Kneecap
Main Stage
★★★★★
A full 10 minutes before Kneecap are scheduled to play at Electric Picnic, attendees begin popping up on their friends’ shoulders. Torches and totem poles start dotting the crowd. There are whispers of “This could get messy” and “I’m going in”. One man in a genie hat is held aloft and admired by a woman in a bright green St Patrick mitre.
Everything is colourful. This is Kneecap nationalism: Tricolours and Palestinian flags; mullets and balaclavas; Irish soccer jerseys. The tent is already beginning to heave as The Saw Doctors finish their set on the Main Stage, triggering a stampede of fans towards the Electric Arena.
They arrive to a message appearing onscreen – “Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinian people” – followed by an appeal to prevent US military troops from passing through Shannon Airport.
As on Kneecap’s new album, Fine Art, Radie Peat of Lankum gets proceedings under way. Her vocal sparkles on 3CAG, a song that samples Joe O’Donnell’s 1977 violin track Caravan and sets an appropriately Celtic tone.
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Perhaps summoned by the genie, Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara then come sprinting onstage in a cloud of smoke. They are wielding wireless microphones and a bottle of Buckfast, and they proclaim Peat the queen of Ireland before declaring that “this is definitely the biggest crowd we’ve ever had”.
The smoke thins and Fine Art is given room to breathe. Kneecap have always been frenetic, but this set is fearless, provocative and intelligent, contorting the tent against visuals that float between My Bloody Valentine and Aertel teletext.
The trio’s ability has become more apparent through the album and the release of their self-titled movie, which was selected to represent Ireland in the international-feature-film category at next year’s Oscars.
Here they are in their pomp, rolling through Better Way to Live, Sick in the Head and Love Making. The latter produces another cameo in Nino, the Limerick-born singer who is a member of Absolute Lilt and the trad supergroup Biird.
Móglaí Bap starts orchestrating. Guilty Conscience and I bhFiacha Linne are prefaced by instructions to open up the pits – and it is pits, plural. Five are counted from the stage, extending all the way to the back of the tent.
It becomes a race to the end. Sadly, a 45-minute slot is always going to feel short. During a rare pause, chants of Olé ring around the arena, leading nicely into a finale that requires the crowd to find their voices.
Get Your Brits Out and Hood are roared back at Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí, who stalk the stage like snooker players. The pits mimic them between drops, full of revelling performers, all comfortable in the space.
Cearta is the final effort of the evening, and it is dedicated to the Cork musician and songwriter Eoin French, aka Talos, who died last Sunday, at 36, after a short illness. As a tribute, it is typical of Kneecap’s approach: full of conviction, energy and heart.
