Words: Josh Parsonage
With each decade comes a handful of era-defining bands– artists who, in unison, shape the sounds, styles, and tone by which those years are remembered. Alongside them come the key moments that etch themselves into a generation’s musical psyche: Knebworth, Spike Island, Pulp at Finsbury Park in 1998, and now Fontaines D.C. on that very same soil in 2025.
The Irishmen are at their peak. The eclectic ‘Romance’ is their most successful record by every measure, fuelling a sold-out UK and Ireland arena tour, and a sweep of packed out venues across the globe. And when you’re at your peak, you don’t stop.
Now hosting a run of enormous outdoor summer shows across Europe, the Dublin-formed quintet have assembled some of music’s hottest acts. From punk powerhouses Amyl & The Sniffers and The Murder Capital to the headline’s favourite hip-hop provocateurs Kneecap, they’ve put together a collection of lineups that look great on a poster.
Finsbury Park, however, is by far the biggest of the lot. Having made an early appearance to perform ‘Better Way to Live’ with Kneecap, frontman Grian Chatten was on absolute top form. Making full use of the band’s latest stage addition–a runway–he manoeuvred with a type of raw charisma that demanded attention. The near-50,000 strong London crowd teetered between frenzy and fascination, unsure whether to lose themselves in the chaos or simply watch as Chatten threw himself, body and soul, into music that so blatantly means the world to him.
The crowd however, mostly chose the former. This felt like a Fontaines D.C. crowd of old–sweaty, bruising, and all in. The band clearly anticipated this, allowing their eager fans to kick off with ten minutes of madness: ‘Here’s the Thing’, ‘Jackie Down The Line’, and their 2018 breakthrough ‘Boys in the Better Land’. By then, the entirety of North London was primed for the more brooding stretch of the set– ‘Roman Holiday’, ‘Big Shot’, and the ‘Romance’ double-header: ‘Motorcycle Boy’ and ‘Horseness Is the Whatness’. Both tracks landed hard, met with bodies on shoulders and the sailing of 50,000 tears, as Chatten, backed by Conor Curley’s soaring harmonies, spun aching tales of lost love.
Following a heartfelt rendition of ‘Favourite’, dedicated to Grian Chatten’s fiancé Georgie, the band surprised their largest-ever crowd by resurrecting fan favourite ‘Liberty Belle’– its first live outing since the 2022 ‘Skinty Fia’ tour. The debut album track, rooted in youth, home, and the local political climate, unfolds from the setting of a Dublin pub of the same name. Met with utter raucousness, its reception was nothing short of euphoric. Given the crowd’s response, it’s hard to imagine ‘Liberty Belle’ not reclaiming a regular spot on future setlists–it was, without question, the standout moment of the night.
The Fontaines D.C. encore throughout the ‘Romance’ era has become something of a ritual, but far from stale. They return to the stage in ominous fashion, reigniting that same pre-show tension with the tour’s title track, slowly building momentum with the cinematic ‘In the Modern World’. It all leads to a grand finale: perhaps the band’s greatest track, ‘I Love You’, followed, inevitably, by 2024’s ultimate musical crack, ‘Starburster’.
It must also be noted that the band presented ‘I Love You’ with messages of solidarity with the people of Palestine, calling upon the audience to “use your voice”, proceeded by “Israel is committing genocide” as well as “Free Palestine”.
Everyone was left needing a moment to catch their breath before leaving, clinging to the memory of those final notes as they lingered in the warm night air. It was the kind of show that doesn’t just mark a chapter in a band’s journey, but etches itself into the memory of everyone there, as well as everyone who saw the videos. Fontaines D.C. didn’t just headline Finsbury Park; they made the soil their own.
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