Live review: Dubliners Fontaines D.C. deliver flawless set at Leeds O2 Academy for delirious crowd

Following in the wake of bands like The Clash, Nirvana, The Smiths and, more recently, Arctic Monkeys; if Fontaines D.C.’s stellar second night in Leeds in front of a fanatical crowd of young and old punters is anything to go by, they are currently that special band.

The literary Dublin-formed five-piece has gone from strength to strength since the garage rock trappings of their attention demanding debut album Dogrel in 2019, which was followed by the more linear A Hero’s Death before their third album, the expansive and pulverising Skinty Fia, completed a trifecta for the ages.

And while this year’s shows have been heavy on new material, Wednesday’s felt flawlessly crafted to capture the magnificence of that enviable catalogue.

The night kicked off with a visceral set from Wunderhorse that contrasted the provincial nature of the headliners with sludgy guitars and cathartic yelps from singer Jacob Slater, whose final cries of ‘Look me in the eye’ on closer Epilogue had the gaze of the room.

To a simple backdrop featuring their band name and cascading roses, Fontaines D.C. took to the stage resembling a troupe of flamboyant misfits, with the dyed haircuts, puffer coats, woollen jumpers and baggy jeans a far cry from their initial arrival as weary vagabonds.

While they each have a unique aura, Grian Chatten has come into his own as frontman over the years, channelling a variety of iconic singers to produce something unsettlingly captivating. He riles the crowd up, petulantly slams the microphone stand down and trudges on the monitors before the rolling bassline of ‘Televised Mind’ has even kicked off the set and sent the audience into a frenzy.

Discourse is minimal but it’s hardly necessary over the 18-song set. Rare outings for Dogrel tracks Television Screens and the spine-tingling Roy’s Tune trade off the more adventurous Skinty Fia songs like the undulating title track and Nabokov, on which the blistering guitars consume the despondent Chatten’s shouts of ‘I did you a favour!’

Circle pits, shoutalongs and crowd surfing abound through Chequeless Reckless, Too Real, I Don’t Belong, Jackie Down The Line and A Hero’s Death before The Verve-esque Roman Holiday elicits chants of the whimsical guitar lines to bring the main set to a close.

It only gets better, as the three-set encore starts with ‘Big’, where the once-ironic chant of ‘I’m gonna be big’ now seem like a manifestation, before a blistering rendition of ‘Boys In The Better Land’ ushers in delirium.

With their rapid ascent only suggesting better things to come, for now the apoplectic ‘I Love You’ is the most stunning thing FDC have produced and acts as a devastating closer. Encapsulating the feeling of misplacement that runs through Skinty Fia and summed up brilliantly in music terms by Pichfork as ‘like The Stone Roses’ “I Wanna Be Adored” being gate-crashed by John Cooper Clarke’, the sprinkling of confetti during London-based Chatten’s pugilistic breakdown of the rot in Irish society climaxes the show in striking and unforgettable fashion.

With a run of shows supporting their ‘that band’ forbearers Arctic Monkeys to come, things only look to get bigger for Fontaines D.C.