Fontaines D.C. Held a Sold-Out Bomb Factory in the Palm of Its Hand

Fontaines D.C. mingles the past and the present in utterly captivating fashion.

Far from simply regurgitating the past and passing it off as current, the Irish post-punk quintet has a way of synthesizing its influences – everything from Beat poetry to the Strokes – in a way that feels vital and gripping, transcending the source to reach for something fresh.

There are the more obvious artistic markers – a sound evoking what often seems like a half-dozen different bands from the Continent, including Joy Division, Oasis and The Cure – but also a parasocial sense of vulnerability which feels distinctly 21st century.

“Life ain’t always empty,” vocalist Grian Chatten sang Thursday night before a thoroughly sold-out Bomb Factory crowd. “Don’t give up too quick/You only get one line, you better make it stick.”

That such sentiment, from their 2020 song “A Hero’s Death,” is delivered by a 29-year-old who looks largely static on stage – Chatten would hype up the crowd occasionally, moving from one side to the other – somehow only deepens the feeling.

Closed off enough to strike a rock star pose, but not so devoid of empathy as to be nihilistic, perhaps. (There’s that sense of connection in how Chatten presented himself to the audience too – emerging clad in dark sunglasses before doffing them for “Roman Holiday,” the fourth song of the evening.)

The lot from Dublin (Chatten, guitarist Conor Curley, bassist Conor Deegan III, drummer Tom Coll and guitarist Carlos O’Connell – live, the band adds a sixth member: Chilli Jesson on keys) steeped in the pleasures of poetry and the release of pogoing along to high-velocity bass lines, is enjoying an ascendant moment Stateside, a decade-long overnight success touring behind its fourth and most recent studio album, last year’s Romance.

Thursday’s Deep Ellum appearance was the group’s first headlining gig in North Texas in nearly three years, following a 2022 appearance at the smaller-scale Studio at the Factory next door, and first local showcase since opening for the Arctic Monkeys in Fort Worth in 2023.

Thursday also kicked off what the Bomb Factory is calling its “Relaunch Weekend,” complete with giveaways for fans, a resurgence of Bomb Factory-branded merch and a sign above the entry which read Thursday: “Always been the Bomb Factory.” (Dare we hope for a return to the sassy days of the Granada Theater’s between-sets Twitter feed display?)

The audience, some of whom traveled across multiple states to be at the once-and-future Bomb Factory, was primed for the fellas, whose roughly 75-minute set was light on banter – Chatten said little more than “thank you” to those screaming before him – and heavy on densely layered piles of guitar and drums and bass, shot through with dazzling displays of light, ricocheting to all corners of the room.

Pulling from across its four-album catalog, Fontaines D.C. (which, reportedly, draws its name from The Godfather character Johnny Fontane; the “D.C.” is Dublin City) conjured a darkly majestic mood, swinging from the lively “Jackie Down the Line” to the brooding “Death Kink” to the riotous “Big” to the beloved anthem “Boys in the Better Land” to the chiming, luminous main-set (and Romance) closer “Favourite.”

Chatten alternately picked up tambourine and acoustic guitar at various intervals, but was content to let his bandmates do most of the instrumental work, which chugged and roared and sparkled and snarled.

The cumulative feeling was of a sustained reverie, a closely packed crowd, phones outstretched to capture the moment for posterity, smoke suffusing the venue as loud voices sang back the lyrics at the band’s behest.

But perhaps no moment better crystallized the passionate-diffident divide better than the encore: Chatten sang “I don’t feel anything in the modern world,” a line met with ecstatic shrieks in the softly lighted gloom. Two songs later, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction – “I’ve never felt so well,” he crooned in “I Love You.”

Raw emotions, but uncertainty about showing them – rock stars have long walked a tightrope between sentiment and antipathy, but Fontaines D.C. make that high-wire act feel viscerally new.