The Irish post-punk rockers oozed an easy charisma, cooling down the crowds in the sweltering afternoon sun at St Kilda's Palace Foreshore.
I don’t love the heat. Especially when it means sweat, sweat, sweat – and you don’t find many places sweatier than the moshpit of a live gig, and a Fontaines D.C gig at that!
Despite my grumbles about a lack of breeze and having to pack an extra stick of deoderant, I braved the afternoon warmth and made my way to St Kilda, and boy am I glad I did.
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Melbourne’s own ENOLA was kicking of the show as I arrived, and a kick it was – their punchy tracks were full of attitude, and the perfect amount of raucous energy to cement their place in the line-up for the night. Every drop of sweat (I told you it was hot) clinging their shirt to their back was well-earnt and I commend them for staying so cool with the full face of the sun pointing their way.
Shame were next, bringing their extremely cheeky, high energy performance all the way from London. Frontman Charlie Steen had the crowd in the palm of his hand, strutting around the stage as if he owned it (he deserved to) and making sure no slice of the crowd was left out of his piercing gaze and shameless smirk. As Steen commanded the crowd, the only distraction came from their very own bassist Josh Finerty, who jumped, high-kicked and flipped his way across the stage while playing – an entertaining ball of fizz that kept the energy going alongside his bandmates thrashing out their gritty sound as a well-oiled machine.
Before I knew it, the crowd was shifting forward to greet the main act of the evening. The sun had left a delicious peachy tone to the sky as Fontaines D.C came onstage, the first notes of their latest album’s title track ‘Romance’ playing out the last of the day’s light.
Grian Chatten didn’t need words to have his audience enraptured from the first track – the entire band had a natural charisma that made you want to love them, even outside of their truly excellent post-punk sound. An intimidatingly tight live show, you can understand why this group found the acclaim it’s achieved. Their set is all about the music, with minimal talk during the set – the songs speak for themselves.
Crunchy guitar riffs, crashing drums, electricity running through it all and the impressive range from Chatten going from breathy turns of phrase to rumbling notes deep in his chest, had the crowd gripped from start to finish. Even with the lengthy encore – I was honestly a little dissapointed by the lack of energy in crowd chants to bring them back on – but come back they did and hit us with a four-song farewell; ‘In The Modern World’, ‘Desire’, ‘I Love You’ and of course, ‘Starburster’ to round off the show.
By the end of the night I’d forgotten my complaints about the weather, but I still left the Palace Foreshore feeling rather hot and bothered.
Here’s hoping we can catch the legendary Fontaines D.C. back on Aussie soil soon!
