Fontaines DC display words ‘Israel is committing genocide' on screen at sell-out gig
The Irish post-punk band's lead singer, Grian Chatten, captivated the 45,000-strong crowd with his commanding stage presence.
Dressed in a kilt and a Sinead O'Connor t-shirt, Chatten energised the audience, at times carrying the microphone by the pole or performing empty-handed, as he moved along the gangway above the vast crowd.
He rarely broke the music to speak, but dedicated one song to his 'little girl' and briefly echoed a chant of 'free Palestine' that was started by the audience.
Grainy live recordings of the Finsbury Park performance and crowd played on large screens on either side of the stage.
Both screens cut from the vintage-style footage to 'Free Palestine' written in the gothic font of the band's logo, as Chatten sang the I Love You lyrics: 'Selling genocide and half-cut pride, I understand. I had to be there from the start, I had to be the f****** man'.
A piece of music equipment on the north London stage was wrapped in a Palestinian flag and onlookers also waved them in the crowd.
Ecstatic fans of the five-person Brit award-winning band descended into mosh pits for several songs, including upbeat Here's the Thing.
Their slower track Romance was preceded by a minutes-long montage of surreal clips, including a pig and a crying heart-shaped head in different snow globes.
The last song finished and 'Israel is committing genocide. Use your voice' came up on the screens.
Chatten closed the set with simply 'cheers London, thank you very much' and a wave.
Prior to the performance, Chatten joined Kneecap, who were supporting, to perform their collaboration Better Way To Live.
Wearing a silver jacket and glasses, he embraced and sang with the trio and shouted 'free Palestine'.
Australian rock band Amyl and the Sniffers also warmed up for the band.
Next month will see 'the second time Kneecap have beat the British Government in court', the Irish rap trio said at the gig.
The crowd watched them walk on in front of a screen that said 'Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people'.
People echoed the Belfast group's chants when they repeated the 'f*** Keir Starmer' and 'you're just a s*** Jeremy Corbyn' comments made at Glastonbury the previous weekend.
Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs as Mo Chara, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court earlier this month charged with a terror offence and will return next month.
Fellow member Naoise O Caireallain, who uses the stage name Moglai Bap, said 'if anyone's free on the 20th of August, you wanna go to the court and support Mo Chara' before shouting 'free Mo Chara, free, free Mo Chara'.
Wearing a keffiyeh, O hAnnaidh responded: 'I appreciate it, the 20th of August is going to be the second time Kneecap have beat the British Government in court – in their own court, on their own terms, and we're going to beat them for the second time.
'I tell you what, there is nothing like embarrassing the British Government.'
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BBC News
28 minutes ago
- BBC News
Bradford Mela returns but with a commercial twist
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The Sun
28 minutes ago
- The Sun
Shocking tapes reveal unbreakable bond between Kray twins & how vain overreaction led to brutal machete attack
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Always protective of his more volatile brother, Reggie recorded a message on tape for him to listen to, hoping that the sound of his voice would reassure him in his darkest moments. 'Hello, Ron,' it began. 'Reg speaking. Now, I'm very concerned for you of late but I wish to help you. You are making yourself suffer by thinking bad thoughts. You must only think of good thoughts. 'Life gets shorter and shorter as each day goes by. Try to realise what I'm telling you because here's the truth and any time you get down just play this tape again.' In another message to Ronnie, Reggie attempted to calm his increasing paranoia with the words: 'You are inflicted with an illness. You should realise that no one is talking about you. That you are paranoid. As soon as you realise you are paranoid, you should give other people the benefit of the doubt because they are not talking about you.' The close bond they shared throughout their life was stretched when they were imprisoned away from each other but Reggie attempted to ease Ronnie's anxiety with a philosophical approach: 'Life is very complex, as you know, but according to the universal laws, each one of us has a role in life. This is the path that we've all been pushed on, you know? All our paths take different ways.' Just weeks after Reggie recorded the tape to his brother, Ronnie passed away at the age of 61. Their reliance on each other was evident as babies as family friend, Maureen Flanagan, reveals. Maureen was a hairdresser for the twin's beloved mother, Violet, who she used to visit at her home in Vallance Road in Bethnal Green, East London. 