Kneecap brings the pot of Irish pride to a boil at the Apollo

BarcelonaA vibrant, fun, and unashamedly political performance by the Irish trio Kneecap at the Apolo on Sunday, closing the Primavera Sound concert halls in Barcelona. The album's authors Fine art, One of the best albums of 2024 according to ARA, offered an hour of hip-hop (in Irish and English) between the determination of classics like Public Enemy and the spirit radish more incendiary, for celebrating the Irish language and an eminently festive, combative anti-British activism. Because Kneecap, formed by musicians from West Belfast and Derry, is not a group from Northern Ireland, but from the North of Ireland. The nuance is an abyss of meaning, as they themselves explain in the film. Kneecap, he biopic starring themselves and Michael Fassbender, which is available on Filmin.

"Protesting is not terrorism," was written in Irish and Catalan on two banners that the trio's team hung on the sides of the Apollo just before the concert. An hour later, a good portion of the audience was chanting "Maggie's in a Box", as he left the venue. The banners are related to the fact that one of the members of Kneecap, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, alias Mo Chara, is due to appear before a British court on June 18th accused of glorifying terrorism for having displayed a Hezbollah flag at a concert. The charge could involve Margaret Thatcher, whose death in 2013 is celebrated at Kneecap concerts just before they perform the song Guilty conscience. The animosity towards the former British Prime Minister combines class consciousness (shared by many Britons) and Irish national consciousness, which are two of the three main axes of the discourse of the three components of Kneecap: Mo Chara, Móglaí (alias of Naoise Ó Cairealláin) and DJ Próvaí (JJ Próvaí).

The concert began with two messages on the screen: "Free Palestine" and "Israel is committing genocide", the same ones that the Dublin group had shown Fontaines DC on Saturday at the Parc del FòrumSupport for Palestine is common among Irish bands: last year it was Lankum, first at Primavera Sound and in September at Apolo, who did so explicitly. Perhaps it has to do with what one of the members of Kneecap commented on Sunday, when he recalled that Ireland had suffered under British occupation for many years, although, he said, it had not had to endure the horror of the Israeli bombings that the population of Gaza endures. "Free Palestine," above all, but also "Free Catalonia" were constant calls throughout a concert featuring several Palestinian and Irish bands, as well as a couple of red-starred esteladas. The audience was mostly Irish (or sympathetic to the cause), with a significant Catalan presence calling for "independence" on several occasions.

Musically, Kneecap's live performance is a torrent of rhythms and rhymes born in the pub to be jumped and danced to in the club, and it starts off on top with songs like Better way to live (the song they share on the album with the singer of Fontaines DC) and Don't sniffer dogs are shite. "This is the energy, Barcelona!" exclaimed Mo Chara, enthusiastic about the audience's response, which was equally intense with pieces like And bhFiacha Linne and with the trio's jokes, especially those related to drugs. This is the third axis, because Kneecap is also that, three young people who can get tangled up in jokes (and laughter) more typical of Beavis and Butt-head and then brandish the rhetoric of direct political confrontation that they exhibit in Get your brits out, one of the most celebrated pieces of the final part of the concert, along with HOOD and CEARTA (on language rights). All of this, an hour of boiling over the most mischievous Irish pride.