Mairidh Gaol is Ceòl: Fontaine’s DC Bring the Romance to Roadrunner 10/13

Graphic by Cate Banks

by cate banks

From black shadows, a bass line intense as the climax of a horror thriller emerged through a haze of pounding green strobes to welcome the silhouetted Fontaines D.C. onstage. Although, the irish members didn’t just take the stage, they seized it with the urgency of a band hell-bent on making every second count like it was our last hour on earth. The group characterized the venue with their devil-may-care attitude, a petrifying opening and an incomparably cinematic atmosphere that stung deep into your body as if the pulsing bass wasn’t enough. “Into the darkness again,” chanted lead singer and frontman Grian Chattan, dressed in a fur hat and full length trench coat like a punk Citizen Kane. He appeared from the side, hymning to center stage, “god knows I love you / screws in my head / I will be beside you…” Which rang like a lullaby until the doll-like trickling keys cued the silencing, “till you’re dead.” 

Suddenly, I realized we were just thrown into the pen: their opener, “Romance,” perfectly welcomed the audience into their alternative world of audible intrigue and performative perfection. Known for their poetic lyricism and punk fueled melodies, Fontaines D.C. carries their Irish identity and a gothic architecture through their entire discography. With highlights from each album–Dogrel, A Hero’s Death, Skinty Fia go deo, and their latest, Romance–the hour and a half long show at Roadrunner in Boston was the perfect way to greet the new October chill. 

The air was nearly cool as the energetic start of “Jackie Down the Line,” a Smashing-Pumpkins-esque, high-hat-infested dulcet to kick off the energy. What followed were two definitive hits from their second album including “Televised Mind” whose Korn-inspired drums transitioned excitingly into “A Lucid Dream.” Bonding over poetry at university and living in the rainy, dramatic streets of Ireland, the bands’ lyrics carry passionate insight to darkness, desire, beauty and panic all at once. Their hit, “Roman Holiday,” interrupted the increased punk heartbeat with a 12-string guitar melody similar to The Stone Roses, “I Wanna Be Adored,” in a thick accent and eerily romantic expression. The audience of alternatively dressed college students, hipster millennials, and artsy Gen X’ers particularly indulged in this tune as I watched glossed eyelids gaze around in this serendipitous moment taking in the lyrics: “was it the weed or the moment that stoned ye?” But we all know it wasn’t the weed or the moment, but the music that had us all stuck in our tracks. 

The declarative ode to home, “Big Shot,” was then drawn to a close with the static filled, Nirvana-like guitar of “Death Kink,” played by the crucial Conor Curley, without whom the FDC sound would not exist. Curley, like the others, sported a big tee, boots and baggy pants, futuristic accessories and sweaty-punk-fallen hair. During their first three albums the group upheld a rebellious, Irish persona that directly linked to their mysterious sound. After the release of their newest record, this identity has shifted to a more editorial, UK-media inspired style that encapsulates the multifaceted progression, exploration, and evolution of these five enchanting artists. Continuing on with their elaborately demonstrative tunes from Romance was the Echo & The Bunnymen-sounding hit, “Bug,” and the electrifying “Here’s the Thing” which rings with unbending refrains that express the new voice of the band. Like a bottle being smashed over your head, the lyrics “Dublin in the rain is mine / a pregnant city with a catholic mind” burst through as Fontaines identity-defining, “Big,” from their second album Dogrel began. Cheers followed as “Free Palestine” left Chattans lips, marking that the only commentary between tracks during the entire show; unlike most bands, Fontaines DC doesn’t need a false, flowery chemistry with the audience–their music speaks for itself. Chatten writes lyrics so titillating they make you scratch for the footnotes and yearn to see the original ink they were written in—the songs are frankly never enough. 

Guitarist Curley then got to highlight his celestial register in “Sundowner” and move us into crowd favorite, “Nabokov.” At this point, the energy was anything but dying and groups of friends and individuals surrounding me were wrapped in Irish flags, holding each other's shoulders and screaming the football “olé, olé, olé” chant as if this were the greatest sporting event of the year–and for all of the alternative, probably pop-culture snob musicophiles (such as myself) in the venue, I fear it was.  

To finish the set, tattoo-covered drummer Tom Coll aligned all of our internal rhythms by introducing “Boys in the Better Land” with a piercing guitar from Carlos O’Connell and bass line by Conor Deegan III that reminisces Kevin Shield’s angsty shoegaze pedal almost exactly. Brightly ending the set with Romance’s finale, “Favourite,” that puts the reverberation of Morissey’s “Why Don’t You Find out for Yourself” into a phosphene-inducing motif, Fontaines D.C. walked off the stage with a sway as cinematic as the endearing Scottish rebels of Trainspotting (1996). 

Transporting us to darker places of acceptance, passion, and comfort, these Irish contemporaries use the Pornagraphy-era Cure sound and place it in our digital age to deliver a sound not common in our current libraries. The encore, which consisted of producer James Ford’s most stylized hit on the record, “In the Modern World,” as well as The Cure-x-“Spring-Heeled Jim” by Morrisey pastiche of “I Love You,” rounded the hazy show with passionate satisfaction. Just as the lights dimmed and audience murmurs sped up, the creeping mellotron of “Starburster” lured us all back in for one last listen to the thickly accented, agonistically inspirational, unique perspectives of Fontaines D.C. Sweating and slightly peeved (for the approach of something so beautiful to arrive so quickly), I left the venue of smiling fans and walked past the myriad of well-dressed goths smoking Spirits and Golds on the street, feeling as if I was in Dublin myself. 

With an intensity like no other and contemporary production reflective of both punk-classics and relevant musical outsiders, Fontaines D.C. are an artist we all need to be looking out for. I don’t think my bones will ever forget that opening song which started a night of pure atmospheric allure and musical mystery. Chattan has shared in an interview his thoughts of romance and delusion, declaring them “one in the same” as well as a “place of refuge”; tonight, they opened that refuge for all of us. Fontaines D.C. delivered a show very few, if anyone, could stop thinking about–there was an ominous intimacy of haunted houses or late night jazz bars, which brought this peace I never knew could exist. After all, Fontaines D.C. reminded everyone there that night the world may indeed one day end. What will endure is love and music as the Gaelic proverb, “Mairidh Gaol is Ceòl” insinuates.