Fontaines D.C., Finsbury Park, and a flagship moment for guitar music’s latest revival
Back in 2019, when Fontaines D.C. first arrived with their debut album, Dogrel, indie music sales were in a slump. It wasn’t that the alternative world was dead in the water, it was just struggling to make a splash, and it was difficult to see where the next big wave would come from. Since then, there have been four consecutive years of indie growth – a fifth seems certain. Fontaines D.C. have been the spearhead.
Now, the Irish post-punk band are crowning their golden rise with a headline show in Finsbury Park next summer. It’ll see them play alongside Amyl and the Sniffers, Kneecap, and other artists that have yet to be announced. Even within just those three names, there is a solid spread of diverse modern alternative music that captures the current, ever-evolving smorgasbord on offer.
Most noteworthy, the closest comparable show that Finsbury Park has hosted recently came a decade ago when Arctic Monkeys headlined two days that boasted Tame Impala, Miles Kane and Royal Blood on the bill. It would be hard to argue against the fact that since then, Arctic Monkeys and Tame Impala have been the two paramount acts in alternative music, releasing seminal albums and drawing huge global crowds.
After five years of steady building, three masterful albums and a fourth on the way on August 23rd, this Finsbury Park announcement seems like a statement of intent from Fontaines to rise to the next level. That could hardly be more timely. Earlier this summer, they played Glastonbury Festival, drawing a massive youthful crowd to their headline slot. However, it was a headline slot on the Park Stage.
Given the question marks that derided just about every Pyramid Stage performance – whether those be over crowd size, shouts of same-old, or the exclusion of the vital voice of independent rock ‘n’ roll – Fontaines D.C. are now forging their own fitting billing, proving themselves to be poised to seize the spotlight and illuminate a message that the future of alternative music has a very healthy forecast. Putting yourself on the biggest stage and welcoming your fans along to not only celebrate your own rise but that of your peers is a perfect way to make yourself too big to ignore.
The group promised this much on their debut. At a time when the best indie bands – to use the broadest term – could hope for was a few plays on Radio 6Music, praise from independent websites, two nights at Brixton, and enough cash from years on the road, the odd vinyl sale, and the trickle of streaming to buy a semi in Watford, Grian Chatten boldly bellowed, “I’m gonna be big!”. They’ve now made good on that promise. A show in front of the masses at Finsbury Park should make that very clear to the mainstream, hopefully shifting the perceptions that alternative music is an antiquated niche.
Pertinently, much like Amyl and the Sniffers and Kneecap, they have done this by prying the passion loose from youth’s ungrateful hands, as they also put it on their debut and daring to be bold and heroic enough to venerate and make use of the vivacity of youthfulness rather than tepidly being mature models of what has gone before.
Once more, it seems noteworthy that they are following in Arctic Monkeys’ footsteps with these shows, perhaps the last European band to whip up quite such a revolution and illuminate the future of a generation in search of idols to guide them through sorry times. The band broke through clouds with Dogrel, welcoming a wealth of youngsters into the same world of alternative culture that inspired them, now they’re set to have their day in the sun—not just for themselves, but the many bands sets to join them amid indie’s current munificent harvest.
Fontaines D.C. drawing 50,000 to Finsbury is a great thing for music—a feat that seemed very far off for any new band without massive big label backing when they emerged just a short five years ago.