'The first brother that I met was the eldest one, Charlie,' she says. 'He remarked about what gorgeous hair I had. It was all hanging down, long and blonde and looking quite glamorous, I suppose. And I said 'I'm a hairdresser' and he said, 'You wouldn't go to our home and do my mother's hair?' 'I pulled up in my white Mini and knocked at the door and this little lady came out and said, 'Hello darling. You must be Maureen. Would you like a tea, coffee? I've made a beautiful cake.' Tight upbringing 'As I was having tea and cake I noticed some photographs along the mantelpiece and I got up to have a look and one was of two boys in their boxing shorts and boxing gloves and they were absolutely identical. 'Then she started telling me about the time when they were three and they both caught diphtheria. People always talk to hairdressers! 'They were put into the London Hospital where Reggie got better and Violet was told she could take him home but Ronnie continued to get worse and she was told that he might not survive. 18 18 18 "So, she marched down to the hospital and said, 'I'm taking him home.' They said, 'You can't move him. This is a really dangerous situation. He might not make it through the night.' She said, 'I'm taking him home.' 'She wrapped him in a blanket, walked home and put him next to Reggie in bed and wrapped the two babies in the same blanket so they were as close as they could be. And in two days he was better. All he needed was his twin. "I think that was probably the start of their togetherness. They couldn't get away from each other and didn't want to. 'They were called 'The two ones.' Their aunties used to say, 'Where's the two ones, Violet?' It was like two people in one.' Professor Ruth Penfold-Mounce, a criminologist at the University of York, says that the boys would have attracted an instant celebrity status when they were born in the 1930s. The problem with twin that they are not encouraged to develop separately as individuals Vivienne Lewin 'At the time when they were born, it was really unusual to have identical twins who survived infancy,' she says. 'When Violet was walking down the street with her twin sons, people would have noticed. People would have stopped and stared. There was like a minor celebrity status that surrounded these boys.' Vivienne Lewin, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist explains how they would have been conditioned to have been influenced by each other. 'There are some misconceptions about twins,' she says. 'The most damaging one, I think, is that they are two halves of one. But the fact is, no two twins are two halves of one. Each is an absolute separate individual with an individual personality. 'The problem with twin development, where the twins themselves and twin-ship is idealised, is that they are not encouraged to develop separately as individuals. Sometimes, to the extent that they are really very entangled with each other and have difficulty leading separate lives.' This was undoubtedly the case with Reggie and Ronnie, who were born on 24 October 1933. 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Both were very adept at it, particularly Ronnie, and that, along with glowing reports in the local newspaper of their success, gave them extra status in the area. It also fuelled their arrogance. In 1952, they were conscripted into National Service for two years. They turned up but Ronnie lost his temper with the CO's attitude so he punched him on the nose and they walked out and went home. Effectively, they were dishonourably discharged and ended up serving their two years in prison instead and were released when they were 20. A life of crime now lay ahead. They bought a run-down billiard hall which they built up and started a protection racket business on the side. This led to several clubs and casinos in London during the late 50s and 1960s which attracted the celebrities of the day, including Barbara Windsor Diana Dors, Shirley Bassey, Terence Stamp, David Bailey, Christine Keeler and even Judy Garland and World Heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston, when they were in town. 18 18 18 The twins loved the glamour, impeccably dressed in made to measure suits, crisp white shirts and silk ties. Ronnie, in particular, idolised gangsters from Hollywood films played by the likes of Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. Such was their fame that they were even interviewed on the BBC, in which they talked about being club owners and that a little bit of violence was sometimes justified. 'You will get the occasional drunk and sometimes they have to be slung out and that's why there are doormen,' said Reggie. 