THE SOUND OF LETTING GO, GRIEVING THE ROOMS WHERE WE FIRST FELL IN LOVE
This is a piece about the rooms where we first fell in love with music, and the grief that comes when those rooms disappear.
Live music has never been about raw energy for me, not the polished spectacle of arena events or mass-produced shows. It starts with skint teens making noise in a garage, playing youth clubs, and doing something genuine. I’m 45, and this isn’t about trying to look cool “Oh check me out, I didnt stay to watch Fontaines D.C.” I’ve been watching bands since I was eleven, and over the years I’ve realised something simple, the places where music hits me hardest are the small rooms, the sweat‑soaked venues, the spaces where the sound is close enough to feel in your chest. Those rooms have always been my own dopamine chambers. So when I found myself at Leeds Festival, miles back in a freezing, rain‑soaked crowd, I realised I wasn’t bothered about watching Fontaines D.C. on a screen, I can do that at home. And that’s where we are all so different, especially those who have had a few beers (and whatever else…), they love it. Fontaines D.C. are stepping into a new era with Dopamine Chamber, an album built for bigger stages and wider horizons, but for me personally, the version of them I’m attached to lives in those tiny, electric rooms where everything began.
Like most bands, Fontaines D.C. made their name on raw authenticity, not by playing in massive arenas. That early energy is what I look for in live music, large-scale performances fail to capture it. This isn’t about keeping bands small or pure, success is natural, deserved, and often beautiful. Of course, a talented band will evolve and climb the ladder, but I always listen and come back to their earlier stuff, because that’s where I fell in love with them. Writing about this has made me realise I’ve always experienced music through a kind of attachment, the way certain sounds get cemented in my body and become hard to release.
I didn’t stay to watch the Fontaines set for not only practical reasons but because deep down I could feel myself clinging to an old version of the band again, and the kindest thing I could do was step back rather than feed that attachment. I know I can’t hold onto those early moments forever, everything changes, and that’s natural but the mind still clings to what first moved it.
When I was eleven, my friend Keith invited me to listen to his brother’s rehearsal, and that’s where I first felt what raw music actually does to you. The band was called Flumbuff, and they rehearsed in their parents’ garage. The grunge era of the late nineties was at its peak. We’d go to the garage during lunchtime, lift the blue door, and listen to that messy, raw music, and it stuck with me for life. Looking back, I can see how those small causes and conditions shaped the way I experience music even now.
Polish isn’t the enemy, it’s just a different artistic texture, one that doesn’t hit me in the same way. I’m realising that falling in love with a band is yet another form of attachment. The difficulty comes when the thing you attached to changes shape.
Around that time, I found myself drawn to Nirvana, Beck and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the wider world of 90s punk and guitar music. However, getting swept away by the waves of the Nevermind album, I became more of a fan of Bleach because I wanted to hear that same rawness I’d heard behind the blue garage door. We all meet music through our own minds, our own karma, our own history, so of course we respond differently. This pattern was repeated many times over for me, Biffy Clyro, Kings of Leon and so on. Plenty of people feel the opposite, some find their deepest connection in huge crowds and perfect sound. The music didn’t become bad, it just got more polished, easier for the masses, and more accessible, and that’s why I lost interest in certain bands.
Fontaines D.C. have always been special from day one, they still are. Any true fan is not in the slightest shocked that they’re headlining major festivals. It was inevitable from the very start, from the first time we heard them. Their music, their message, the poetry of the lyrics, literally everything they stand for is admirable. I’m not saying anything against them. It’s just my reaction to a process that erodes the rawness of music when a band becomes mainstream.
Their stance on the Palestine issue and on Irish political questions felt, at least to me, of a piece with the unfiltered quality of the early records, another refusal to sand the edges off.
Going to Leeds, I was looking forward to their set, and they’ve become my favourite band (whatever that means these days). The last time I watched them (before Leeds Arena), they were in a small venue, but after hearing Romance that night, I knew those small venues were going to be a thing of the past. When I photographed them at Leeds First Direct Arena, listening to the crowd of thousands, I felt something was wrong, not with them, but with me. Everything seemed too polished, too controlled, too ‘big.’ I wrote about it back then, these same feelings. It’s like grieving a feeling as much as it is grieving a more intimate venue. I tried to just sit with the feeling rather than fight it, noticing it, accepting it, letting it be what it was. For me, the important thing is when bands that have reached that level still step back into the small rooms. The scramble for tickets is part of it, but it keeps the heart of the music intact. And some big artists still return to smaller rooms. Staying humble matters, one artist I’m thinking of hit the very top, dropped back to O2‑level venues, and simply began again. They rebuilt without losing themselves. People must remember that nothing is permanent, keeping that mentality matters.
The same authenticity that first drew me to them is also what makes me protective. When the writing is that poetic and exposed, the jump from small rooms to arenas and industry machinery can be a heavy thing to carry. I hope the band, and Grian especially, are given the space, room to keep making their emotionally expressive work without being crushed by the scale of fame.
Authenticity is a perception, people connect with artists when they see imperfections, craftsmanship, and the handmade nature of performances. It becomes harder to feel this connection with arena concerts and performances prepared specifically for broadcasting. Research in music psychology proves that people respond better to spontaneity, timing variations, and unpredictability. Arena concerts, designed for broadcasting, are the opposite, polished, neat, and perfectly performed. So when I say that most of the Leeds and Reading performances (not just Fontaines D.C. were “too perfect,” I’m not exaggerating; the nature of those stages does not allow for a truly natural performance.
In most cases music starts being measured by how successful it becomes rather than by the craft that made it meaningful in the first place.
Standing in the crowd at Leeds and Reading, I realised something quickly, I’d never watched a band in an environment like that and enjoyed it. I’d had fun, but not a genuine connection. I haven’t seen any good gigs in such venues because not a single one of my favourite gigs occurred in those kinds of places. Surrounded by props and production, I felt all the feelings I felt at Leeds First Direct Arena again. Part of the discomfort comes from grasping at how things used to be, and grasping always hurts.
The new Fontaines album, I’ve no doubt, will be fantastic. Their new work is brilliant, this isn’t about quality, it’s about atmosphere. I hope I’m wrong, but once music labels and the industry interfere, something inevitable happens, all the rough edges get smoothed out, imperfections polished away. Part of the reason is that music starts being measured by success rather than craftsmanship. The metrics change, and when the metrics change, the feel of the art changes too. The process of commercialisation begins, and the pressure to please everyone grows. It happens all the time. None of this means the industry is malicious; it’s simply built to scale things up, and scaling changes the way things feel for me personally.
Everyone in the process is just trying to do their best within their own conditions, artists, labels, fans so I’m trying to meet it with compassion rather than frustration. Letting go of the version of any band we held too tightly, doesn’t mean losing love it just means holding it more lightly.
To be clear, my feelings are never directed at Fontaines themselves, but maybe at my own grasping of them and the wider pressures that come with success. Next time I watch a band I love outgrow the small rooms where I first connected with them, I’ll try to remember that the grief is real, and that it can also point me back toward the artists who are still playing those rooms.
