Kneecap, Glasgow review: 'One of the most thrilling live groups working today'
Glasgow on a sweaty July night was the perfect place to see Kneecap in action, writes David Pollock
Kneecap, Academy, Glasgow ★★★★
“They stopped us from playing TRNSMT,” shouted Northern Irish rap trio Kneecap, warming up an already boiling hot atmosphere at Scotland’s most controversial gig of the year. “They can't stop us playing Glasgow!”
From their name, to JJ ‘DJ Próvai’ O Dochartaigh’s Irish tricolour balaclava, Kneecap play on a paramilitary aesthetic which would have caused more bother in the 1980s. Instead, it’s the trio’s vocal support of Palestine which has brought trouble; specifically, rapper Liam ‘Mo Chara’ Óg Ó hAnnaidh’s alleged onstage brandishing of a proscribed flag, resulting in an imminent court appearance.
“It wasn’t TRNSMT's fault,” said the group here, addressing one of the resulting cancelled gigs during this sold-out replacement show, instead delivering sweary denouncements to critics John Swinney and Keir Starmer as the crowd joined in.
Politics aside, Kneecap are one of the most thrilling live groups working today, and Glasgow on a sweaty July night was the perfect place to see them in action. From the opening It’s Been Ages to Your Sniffer Dogs Are Shite’s sneery, catchy chorus, through the 808 State-sampling I bhFiacha Linne, the breezebox-dropping rave bassline of Guilty Conscience and defiant new songs Sayonara and The Recap, they kept the crowd churning and roaring along.
They’ve a fine line in adolescence humour, with the clowning Próvai baring his nipples to the crowd and subjecting himself to one of the fiercest moshpits Glasgow’s ever seen. But Mo Chara also said a few serious, impassioned words in support of Palestine, as expected, noting the group’s criticism of Israel is “nothing to do with the citizens, it's all about the government”.
The evening felt less like a political rally than a Celtic title-winner’s party, though. Amid the heaving sea of green, there were regular choruses of ‘Glasgow’s Green and White’ and one big-lunged crowd singalong with Daniel Boone’s Beautiful Sunday, a Celtic anthem.
“We have more in common with a poor Rangers fan than a poor Celtic fan,” shouted one of the front two, in a plea for working class solidarity over division. Of everything said onstage, only this statement was positively but not universally received.
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