Dublin’s post-punk poets turned a Hollywood resting place into a roaring, reverent celebration, two days before Ohana and weeks before their fifth album arrives.
Few venues ask a band to compete with as much silence as Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Playing among marble mausoleums and lawns of the long departed takes nerve. Fontaines D.C. treated the setting as an invitation and played a 19-song set that suited the place.
The setting deserves some context. The cemetery was established in 1899 on about 100 acres and was originally called Hollywood Cemetery. Paramount Studios was built on the undeveloped south end of the original site, and the cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. Its residents include Judy Garland, Cecil B. DeMille, Rudolph Valentino, Mickey Rooney, Tyrone Power, Douglas Fairbanks, Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone, and Chris Cornell. A band fixated on mortality and memory couldn’t ask for a better backdrop, and the Ramones’ presence in the grounds gave the night a punk blessing.
“Boys in the Better Land” opened the show, and its swagger set the tone at once. “Here’s the Thing” and “Nabokov” followed, and Grian Chatten, all hunched menace and sudden tenderness, pulled the crowd into his orbit. “Marianne” and “Jackie” kept the momentum up, with “Jackie” being the first real peak, hitting harder in the open air than it does on record.
The middle stretch mixed the familiar with the unfamiliar “It’s Amazing to Be Young.” And the less recognizable “Before You I Just Forget,” along with the unreleased (at the time of the show) “Tongue,” “Happy for You,” and “Six Shot Morning,” from the band’s forthcoming fifth album, Dopamine Chamber. The crowd gave the newer material real attention. “Televised Mind” and “Roman Holiday” then lifted the energy, and the rhythm section locked into the hypnotic, grinding grooves that define the band. “Big” was one of the night’s great singalongs, and “BUG” kept the lawn moving.
The final stretch was the strongest. “Big Shot” and “Favourite” kept the pace high, and “In the Modern World” offered a brief, swaying comedown before “Six Shot Morning” built the tension back up. “I Love You” was the emotional center of the night. Its slow burn and hushed verses gave way to a communal roar, and in a cemetery, the song’s weight felt very different from what it does in a club. “Starburster” closed the night with a burst of energy, and the crowd sang and danced through the last notes.
What stood out was the contrast. Quiet, atmospheric passages drew hushed attention beneath the open sky, and the heavier songs set the lawn surging. Even the bleaker material felt communal, less a dirge than a shared acknowledgment that life is short and loud music is a good way to spend part of it.
The show fell in a busy stretch for the band. Their September US dates included a Hollywood Forever headline show and an appearance at Ohana Festival. A festival set has to win over strangers, while a headline show rewards the faithful. With 19 songs, Fontaines D.C. had room to cover their catalog and preview what’s next. There is something fitting about a group this taken with Ireland’s ghosts performing among Hollywood’s. The setting gave their already weighty music an extra layer of meaning, and the dead got an unusually good night out. On this night, Fontaines D.C. made Hollywood Forever Cemetery feel alive.
