bReview: Fontaines D.C.

Wednesday 12 March 2025 at Spark Arena

Words by Imogene Bedford

Photography by Rosa Nevison

After several days of late summer sunshine, I find myself smoking a dart in the afternoon’s drizzle. There’s something about smoking alone that feels deeply introspective – romantic, even. It is a tableau that befits the arrival of Fontaines D.C., the Irish post-punk band that is equal parts melancholic and galvanising.

While it’s an immense privilege to review a band I love so much, I can’t help but feel a little nervous. How do you do justice to something that means the world to you? Well, if you’re me, you stifle that anxiety with nicotine and a box of beige Pals.

shame is replacing Wunderhorse as tonight’s support, and any reservations I had about that change are quickly dismissed when we arrive for their set. Bassist Josh Finerty immediately begins to throw himself around the stage with gusto, his rambunctious energy childlike yet frenetic. His movements set the tone for what is a raw, high voltage set.

(shame opening for Fontaines D.C. at Spark Arena / Photo: Rosa Nevison)

The band’s name is stylized in all lower case, an affectation that alludes to their provocative sensibility; they are the sort of band you can imagine playing a dingy dive bar like Whammy (non-derogatory). Though frontman Charlie Steen begins the set dressed as a priest, by the end he is crowd-surfing shirtless but for his clerical collar. “Give it up for whatever the fuck their name is,” he shouts before performing Angie at a fan’s request.

That shameless theatricality is inherent to the band’s music. Six-Pack combines psychedelic guitar work with punchy vocals, delivering a hypnotic outro that Been Stellar fans would enjoy the hazy guitars of One Rizla, while Water in the Well has a driving, trance-like intensity. The punters have been well warmed up by the
crescendo of the set, their sense of anticipation beginning to crackle in-between sets.

(shame opening for Fontaines D.C. at Spark Arena / Photo: Rosa Nevison)

I myself have goosebumps as the mercurial jangles of Romance begin. In an era of aging nostalgia acts and touring mega-pop stars, there’s something special about seeing a guitar band play Tāmaki Makaurau’s Spark Arena. It’s also the only appropriate venue for the magnitude of their latest album Romance, a sweeping record that has taken the band to new heights of stardom.

The energy is charged and the arena packed as the lights illuminate the band’s logo. With Jackie Down the Line, the crowd heaves at the direction of frontman Grian Chatten. As he gestures at us with conductor’s arms, we are powerless to his whims, compelled to move by the force of his presence. Conor Deegan III’s heavy bassline reverberates through the arena, each note pulsing through the crowd.

(Fontaines D.C. at Spark Arena / Photo: Rosa Nevison)

Carlos O’Connell’s guitar is especially crisp on Roman Holiday, a track about the isolation of Irish emigrants in London. The band members bonded in college over their love of poetry, and it shows in their writing: “what artless living all this soft pain thrills, what calamities usher all our brilliance to the hills?” It’s this complexity, as visceral as it is literary, that has set them apart as lyricists.

The lyrical tension between detachment and feeling is echoed by the sonic oscillations from sullen to euphoric. Guitarist Conor Curley sings the dreamlike Sundowner, a true shoegaze track that is haunting in its stillness. There is bravery in this kind of musical restraint, self-assurance in the band’s willingness to treat mutedness as equally expressive. In fact, the quieter moments of the set feel just as big as the loudest ones.

(Fontaines D.C. at Spark Arena / Photo: Rosa Nevison)

Tonally, Romance is representative of a different creative direction for the band. Inspired by Japanese manga and Italian films, it’s an expansive and cinematic album that recalls the Gorillaz and Alice in Chains as much as it does The Cure. Here’s The Thing leans into a grungier 90s sound, while Horseness is the Whatness is soft and lullaby-like.

The latter uses the thrumming heartbeat of O’Connell’s baby daughter as a sample.It’s an interesting evolution: while Ireland is still the band’s muse, they have become more willing to extend that sentimentality to other subjects. While Nabokov sees love as an act of submission – “I will be your dog in the corner, and I will light your cigarette” – on Favourite, that same tenderness is framed as liberating.

As the house lights come on and the pantomime of the encore begins, the audience is restless for more. “Starburster,” someone cries out, the crowd becoming increasingly unsettled. But just as we have been pushed to the edge of our patience, the band reappears for four more songs.

I Love You is Fontaines at their most political, and there is an undercurrent of insurrection as the crowd chants the verses urgently. Darts are lit and bottles swigged as the song swells into something almost spiritual.

No mass is complete without communion: a sacred ritual of celebration. Sweaty and gasping for breath, the volatile trip hop track Starburster feels like the perfect finale as it closes with that final, shuddering gasp. It’s a collective prayer into the night.

(Fontaines D.C. at Spark Arena / Photo: Rosa Nevison)

Fontaines tells us romance is everywhere – that “romance is a place.” Listening to them, you can’t help but believe it. Whether it’s my morning commute through Onehunga or dusty drives along the mean streets of Grey Lynn, the mundane is meaningful with the right frame of reference.

I often find myself contextualising my life in terms of how it will persist in memories. There is something so bittersweet about feeling nostalgia for the present, not wanting something good to end.

But ephemerality is the essence of romance. “This is your song,” my mate had said during the opening notes of gothic tune Nabokov. Surrounded by all the people who inspire my boundless nostalgia, I was reminded how special it is that this moment is singular. While it didn’t last, “all the pieces last forever.”