Fontaines D.C. gave their song ‘Horseness Is The Whatness’ its live debut during their show in Brooklyn this week.
The Dublin rockers took over the Brooklyn Paramount in New York for a sold-out two-night run on Tuesday and Wednesday (October 15 and 16) as part of their ongoing US ‘Romance’ tour.
On the first night (October 15), Fontaines D.C. treated the packed crowd to a career-spanning set, kicking off the show with ‘Jackie Down The Line‘, ‘Televised Mind’, ‘Big Shot’, ‘Death Kink’, ‘Sundowner’, ‘Here’s The Thing‘, ‘Big’ and ‘A Hero’s Death’.
During their 13th song, the band decided to break out ‘Horseness Is The Whatness’ from their recent LP ‘Romance‘ and give it its live debut. Frontman Grian Chatten took on the role of acoustic guitar player while singing the song with its lyrics: “Will someone / Find out what the word is / That makes the world go round? / ‘Cause I thought it was ‘love’”
According to Genius, the song got its name from ”Horseness is the whatness of allhorse”, which is a reoccurring quote in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Written by the band’s guitarist Carlos O’Connell, the inspiration allegedly came from reading Joyce’s novels out loud to his infant daughter.
To wrap up their set for their first night at the legendary Brooklyn music venue, Fontaines D.C. performed ‘Nabokov’, ‘Boys in the Better Land’ and ‘Favourite’ before exiting the stage and returning for a three-track encore which saw them close out the evening with ‘Starburster‘.
Fontaines D.C.’s Brooklyn Paramount setlist on October 16 was:
‘Romance’
‘Jackie Down the Line’
‘Televised Mind’
‘A Lucid Dream’
‘Roman Holiday’
‘Big Shot’
‘Death Kink’
‘Sundowner’
‘Big’
‘A Hero’s Death’
‘Here’s the Thing’
‘Bug’
‘Horseness Is the Whatness’ (Live Debut)
‘Nabokov’
‘Boys in the Better Land’
‘Favourite’
In a five-star review of ‘Romance’, NME shared: “Perhaps nowhere, however, has frontman Grian Chatten’s songwriting felt more arrestingly attuned to the thorny tangle of life than on fourth LP ‘Romance’, an album that charts the devastating duality of its title – primarily the way a love or desire so tender can morph into something near-debilitating.”
It continued: “Much of its power, therefore, comes from the way the discomfiting mood is offset by the lusciousness of the melodies. “Ah, it makes sense when you understand / The misery made me another marked man,” Chatten sings towards the end of closer ‘Favourite’, a celebration of the past and all its learnings. These final, perfectly-chosen words will only take on a life of their own and reverberate onwards.”
In other news, Rachel Chinouriri recently covered Fontaines D.C‘s ‘Starburster’ while performing at the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge.
