It takes about 20 minutes and a particularly well-received rendition of “Fenian Cunts” for the boys to address the elephant in the room. ‘It wasn’t TRNSMT’s fault’ Mo Chara tells us, referencing that cancellation. Whose fault it was is not clear – TRNSMT claim it was due to worries about safety from the police, while the police maintain the final decision lies with the festival itself – but that doesn’t matter now. As Móglaí Bap puts it, “You can’t keep Kneecap from playing in Glasgow!”
If anywhere is going to get Kneecap outside of their home turf, it’s going to be Glasgow, and they know it. Both Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap declare Glasgow is ‘the best place on Earth to play a gig’ multiple times, but it’s more than the city’s ability to gie it laldy that ties it to the group.
One fan who has been following the trio since 2018 tells me that things have always been different here: “Even years ago, when it was hundreds of people not thousands, the Glasgow concerts always sold out. Now everywhere sells out, but they’ve always been big here.” Why? According to the band, “Glasgow knows a little something about religious differences itself.”
Belfast and Glasgow may be alike in the depths of their sectarian divides, but what’s more important, Mo Chara stresses, is that ‘we all understand that the real fight is the fight of the working class’.
And, of course, the fight for Palestine. It’s Mo Chara who speaks most about the situation in Gaza – and about politics in general – as he tells the crowd that ‘they’re bombing [the Palestinian] people, and they’ve got nowhere to go’. He’s careful to add that his anger towards Israel has ‘nothing to do with the citizens’, and everything to do with the government. The crowd seems to agree – it becomes hard to hear the band’s words over chants of ‘Free free Palestine’ at some points. The energy in the room is frenetic and angry; it’s urgent. There’s just as much support in the O2 tonight for Kneecap’s politics as there is for their music.
The band leave the stage to an old Irish rebel song, which goes so well among this audience that it singing continues as we file out, only interrupted by the odd ‘Free Palestine’. It’s a striking image: thousands of people peacefully singing a decades old protest song from one nation, while chanting for another.
Like them or loathe them, Kneecap are no longer on the fringes. They’re shaping the culture of today with every headline they’re in, and they’ve got no intentions of slowing down or shutting up.
Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more.
