Fontaines DC - Institute Nov 25, '19

Fontaines were.. rather disappointing, I have to say. Hardly any words were spoken - he might have said 'thank you' after the final song and he did grumble something about we they do encores before it but literally those were the only words (and I couldn't understand them anyway). The first half was all the shitty songs from their only album (starting with Hurricane Laughter, followed by Chequeless Reckless) which are basically one-riff on repeat and 1 line repeated over and over until line 2 which gets repeated and then back to line 1. They stood stock still except the singer who acted like a bored little boy, pacing in small circles and looking at his nails and stomping his mic stand. That was literally the "show". They did add an unreleased song in Televised Mind which was interesting for its novelty, at least.

The second half was only saved 'cuz it was better music, songs that had more than one chord each, but the on-stage was the exact fucking same. Zero interaction with us, or with each other, except when the singer cut not one but two songs from their already brief set. Following the previously mentioned new tune they were presumably going to play another new track (seeing as they played all 11 Dogrel songs) but it got axed. Then the guitar tech had already tuned them up for a track but the singer called an audible and then told us this was their last song meaning he cut another one right at the end. The whole thing came in well under an hour which if you're headlining a massively sold out gig in a decently big hall you've got to give us something more. Musically it was fine - the sound wasn't that great in this venue though. Stand-outs like Too Real, Boys in the Better Land, and closer, Big, got the crowd going and rightfully so, but to me it shouldn't have taken much given the anticipation to get people into it and yet the crowd seemed rather reserved for much of the night (from my vantage point just off the edge of the sometimes-pit.) One standout track was the slightly more nuanced Television Screen that at least showed the guys had a different gear.

I can see if they had opened for Idles and just straight rocked for 30 minutes and only played the good stuff that it would have been a great "surprise" but as headliners I'll give 'em a bit of a "fuck off". At the End of the Road festival this summer they also got a pass from me 'cuz they were in a massive fucking tent in the middle of the day and I was stuck at the back trying not to be anti-social. I just assumed that if I was up front that it would have been great but, alas, now I know my answer - No.

---
Warm Drag opened and while I only caught the final song and a half (having previewed them before arrival) I think I got the gist of it. Playing music akin to The Kills the male worked a synthesizer over a drum machine while the woman sang and shrieked into the mic. Not entirely bad it wasn't anything for me to get excited about.