Saturday Live

It seems a bit late in the day to be talking about bands coming to 'save rock 'n' roll', the outlaw gang of brothers and all that sort of thing, all very 20th century. Boys with guitars and cheekbones. Leather jackets. Cigarettes and alcohol. Maybe its my age- we've been through the cycle a number of times and on the whole they'll only disappoint you in the end (or maybe somewhere not long after the beginning). 

Dublin guitar group Fontaines D.C. are half my age and have released three albums since forming in 2017- 2019's Dogrel, 2020's A Hero's Death and last year's Skinty Fia. Twin guitars, post- punk influences, grinding basslines, rocking drums and a street poet for a vocalist. I'm not about to declare my undying love for them and stencil their name on my denim jacket but I think they really have something, and sound like the sort of group who if I was nineteen probably would declare 'the saviours of rock 'n' roll'. If nineteen year olds still do that kind of thing. 

Don't mess it up lads. Don't cheat the keyboard player out of the money. Don't cut people out of the credits and then treat them as hired hands when they've been in the band for three decades. What sort of band would do that?

Last May while promoting Skinty Fia they appeared at Seattle's KEXP and played a four song set- Nabokov, Big Shot, How Cold Love Is and Roman Holiday- where they look and sound like the real deal. 

Also last year they played in the afternoon at Glastonbury, the song I Love You, a song about their home country, its murky corruption, historical atrocities and politics and singer Grian's love/ hate relationship with it.