Say what you want about Kneecap, however they are not afraid to talk their reality, and can bend the knee for no-one. 24 hours after being chosen as one in all 11 fast-rising artists on BBC Radio 1’s future-gazing Sound of 2025 longlist, the West Belfast hip-hop trio are standing on the stage of London’s O2 Discussion board Kentish City main their viewers in a chant of “Fuck the BBC.” Later within the night, rappers Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap inform the two,300-capacity crowd that their multi-award-winning, impossibly entertaining ‘heightened actuality’ biopic is now out there to stream. “You possibly can watch it on Amazon Prime at no cost,” we’re informed, then, after a perfectly-judged pause, they add “when you’re a fucking wanker”, recommending that it must be seen by way of “some dodgy field” as an alternative. Their entrance onstage is preceded by an on-screen message studying, “ISRAEL IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE AGAINST THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. IT IS BEING ENABLED BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT’ and their exit 80 minutes later comes after a gleeful Móglaí Bap leads a venue-wide singalong of a conventional West Belfast people tune, a ‘tribute’ to the deceased and much-despised former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that includes the repeated lyric “Maggie’s in a field, in a field, Maggie’s in a field“.
Clearly, this isn’t a band for everybody, and fairly truthfully Kneecap do not actually care if their activism, dedication and craic offends you. However for the fast-increasing numbers signing as much as increase their “large dysfunctional Fenian household” this guarantees to be one wild, unforgettable joyride.
Standing a couple of toes in entrance of me, Oasis chief Noel Gallagher and his pricey good friend Paul Weller are lively, vocal contributors to what is perhaps the loudest crowd I’ve ever stood amongst in 25 years attending gigs on this storied room. Members of the family and companions have flown over from the North of Eire for what’s an uproarious, celebratory affirmation of Kneecap’s Band Of The Yr standing, they usually have to be immensely happy with their boys. As soon as upon a time, confronted with suspicion, discrimination and threats of violence, the Irish spoke in hushed tones in English cities, hoping to make themselves invisible: in his 2023 autobiography, Liam Brady, one in all Arsenal and Eire’s finest-ever footballers wrote of getting a “brutal” beating on a London tube practice when a bunch of males overheard his Dublin accent. These days, fortunately (hopefully), are gone, and as so-called ‘Ceasefire Infants’ Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and JJ Ó Dochartaigh, an icon already in his tricolour balaclava, signify a brand new technology dwelling their greatest lives loudly and unapologetically. Tonight, north London is theirs, they usually realize it, swaggering across the stage with the bullet-proof confidence of males who know that their day has come.
Pitched someplace between a hardcore punk gig, an unlicensed underground rave, an uplifting commerce union rally and a drunken Irish wake held in loving reminiscence of the act of giving a fuck, tonight is, by any measure, an exceptional present, with an irresistible, feel-good vitality, and pacing which by no means flags. I am Flush has the identical anarchic vitality because the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage, Rhino Ket is an exhilarating rush of hedonistic euphoria, Higher Approach To Dwell an anthemic ode to the fearless, uninhibited, shame-free embrace of life in all its messy, complicated glory. There’s a completely surprising cameo from Kurrupt FM crew members performing Coronary heart Monitor Riddem, with MC Grindah reasonably boldly insisting that anybody not getting concerned is mainly outing themselves as a paedophile and/or racist. However even this next-level chaos is eclipsed by absolutely the scenes which erupt for I bhFiacha Linne, the hilariously up-for-it Get Your Brits Out, a roaring C.E.A.R.T.A and a thrillingly defiant, untouchable set-closing H.O.O.D.
What an evening. What a gig. What a fucking band.
