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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Entertainment
Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

Golden Plains 2025: Belfast rappers Kneecap and Dublin rockers Fontaines DC lead sublime weekend

Night-time stage shot with red lighting, showing a figure in a boiler suit and balaclava with their arms in the air, holding a mic in one hand.
Belfast hip-hop trio Kneecap performed a chaotic, energetic set at Golden Plains 2025. Photograph: Chip Mooney/Golden Plains

I’m standing in a field in the middle of the country in the middle of the night, watching a glittering set from the American synth-pop duo Magdalena Bay. Midway through the groove of Killing Time, as colours and costumes swirl on stage, my cousin taps me on the shoulder and points to the sky. Thousands of strangers look up at the same time as a star burns slowly across the black night.

The next day my friend tells me it wasn’t a shooting star, but rather space junk. But we agree that whatever it was encapsulated a weekend at Golden Plains: a place where magic appears unexpectedly, and not all is as it seems.

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