of experience, ‘USB’ is defined by constant movement, a space where boundaries are removed entirely. Sitting somewhere between an album and a playlist, ‘USB002’ underlines why Fred Again.. feels so dominant right now, and suggests that his current run may only be the beginning of something much bigger.
