Fontaines D.C. first headlined Alexandra Palace back in 2021. Back then, the Dublin-formed five-piece were still acclaimed up-and-comers, dispatching poetry-laced post-punk with an almost ascetic earnestness. On Friday they returned as bonafide rock stars, having undergone a bold stylistic shift for their fourth album, the newly Grammy-nominated Romance.
Exploring the band’s more outré instincts, the record’s anthemic mix of paranoid indie and panoramic goth ballads has been accentuated by a brash new sartorial direction, based around vivid hair dye, wrap-around bug shades and voluminous pants. It transpires that the same spirit of playful reinvention extends to their live show, which brought – what the band have billed as – their “first real studio album” roaring into life.
