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Say what you like about Kneecap, but they're not afraid to speak their truth, and will bend the knee for no-one. 24 hours after being selected as one of 11 fast-rising artists on BBC Radio 1's future-gazing Sound of 2025 longlist, the West Belfast hip-hop trio are standing on the stage of London's O2 Forum Kentish Town leading their audience in a chant of "Fuck the BBC." Later in the evening, rappers Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap inform the 2,300-capacity crowd that their multi-award-winning, impossibly entertaining 'heightened reality' biopic is now available to stream. "You can watch it on Amazon Prime for free," we're told, then, after a perfectly-judged pause, they add "if you're a fucking wanker", recommending that it should be viewed via "some dodgy box" instead. Their entrance onstage is preceded by an on-screen message reading, "ISRAEL IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE AGAINST THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. IT IS BEING ENABLED BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT' and their exit 80 minutes later comes after a gleeful Móglaí Bap leads a venue-wide singalong of a traditional West Belfast folk song, a 'tribute' to the deceased and much-despised former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher featuring the repeated lyric "Maggie's in a box, in a box, Maggie's in a box".
Clearly, this is not a band for everyone, and quite honestly Kneecap don't really care if their activism, commitment and craic offends you. But for the fast-increasing numbers signing up to expand their "big dysfunctional Fenian family" this promises to be one wild, unforgettable joyride.
Standing a few feet in front of me, Oasis leader Noel Gallagher and his dear friend Paul Weller are active, vocal contributors to what might be the loudest crowd I've ever stood among in 25 years attending gigs in this storied room. Family members and partners have flown over from the North of Ireland for what is an uproarious, celebratory confirmation of Kneecap's Band Of The Year status, and they must be immensely proud of their boys. Once upon a time, faced with suspicion, discrimination and threats of violence, the Irish spoke in hushed tones in English cities, hoping to make themselves invisible: in his 2023 autobiography, Liam Brady, one of Arsenal and Ireland's finest-ever footballers wrote of getting a "brutal" beating on a London tube train when a group of men overheard his Dublin accent. Those days, happily (hopefully), are gone, and as so-called 'Ceasefire Babies' Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and JJ Ó Dochartaigh, an icon already in his tricolour balaclava, represent a new generation living their best lives loudly and unapologetically. Tonight, north London is theirs, and they know it, swaggering around the stage with the bullet-proof confidence of men who know that their day has come.
Pitched somewhere between a hardcore punk gig, an unlicensed underground rave, an uplifting trade union rally and a drunken Irish wake held in loving memory of the act of giving a fuck, tonight is, by any measure, a phenomenal show, with an irresistible, feel-good energy, and pacing which never flags. I'm Flush has the same anarchic energy as the Beastie Boys' Sabotage, Rhino Ket is an exhilarating rush of hedonistic euphoria, Better Way To Live an anthemic ode to the fearless, uninhibited, shame-free embrace of life in all its messy, confusing glory. There's an entirely unexpected cameo from Kurrupt FM crew members performing Heart Monitor Riddem, with MC Grindah rather boldly insisting that anyone not getting involved is basically outing themselves as a paedophile and/or racist. But even this next-level chaos is eclipsed by the absolute scenes which erupt for I bhFiacha Linne, the hilariously up-for-it Get Your Brits Out, a roaring C.E.A.R.T.A and a thrillingly defiant, untouchable set-closing H.O.O.D.