Releasing their sophomore album A Hero’s Death during lockdown last year meant that Fontaines D.C. couldn’t go on tour. The shutters had come down on live music across the nation, leaving the Dublin 5-piece stifled and chomping at the bit to play out their new tracks to the fans. For any self-respecting band it is the need for gratification that gives them meaning, justification and purpose.
Now over a year later, with the shutters finally starting to come up again, they walk out onto the stage in Birmingham with frontman Grian Chatten holding a bunch of flowers in his hand, as if prised from Banksy’s ‘Flower Thrower’. Smiling, he tosses them like alms, one by one into the whooping crowd. Once he has given out his blessings, the Strokes style guitar sound of title track ‘A Hero’s Death’ starts to reverberate around the O2 Academy’s packed-out main room as they hurl out tracks like missiles from their debut album Dogrel and 2020’s A Hero’s Death.
Every track froths with a voracious energy. Carlos O’Connell’s guitar in ‘Chequeless Reckless’ threatens to split the ether and after the Joy Division meets rock and roll of ‘I Was Not Born’ the stage is filled with red smoke for the demented squall of ‘Living In America’. ‘Hurricane Laughter’ jolts Chatten into spasm as he informs in his thick Irish brogue that ‘there is no connection available’ like a malfunctioning android. There is no talking between songs, no hanging around waiting for things to happen – they just happen. Conor Deegan III’s depth charge bass plummets through the floor on ‘Televised Mind’ before the belting three chord punk of Dogrel’s stand out track ‘Boys In The Better Land’ – with the frontman furiously shaking a tambourine – zips the main set to a close. The same energy and passion bursts out of ‘Liberty Belle’ in the encore which they sign off with. There’s no space for any down-tempo tracks tonight, nothing passive or reflective, it’s all about living in the here and now. As Chatten paces the stage with mic stand over his shoulder during ‘Too Real’ he asks “Is it too real for ya? Yes, is the resounding answer, which is what everyone wants and needs, a celebration of freedom and long overdue fulfilment.