Frenetic, angry and urgent: Kneecap show they've no intention of shutting up during Glasgow show

This gig wasn’t supposed to happen. It was organised in short order just over a month ago in response to Glasgow’s TRNSMT festival dropping Kneecap from its lineup, as the Belfast trio faced mounting criticism and a terrorism charge. 

Frontman Mo Chara – real name Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – was in Westminster Magistrates court in June charged with a terror offence for allegedly waving a flag in support of Hezbollah during a performance last year. A little before then, resurfaced videos appeared of the underground Irish-language hip-hop band telling crowds to ‘kill your local MP’ – for which they subsequently apologised. Their strident defence of Palestinians and loud condemnation of the Israeli government has put them at the centre of a debate about free expression. Everyone has had an opinion on Kneecap. Keir Starmer called for Glastonbury to axe them from its lineup. None of this has damaged them. This gig, in Glasgow’s O2 Academy, sold out in 80 seconds. 

Read more:

• As the government moves to ban Palestine Action, are terror laws being used for ‘political policing’?
• Hip-hop pioneers Kneecap on peace, Super Noodles and bringing Irish into the modern day
• No, Kneecap shouldn’t be cancelled – but they shouldn’t go unchallenged, either

It all adds to the politicised air around Kneecap. A girl in her 20s in the queue behind me asks if I think security will turn her away for wearing a Celtic football shirt. Had that been the case, Kneecap would’ve been playing to a half empty hall. While the sizeable police presence outside suggests a belief that there will be rowdy and difficult troublemakers, there is no discernible demographic to Kneecap fans and nothing to build a sense of unease. There are teenage girls with bright-coloured hair, blokes old enough to be their fathers. There are young couples, groups of lads and plenty of middle aged people. There is a sense of anticipation that this is a key moment in Britain’s cultural and music summer. 

The cheer is loud and long and joyful when DJ Próvai, Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap bounce onto the stage to their folk-DnB remix “3CAG”.

For three lads using pseudonyms, rapping about how they are ‘degenerate hoods who like to get pissed’, there’s surprisingly little pretence with Kneecap. They mean what they say and they love what they do. They stumble in and out of mosh pits on the floor, crowd surf, get involved and laugh when each song is punctuated by a different Celtic FC chant. They’re at home on stage, whether they’re rapping ‘get your Brits out’ or delivering political polemics.

It takes about 20 minutes and a particularly well-received rendition of “Fenian Cunts” for the boys to address the elephant in the room. ‘It wasn’t TRNSMT’s fault’ Mo Chara tells us, referencing that cancellation. Whose fault it was is not clear – TRNSMT claim it was due to worries about safety from the police, while the police maintain the final decision lies with the festival itself – but that doesn’t matter now. As Móglaí Bap puts it, “You can’t keep Kneecap from playing in Glasgow!”

If anywhere is going to get Kneecap outside of their home turf, it’s going to be Glasgow, and they know it. Both Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap declare Glasgow is ‘the best place on Earth to play a gig’ multiple times, but it’s more than the city’s ability to gie it laldy that ties it to the group. 

One fan who has been following the trio since 2018 tells me that things have always been different here: “Even years ago, when it was hundreds of people not thousands, the Glasgow concerts always sold out. Now everywhere sells out, but they’ve always been big here.” Why? According to the band, “Glasgow knows a little something about religious differences itself.”

Belfast and Glasgow may be alike in the depths of their sectarian divides, but what’s more important, Mo Chara stresses, is that ‘we all understand that the real fight is the fight of the working class’. 

And, of course, the fight for Palestine. It’s Mo Chara who speaks most about the situation in Gaza – and about politics in general – as he tells the crowd that ‘they’re bombing [the Palestinian] people, and they’ve got nowhere to go’. He’s careful to add that his anger towards Israel has ‘nothing to do with the citizens’, and everything to do with the government. The crowd seems to agree – it becomes hard to hear the band’s words over chants of ‘Free free Palestine’ at some points. The energy in the room is frenetic and angry; it’s urgent. There’s just as much support in the O2 tonight for Kneecap’s politics as there is for their music.

The band leave the stage to an old Irish rebel song, which goes so well among this audience that it singing continues as we file out, only interrupted by the odd ‘Free Palestine’. It’s a striking image: thousands of people peacefully singing a decades old protest song from one nation, while chanting for another. 

Like them or loathe them, Kneecap are no longer on the fringes. They’re shaping the culture of today with every headline they’re in, and they’ve got no intentions of slowing down or shutting up. 

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