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
Lykke Li didn’t hold back when speaking about the making of her sixth studio album, ‘The Afterparty’, during a listening session in Los Angeles earlier this year. “Let’s talk about the album. It was a motherfucker to make,” she admitted to the crowd. While balancing motherhood, the chaos of modern culture shaped by Trump and AI, and her own desire to create something more “extroverted, impulsive and chaotic” than ‘EYEYE’, as she previously shared with NME, the Swedish alt pop star arrived at a headspace that “feels like it’s 4am and the sun is going to rise”. The record captures that blurry final moment before regret, exhaustion and reality settle in, which makes it even more emotional considering she has hinted this could potentially be her final album.
There is something fitting about how brief the project feels. With only nine tracks running across 24 minutes, it never overstays its welcome. Lykke immediately drops listeners into the atmosphere with opener ‘Not Gon Cry’, painting a picture of those lonely early morning hours with the line, “No angels here tonight, no dancing queens.” Alongside the shadowy pulse of ‘Happy Now’ and the twisted disco energy of ‘Lucky Now’, she revisits the emotional yet dance driven spirit of her earlier material while blending in the sharper, more confident attitude heard on ‘So Sad, So Sexy’ and the shimmering influence of her 2019 Mark Ronson collaboration ‘Late Night Feelings’.
The emotional fallout begins to settle in quickly. ‘Famous Last Words’ carries a lush orchestral sadness as Lykke reflects on lessons that only came after years of chaos and late nights, confessing, “I had to crash and burn to tell the tale.” Then comes ‘Future Fear’, a delicate acoustic track with robotic textures that stares directly into anxiety and uncertainty with the chilling question, “I’m going to a dark place, do you need anything?” Meanwhile, ‘So Happy I Could Die’ glows like sunrise after a sleepless night, holding onto fleeting moments as she sings about “slipping through the hourglass”.
Throughout the album, Lykke Li vividly captures the beauty and wreckage of reckless nights with the vulnerability that has always defined her music. On ‘Sick Of Love’, she channels heartbreak into revenge, wanting to “make you beg for it” after rejection in a way that feels spiritually connected to Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’. One of the strongest moments arrives with ‘Knife In The Heart’, a track that fully embraces her desire to become the “rock god” and “fuck boy” she spoke about, firing back at anyone who tries to tear her down with the words “you can spit, you can walk on me” while delivering one of the catchiest songs she has created in years.
Closing track ‘Euphoria’ leaves behind the same bittersweet feeling that runs through the rest of the album. With sweeping strings, pulsing beats and emotional intensity, Lykke Li reminds listeners that nothing lasts forever as she sings, “Player play your song, waste the night away”. Like the fading energy of the perfect night out, ‘The Afterparty’ ends in a haze of beauty and uncertainty. If this truly is her farewell, she leaves with one final intoxicating statement, though it still feels like there could be another chapter waiting.
