Review: Kneecap | Crystal Palace Park, London
Crystal Palace Park is a sprawling venue. The UK heatwave had done its work on the grounds by the time Saturday came around, leaving mostly patchy dried grass and dirt underfoot. The organisers handled it well though. Empty bottles were allowed in and water stations were free to use throughout the day. Mist stations were dotted around the site. The food options were solid and varied, with gluten free covered too.
Madra Salach and Gurriers opened the day before Biig Piig took the stage, whose set sat well in the heat. Good energy, easy to be in.
Fat Dog followed and brought something heavier and faster, an alternative indie sound that had a distinct early 2000s quality to it in the best way.
The Mary Wallopers were a highlight. Their set was politically charged from the start, with clear messages of solidarity with Palestine and Lebanon and an unambiguous “eat the rich” tone throughout. None of it felt forced. The music carried it. Traditional Irish folk instruments, tracks like ‘Cod Liver Oil & The Orange Juice’, and a crowd that was fully along for the ride. For a while the park felt like a pub in Dublin. As people started jigging, the dust began to lift off the dry ground around the crowd, though closer to the stage and in the VIP area the ground had been covered with mesh tarp which kept it manageable.
Photo credit: @benmcquaide
Photo credit: @benmcquaide
Between sets, host and hype man Mike Rice kept the crowd warm. Chants included a reference to former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson, recently convicted for sexual offences, and a “Maggie’s in a box” jibe at Margaret Thatcher. The political thread running through the day was consistent and unsurprising given the context. This is Kneecap’s show.
Kneecap themselves were exactly what you’d expect and then more. The set mixed rap with drum and bass and techno, moving between the two with real momentum. The sound held up wherever you were standing too. Up close by the stage or all the way back near the food trucks, it stayed tight, bassy and punchy throughout. ‘Get Your Brits Out’, ‘Fenian’ and ‘H.O.O.D’ all landed hard with the crowd. The latter featured the whole park singing Tiocfaidh ár lá in unison, which means “our day will come”, one of those moments that’s difficult to overstate if you were standing in it.
Photo credit: @benmcquaide
From the opening of their set they made clear that looking after each other in the crowd was non-negotiable. Security were asked repeatedly to check on people in the pit. The message was simple: Fenian family, look after one another. The crowd took it seriously.
Getting 20,000 people out of Crystal Palace Park and onto trains could have been a mess. It wasn’t. Festival security managed the exits well, directing foot traffic to avoid surges or bottlenecks. Everyone got home without incident.
Walking away from it, the thing that stuck most was how fresh the whole day felt. Coming in with little to no background in Irish music, being surrounded by it all day, the folk instruments, the language, the scales, the crowd singing in Irish, the humour interspersed with the music was a genuinely new experience. The Mary Wallopers alone were worth the trip. If you haven’t come across them before, go and fix that. Kneecap know how to put a show together and Crystal Palace Park was the right stage for it. Next time Kneecap is in London, don’t sleep on them.