'I suppose it's like club land all over the world. I don't suppose it can be all that bad or else people wouldn't go to them, would they?' Ronnie chipped in: 'Most clubs are very respectable and I don't think there's any trouble at all in them…. except occasionally.' He took him in the toilet and slashed his face and the back of his head with a machete that he had in his overcoat Maureen With a thriving club business, they could have turned away from violence and the criminal world, but they didn't. 'They threw it all away,' says Dinenage. 'Reggie would be quite content to get dressed every evening, go to his clubs, take his money, pay his people and live a good life,' says Maureen. 'But he was a twin. He was half of another half and that other half was Ronnie Kray.' Violent spirals Ron's mental issues had him on heavy medication but when he didn't take it he became volatile and dangerous and had paranoid thoughts. 18 18 'As he was put on stronger medication, Ronnie became puffy in the face and put on a stone, which he hated,' says Maureen. 'I heard one day in the pub there was a man who said, 'Hello, Ron. How are you? You've put on a bit of timber.' Ronnie looked down at himself and said, 'Yeah, I have.' 'He walked out and got in a car, drove half a mile down the road, turned round, came back to the pub and said to the man, 'I want to talk to you for a minute.' He took him in the toilet and slashed his face and the back of his head with a machete that he had in his overcoat. 'People asked him why he did it. He was happily talking to the man. And he just replied, 'That will teach him to talk about my weight.' That's how he could change in an instant.' Reggie recorded his memories of life with Ronnie in his tapes made in 1995, relishing their violent episodes. 'A memory I've got is when Ron and myself was in a dance hall in Tottenham,' he said. 'We saw about five fellas who came from the Stamford Hill area. Ron and I waited for them to come across and as they did so, right in front of the band, we hit them on the chin and also hit them on the heads with chairs. It was just like the cowboy days. We finished up having knocked them all out, and they lay in front of the band and the band was still playing the music.' Another memory was: 'We were sitting on bar stools. There's Ron and I, and we were drinking gin and tonics, when three fellas came into the pub and they stood behind Ron and started making detrimental remarks against Ron, and I watched him as he stepped down from the bar stool and hit one with a right hand punch. Knocked him spark out. Turned the other way and hit another one with a left hook.' Feeling invincible, they took things too far and the murder of rival gangster, George Cornell in The Blind Beggar Pub, was the beginning of their downfall. Ronnie walked in and shot him between the eyes in front of a handful of drinkers and a traumatised barmaid. But they were all too scared to say anything to police. Reg's new wife Frances – who Ronnie jealously resented for coming between him and his brother – had recently taken her own life by taking an overdose. He was not thinking straight and was increasingly being led along by Ronnie into his crazy and dangerous exploits. 18 18 The pair bizarrely tried to get a friend of Ronnie's, Frank 'The Mad Axeman' Mitchell, a release date from prison. They helped him escape and hid him away, telling him to write to the Home Secretary saying 'If you give me a date for my release I will give myself up.' Roy Jenkins, Home Secretary of the time, flatly refused and with Mitchell now a liability on their hands, they arranged for him to be murdered and his body disposed of. Jack 'The Hat' McVitie was next to be brutally stabbed to death by Reggie after he was paid but failed to carry out the task of killing their business manager, Leslie Payne, for talking to police after being concerned by the twins increasing violence. With the police now committed to putting the Krays behind bars, they offered protection for those willing to come forward, including the barmaid at the Blind Beggar who gave evidence against them in court about the murder of George Cornell. Ronnie and Reggie were firmly behind bars in 1969, having been given life sentences with a minimum of 30 years to be served. Reggie was allowed out, on compassionate grounds, to attend Ronnie's funeral in March 1995, where crowds lined the streets. Amongst the floral tributes was one from Reggie – flowers that spelt out 'To the other half of me' – and a wreath from Barbara Windsor. Five years after Ronnie's death, Reggie died of cancer at the age of 66. He was buried next to his twin. Whether it was irony or that he had finally discovered the decent, sensible and happy way to live, is unclear. But Reggie commented on his 1995 tape: 'What you give out in life is returned to you. If you give out love, love will be returned to you. If you give out hatred, hatred will be returned to you.'
The Guardian
28 minutes ago
- The Guardian
A PR dream or disaster? Jet2's holiday advert finds new life as joke meme
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