GLASGOW GOES FERAL: KNEECAP BRING FENIAN TO THE GARAGE

LIVE REVIEW | KNEECAP | THE GARAGE, GLASGOW | 3rd May 2026 by Bryden Churchmichael

My partner and I had been at Yardworks at SWG3 all day. Feet done, already buzzing, joined the queue outside the Garage while the sun was still up. We got talking to Ally, freelance music journalist from Las Vegas, somehow on the same pavement for the same reason. We talked Inhaler, Fontaines, the 1975. She told us how she met her boyfriend in a pub after a gig somewhere in the UK. She held our spot while my partner nipped to the toilet. That was the crowd before the show even started. A stranger from Nevada holding your place in a queue in Glasgow on a Sunday night because that’s just what you do. Inside, Free Palestine chants broke out at points before the band came on. Nobody organised it. It just kept happening.

Fontaines DC‘s ‘Favourite’ was the last song playing before the piper walked out. People were singing it at each other across the room, proper belting it, and then the bagpipes started and everyone turned around. He played, Kneecap came on behind him, and that was that.

If I’m being honest they came out looking a bit tired. I was wrong. Second show of the day, they’d been at it since the afternoon. But they warmed into it. The silly dancing started, the crowd engagement kicked in, and by the time they were a few songs deep you’d forgotten there was ever a matinee. That’s the thing about a smaller venue. The Garage isn’t massive. You’re close enough to see their faces. Close enough that when they’re having a laugh between songs it feels like it’s with you, not at a room of thousands. No screen between you and what’s happening.

FENIAN dropped two days before this show. Two days. And the crowd already had chunks of it memorised. That tells you something about what Kneecap mean to people right now. This isn’t passive listening. This is people coming in ready.

Straight into ‘Intro Nua’ then ‘Smugglers & Scholars‘, the one about Mo Chara’s terrorism charge, a year in and out of London courts over a flag someone else threw on stage. I looked around me and the person next to me already knew every word. Two days after the album dropped. The room was furious and bouncing at the same time. Real political weight turned into something you can actually move to.

‘Carnival’ framed the whole court case as a circus, a distraction from Gaza, and the “Free Mo Chara” chant was going before the track was halfway through. Then ‘Gael Phonics‘, call and response in Irish, the crowd stumbling through pronunciation, Kneecap taking the piss, everyone laughing and shouting back. I was picking up a few bars phonetically through learning Scottish Gaelic and it hit me what was actually happening.

A room full of people in Glasgow, most of them not Irish speakers, making the effort. These languages get written off as relics. Museum pieces. Things that belong to a different century. Kneecap are proof that’s nonsense. Irish in a sweaty venue on a Sunday night, with a crowd who showed up for it. That’s not preservation. That’s a living thing.
‘Occupied 6’ brought things darker before ‘An Ra’ snapped it back. Mo Chara introduced it as their little love song to the UK government. The room was chanting fuck Keir Starmer before he’d started rapping. Then he stopped and said it plainly:

“there’s nothing that would wind Keir Starmer up more than being top of the charts in the UK.”

The room answered that the only way it could.

Then, Maggie’s in a box, Savile’s in a box. But first Mo Chara said it: “I think Glasgow and Belfast have a lot in common, but especially their hate for Thatcher.” The chant went up and the Garage meant it. I think it was just after ‘An Ra’. I couldn’t swear to it but the feeling was right.

This is what the British establishment tried so hard to bury. A band that won’t make their politics palatable, won’t tone it down, won’t accept the terms of respectability being offered to them. The terrorism charge circus didn’t silence them. The festival bans didn’t silence them. If anything it just meant the room in Glasgow knew every word.

Midway through, the crowd was asked who wanted to see DJ Próvaí’s nipples. The kilt was already on. The rest followed.

Mo Chara called out any Glasgow Celtic fenians in the crowd. The Ohhhhh Ohhhhh we’re Glasgow Celtic chant went up. DJ Próvaí tried to keep it going, fumbled the handover, laughed. “I thought yous were gonna continue it. We fucked it.” Mo Chara laughed. “Let’s keep this fucking going.” Funniest moment of the night. A band this size being genuinely chaotic about it.

They turned it into a competition with their earlier show. “Do you think you can do better? Glasgow, I said, do you think you can do better?” The crowd answered. Mo Chara said Glasgow was the best city in the world. Nobody argued.
They talked about footage from their gigs getting sent to people in the West Bank. A room in Glasgow, people in Palestine watching it. I find it hard sometimes, holding the gratitude of a night like that without losing sight of why the night matters in the first place. That moment didn’t let you forget.

Then ‘FENIAN‘ hit. The word reclaimed, turned into something you scream back. I started bumping up and down at the front wishing I had more room. I ended up next to Tattoo Dave. Don’t know his second name. Didn’t need to. Thirty minutes later we both had our tops off. My partner pulled me into the mosh and I just went with it. Nobody was getting hurt. People were holding each other up. That’s what this size of show does, strips it back to bodies and bass and the anger we all came in with.

‘H.O.O.D‘, ‘Big Bad Mo‘, ‘The Recap‘. I’ll be honest, I was too deep in it by that point to clock much. During H.O.O.D a girl got up on someone’s shoulders and sang Tiocfaidh ár lá into the mic. Get the brits out. The room lost it. The drag of the mosh bringing you around familiar faces from different points of the night. Tops off, arms round strangers, looking across at people screaming the words back and seeing the release on their faces. Pure joy.

Then ‘Liars Tale‘ closed it. Starmer, Netanyahu, the whole lot, set to something that felt less like a song and more like a room full of people finally having somewhere to put their anger. Same faces. Same room. By the time it was done I was soaked and didn’t know what to say.

Walked to the 900 bus and there was a busker on Sauchiehall Street doing Don’t Look Back in Anger. Me and two random lads kept walking, still singing.

FENIAN by Kneecap is out now.