GRAIN CHATTEN – RESIDENT, BRIGHTON 4.7.23
It’s fair to say that we at Brighton & Hove News have been on the case of Irish post punk band Fontaines D.C. over the past 5 years, having reviewed them on a number of occasions at various venues across Brighton and each time we have watched them grow more popular and get many more fans on board.
Fontaines D.C. is made up of Grian Chatten (lead vocals, tambourine), Carlos O’Connell (guitar, backing vocals), Conor Curley (guitar, piano, backing vocals), Conor Deegan III (bass guitar, guitar, backing vocals) and Tom Coll (drums, percussion, guitar) and they apparently met while attending music college and bonded over a common love of poetry.
The band have now become so successful that their trio of albums have shifted bucket loads. Their debut ‘Dogrel’ (released 12th April 2019) burst into the UK Albums at No.9, the follow up ‘A Hero’s Death’ (released 31st July 2020) did even better and got to No.2, and their third album, ‘Skinty Fia’ (released 22nd April 2022), went one better and hit the No.1 slot!
Last week (on 30th June) frontman Grian Chatten released his debut solo album, titled ‘Chaos For The Fly’ which came out on Partisan and is a collection of nine numbers: ‘The Score’, ‘Last Time Every Time Forever’, ‘Fairlies’, ‘Bob’s Casino’, ‘All Of The People’, ‘East Coast Bed’, ‘Salt Throwers Off A Truck’, ‘I Am So Far’ and ‘Season For Pain’.
In order to promote the album, Grian announced a handful of in-store acoustic performances to celebrate the record’s release and these sold out instantly. The dates in Bristol, Manchester, Brighton and London were the first opportunity for fans to see Grian perform tracks from the record up close and personal. The Brighton date being at the ever popular Resident in Kensington Gardens.
Before we get onto the review, we would like to give you the background story of how Grian’s ‘Chaos For The Fly’ came about….Thirty miles north of Dublin along a windswept promenade you’ll find a tired casino, the sort of place anyone familiar with the rusted seaside glamour of forgotten coastal towns will recognise. A now shuttered escape where the crack of pool balls and chink of glasses in the lounge bar reverberated within the ever-present whirr and jangle of slot machines. Unremarkable to some, perhaps, but it was where ‘Chaos For The Fly’ was born.
“I was walking along Stoney Beach at night and it came to me on the waves,” recalls Chatten. “I just stood there and looked at them and I heard the whole f*cking thing. Every part of it, from the chord progressions to the string arrangements.”
The resulting songs could have been taken, shaped and reimagined with his bandmates in Fontaines D.C., but Chatten decided to treat these differently.
“I just thought: I want to do this myself. I know where we as a band are going next and that’s not where I want to go with this. I’ve got a couple of exaggerated aspects of my soul that I wanted to express,” he says. “The rest of the band are all creative and songwriters in their own right, too. I didn’t want to go to them and be like, ‘No, every single thing has to be like this.’ I didn’t want to compromise with these songs in that way.”
Co-produced by Fontaines’ long standing producer Dan Carey, the album is the most poetic we’ve heard yet from Chatten. Songs such as the fingerpicking kiss-off of opener ‘The Score’ or ‘Fairlies’ wounded isolation present a heavily distilled vision that is heady in its strength and at times comes with a dark undertow.
“A lot of the album was written with just me and a guitar and I really like the idea of it being boiled down to those elements. That feeling of having the song in the palm of your hand, that control of having it with just you and a guitar,” he says. “There’s an intensity as a result of that.”
Over its nine tracks, ‘Chaos For The Fly’ takes in all of life’s emotions and stories. Yes, some are painful, but in giving shape and form to them and making those voices come alive, Chatten has created something with its own unique beauty. A place you not only want to visit, but will find yourself returning to again and again.
It’s been a hectic but rewarding 12 months for Fontaines D.C., debuting at number one in both the UK and Ireland with their third album, the critically acclaimed, Ivor Novello Nominated ‘Skinty Fia’, and taking home the BRIT award for International Group of the Year. It followed 2020’s ‘A Hero’s Death’, which was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 2021 Grammys and their debut, 2019’s ‘Dogrel’, which was nominated for both the Mercury Music Prize and Ireland’s Choice Music Prize.
…And to to this evening’s instore performance at Resident…
One thing is certain and that was that the owners of the store were over the moon, as half an hour before the shop doors were to swing back open, Grian fans were queuing all the way along Kensington Gardens towards Gardner Street. The skies were looking a little ominous too, but all 170 souls managed to squeeze into the shop in time before the downpour started.
As you would expect there was a buzz of anticipation in the air and some fans had travelled hundreds of miles to be here. The young couple in front of me had especially travelled all the way down from Newcastle. Once they told me this, the young girl standing next to them piped up and amazingly said that she had done the exact same thing! What are the chances eh?
Grian emerged from the rear of the store and perched upon a stool on the southern side of the store. Clearly a solo set is a different proposition to him rather than continually strutting left to right across the stage in an aggravated manner, like he does for Fontaines D.C. gigs. He immediately stated that this was a strange situation for him and later added whilst trying to tune his acoustic guitar, that he has been spoiled over the past two years by having his own guitar tec.
Not many folk present in the shop would have realised this, but I was reliably informed that Grian had primed himself for this intimate occasion, by frequenting a local hostelry beforehand and consumed some of the Irish black stuff as well as a Peroni for good measure. A tin of Guinness was by his side in Resident, to wet his whistle.
He quietly began at 7:12pm with his album’s opener ‘The Score’. It received a rapturous applause at the end. He had already won the fans over! He follows this with ‘Salt Throwers Off A Truck’ which is arguably a more Fontaines D.C. sounding tune than the opener. Song three was ‘I Am So Far’, another quieter number. This was followed by a special treat in the form of a Fontaines D.C. tune, namely ‘The Couple Across The Way’ from 2022’s ‘Skinty Fia’. Naturally this went down very well.
It was heartening to be able to listen to every single word emanating from the Irish poet’s voice and you could have heard a pin drop during all of tonight’s seven song set. There was a little banter between Grian and a few keen fans, primarily over the amount of more tunes he should play. He served us the trio of ‘Season For Pain’, ‘Fairlies’ and ‘All Of The People’ from his album and that was very much it. Thus after 32 minutes it was time for him to briefly escape, whilst the fans got themselves into an orderly queue for the album signing. My choice track of the set was ‘Fairlies’ as it was the most upbeat and uplifting composition. I now head on out of Resident and make my way to Chalk in order to catch The Chameleons performing live – Read that review HERE.
Grian Chatten setlist:
‘The Score’ (from 2023 ‘Chaos For The Fly’ album)
‘Salt Throwers Off A Truck’ (from 2023 ‘Chaos For The Fly’ album)
‘I Am So Far’ (from 2023 ‘Chaos For The Fly’ album)
‘The Couple Across The Way’ (from 2022 ‘Skinty Fia’ Fontaines D.C. album)
‘Season For Pain’ (from 2023 ‘Chaos For The Fly’ album)
‘Fairlies’ (from 2023 ‘Chaos For The Fly’ album)
‘All Of The People’ (from 2023 ‘Chaos For The Fly’ album)
