Something sartorially strange is happening at gigs across the country. Where once there might have been a sea of (often black) cotton T-shirts across the audience, now a note of heavy polyester has been added to the mix. Last month at Outbreak, the UK’s biggest hardcore punk festival, a sizeable minority of attendees were wearing football shirts – though often not in support of any particular team. Instead, in place of club crests and sponsor logos were names of bands at the festival – Fiddlehead, Alexisonfire, Love is Noise – or for the festival itself.
This isn’t a phenomenon restricted to the hardcore scene. On the tube in London, a day after returning from Outbreak, I saw a gaggle of Harry Styles fans returning from one of his Wembley shows, all sporting bright pink football kits with the One Direction man’s name in place of the shirt number. Practically every band or musical subgenre going is represented with a football shirt. Dua Lipa has one. Deftones have one. Gorillaz have one. OutKast, despite not being a going concern for at least a decade, have one, in collaboration with football mag Mundial. Future Islands have two, including an absolutely gorgeous Napoli-inspired number. Oasis – naturally – have one. (And that’s not to forget the host of bands, from Kneecap to Bring Me the Horizon, with their logos emblazoned on actual football kits, a trend that stretches back to the 90s when Wet Wet Wet were sponsoring Clydebank and the Super Furry Animals were lending their name to Cardiff City’s fetching Welsh cup kit.)
