Fontaines D.C. Photo by Chyrisse CPT_8881 — Fontaines D.C. Photo by Chyrisse

By Vlad T, Journalist, Rock At Night Detroit, and Chyrisse Tabone, Photographer, Rock At Night Tampa

Live Review: Fontaines D.C.- The Fillmore Detroit – May 8, 2025

Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C. Photo by Chyrisse

Irish unit Fontaines D.C. has stormed the rock world in the relatively brief time since it emerged from Dublin.

While earning Brit awards and a Grammy nomination is impressive, the band has fiercely fought off any semblance of complacency or capitulation to easy triteness, restlessly imbuing its music with a charged poetry, rich melodicism and sonic drama. If the spirit of fellow Celts Yeats or Joyce were to manifest a century later, they would find kindred souls—and maybe even collaborators—in group frontman Grian Chatten and his band comrades.

Conor Deegan III of Fontaines D.C. Photo by Chyrisse

Wednesday saw the group visit Detroit’s Fillmore Theater for what proved to be a riveting evening of relentless intense performance and taut musicianship. The band’s sound and vocals have grown to reflect and explore Romanticism (that’s with a capital R) in a way great poets would do so. And that has registered strongly with and captivated audiences globally, including Detroit.

Enthusiastic crowd at the Fontaines D.C concert. Photo by Chyrisse

The experience at the Fillmore revealed a band at the peak of its powers, rendering tracks such as ‘Death Kink,’ the appropriately titled ‘Romance,’ recent single ‘It’s Amazing To Be Young,’ and the rousing closer ‘Starburster’ with a sweeping, plangent grandeur that gripped the Woodward Avenue audience from start to finish.

Tom Coll of Fontaines D.C. Photo by Chyrisse

The group’s six members’ efforts on guitars, keyboards, and drums can be best likened to a theatrical orchestra, rendering sounds without anachronism, with a vocabulary marshalling a wide dynamic range of shadings and, as needed, blunt power. And, throughout, vocalist Chatten struck the appropriate emotional registers, igniting the crowd of different generations and creeds with the right cues and gestures and keeping them captivated. The audience response was indeed remarkable.

In a year that sees Oasis returning to live stages 30 years since it first seized audiences worldwide, it’s only fitting to see a band like Fontaines D.C. now seize the moment in its own right, making a similar emotional impact on a new generation.