ROMANTICIZE THAT

Fontaines D.C. in the flesh are nothing short of animalistic glory. At the postpunkers’ recent gig in Brooklyn, the crowd moved en masse—a seething, kinetic chaos that wreaked havoc on the dance floor. Between songs, an older patron in front of me pulled out a crumpled pack of Marlboro Reds, lit one with a match, cheefed the entirety of it in four biblical drags, threw the butt down, stomped it out, and then, still reeling from the buzz, promptly fell flat on her face. About 10 feet back, a young man stood with his shoulders scrunched impossibly high, jaw clenched tighter than a junkie’s on the last score of the night. His hips jerked so erratically that they couldn’t have borne a resemblance to anything other than the crazed thrashings of a mutt in heat. He was, to my knowledge, completely sober. The next day, I mention him to Grian Chatten, the band’s frontman, in a park in West Philadelphia.

“Oh, yeah,” he responds, smiling wryly. “That was our manager.”