When Fontaines D.C. booked Belfast rap trio Kneecap to support them at their massive Finsbury Park show, they did so knowing full well what the group stood for and how vocal they were about their beliefs. The group have never been shy about their support for the Palestinian people, but neither have Fontaines themselves.
What they might not have expected was that Kneecap would be playing with a terrorism charge hanging over the head of Mo Chara (Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh), or that it would take place less than a week after the storm of controversy - and police investigation - which surrounded their Glastonbury performance and the words of Bob Vylan, the group who played directly before them at the festival’s West Holts stage.
“Are we f***ing ready for a mad one?!” screams Mo Chara as he walks on stage to whoops of approval. “It's nice to be back in London and not in court!” He laughs between songs, adding “Well, we'll see how this gig goes,” as he gestures towards the police presence just off stage. “Keir Starmer did an interview with the f***ing Sun saying we shouldn't be playing and he f***ing couldn't stop us - f*** Keir Starmer!” the group add, before leading the crowd in chants of “You're just a s*** Jeremy Corbyn”, finally collapsing in giggles. If you hadn't guessed, they're not a group who let their infamy weigh too heavy on them.
Elsewhere in the set, there are chants of “Free Palestine" taken up by everyone from the front to the back of the crowd, not least when Fontaines D.C's Grian Chatten comes on stage for a rendition of Better Way To Live and leads his own rallying cry for the Palestinian people.
Politics aside (if that’s even possible at this point), this is music that'd break the glass in a reinforced window. The mosh pits are momentous and the bass is absolutely brutal, even with the sound restrictions of an inner-London park show. Sick In The Head sees the crowd going absolutely wild, and fan favourite Your Sniffer Dogs Are Shite sees singalongs so loud they can probably be heard back in West Belfast.
“If anybody is free on the 20th August, go to the court and support Mo Chara”, says Moglai Bap, before chants of “free Mo Chara” erupt from the crowd. “There's nothing like embarrassing the British Government…you can never beat the Irish!” he adds. What follows is Guilty Conscience, a song with a chorus about masturbation, but Mo Chara is quick to follow a moment of levity with an impassioned speech about the importance of continuing to speak about the Palestinian people. “It's something we all care about and sometimes it feels helpless because there’s nothing we can do, but what's important right now is there’s gonna be videos going around Gaza and the West Bank, and morale is a huge thing…we're on the right side of history, lads.”
While some sections of the media might not agree with that statement, the crowd here certainly do. On the title track of debut album Fine Art, Kneecap rap ‘You can love us or hate us, won't affect a bit of our wages’. Judging by the turnout today amidst all the controversy and the positive reception their message receives, they might just be right.
