The still-unreleased “Favourite” was a highlight of the setlist. “It’s unanimously our favorite tune that we’ve ever written, without a doubt,” singer Grian Chatten says. “We haven’t played it once so far without kind of lapsing into personally experienced emotions of our own.”
Backstage in the Warsaw green room, the band look over a vinyl record placed there by the venue staff. The back cover reads “Irish Revolutionary Songs.”
Fontaines D.C. guitarist Carlos O’Connell snacks on Tayto crisps from Ireland before the show begins.
Fontaines D.C. has an array of pre-show rituals to get themselves in the right headspace for a live performance.
“I make myself some tea,” lead singer Grian Chatten says. “Usually half an hour or so before, we get some music on really, really loud and talk kind of absolute fucking bullshit. Slap each other on the back.”
The band gathered around a piano to pose for a group shot, then grabbed a copy of the beloved children’s book Goodnight Moon that was sitting nearby. They began an impromptu waltzy sing-a-long of the entire book, made up on the spot, with harmonies by Chatten and Deego.
The band walked out onstage to the whimsical unreleased track “Romance,” from their upcoming LP of the same name.
Frontman Grian Chatten, sporting a Yankees jersey from a game he attended earlier in the week, opened the set with the rollicking, desperate Skinty Fia track “Nabokov.”
Bassist Connor “Deego” Deegan and guitarist Carlos O’Connell shred onstage.
“I don’t think we’ve seen all of what America has to give to a gig yet,” Deego says backstage. “I don’t think we’ve completely won our crowds over.” That night, they might’ve been proven otherwise.
Drummer Tom Coll stares doggedly at the crowd during the band’s one-off special show at Brooklyn’s Warsaw club.
Guitarist Carlos O’Connor crouches down as the band plays hits from Skinty Fia and Dogrel, plus two new songs from Romance, out this August.
A rowdy pit opened up during the band’s 2019 song “Boys in the Better Land.”
“We’ve got some memories in Brooklyn,” Chatten says. “[Guitarist Conor] Curley spent a bit of time living in Brooklyn with his girlfriend. We have some friends who live kind of close. I think it’s kind of historically an Irish area. There’s a lot of Irish in Brooklyn, for sure.”
A fan in the front row at Warsaw sports an “I Love Dublin” tee.
Touring member Chilli Jesson – previously of Palma Violets – joined Fontaines D.C. at their Brooklyn show.
“I feel really delighted to be back playing,” Fontaines bassist Connor “Deego” Deegan says backstage. “I actually was out for the last tour we did in America, so I haven’t played with the guys since around February last year. This is my first gig back and I’m super excited.”
Fontaines D.C. played crowd favorites including “Televised Mind,” “Jackie Down the Line,” “Roman Holiday,” and “Big.”
“It’s very easy to be convinced that you’re doing something that’s different, and then you kind of realize further down the line that it’s actually not as different as you thought it was,” Fontaines D.C. frontman Grian Chatten says.
For Romance, the band “somewhat consciously changed our clothes” and worked with a new producer, James Ford (Blur, Jessie Ware). “We drew a lot from films like Akira during a lot of the writing process,” he adds.