Noel Gallagher has opened up about seeing Kneecap at Glastonbury 2024 saying he “couldn’t believe how enjoyable it was”.
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Kneecap played two sets over the weekend at the event, and took part in a Q&A about their upcoming self-titled biopic.
The Irish rap trio unveiled the official trailer film, which stars Michael Fassbender, earlier this month. The film was also previewed at Glastonbury Festival’s cinema tent, Pilton Palais, last weekend.
Speaking to Matt Morgan, Gallagher revealed that he’d caught one of Kneecap’s sets over the Glastonbury weekend and praised the band for their performance.
He said: “We went to see this Northern Irish street kids called Kneecap…they’re kind of pro Republican rappers…
“We get there and the tent is absolutely fucking smashed packed – you couldn’t get in. These three lads walk out, one of them is in a balaclava and they rap in Gaelic. They’ve got a song called ‘Get Your Brits Out’. There’s a lot of humour to it…I mean I couldn’t believe how enjoyable it was.
“Being of Irish heritage I found that quite funny and they were really, really good.”
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On their socials, the band shared a picture of them meeting Gallagher, which you can see here
The band’s 1.30am show at Shangri-La’s Peace Stage – which also saw them joined by Fontaines D.C. frontman Grian Chatten for their collab ‘Better Way To Live‘ – was named as one of the highlights of Glastonbury 2024, in which NME‘s Andrew Trendell described it as a “Glastonbury-defining set”.
Backstage at Glasto, the trio also told NME about progress on their follow-up to acclaimed 2024 debut ‘Fine Art‘.
“We’ve started off in the studio with [producer] Toddla T and we just want to follow on with this album and do a trilogy,” said Móglaí Bap. “We love the idea of a concept album. Storytelling is a massive part of Irish culture, and that’s why we love to intertwine all of that into the music.
“We’re going to continue on and do an even better album. Hopefully this time, Taylor Swift won’t beat us to Number One!”
Speaking about their new film to NME, the northern Irish rap trio said it was influenced by Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. They also they opened up about how the film had been praised by Trainspotting author, Irvine Welsh too.
The film managed to catch the attention of Welsh, who described it on social media as “absolutely fucking phenomenal”.
“We love the movie, but we weren’t sure if it would ever go beyond Belfast,” said Móglaí Bap. “It’s very colloquial. It’s kind of like Trainspotting in that way. Then we went to Sundance and got the audience award. It’s similar to our music; people just get the energy and the craic out of it. I don’t know think Americans know what a tout is, but it didn’t stop them enjoying it.”
“Obviously we loosely took some ideas from Trainspotting and stuff, then we had Irvine Welsh who wrote it coming out and saying it was the best film he’d seen in fucking years or something,” added bandmate DJ Próvaí. “That’s massive praise for us. Obviously we’re a music band we’re doing fucking acting jobs that we’d never done before and people were dubious about whether or not we were going to make it as fucking actors; but go see it.”
Similarly to Kneecap, Trainspotting used its own specific slang but still became a massive success across cultural lines. The 1993 novel the film is based on uses Scots and Scottish English to tell the story of various heroin users and addicts in Leith, Edinburgh.
During a recent interview with the trio for The Cover, NME wrote: “The ballsy biopic is a runaway romp of sex, drugs, music and politics. A clash of 8 Mile and Trainspotting with a dash of Steve McQueen’s Hunger…”
Kneecap’s self-titled movie is released in the US on August 2, Ireland on August 8 and in the UK on August 23. They’re touring throughout the UK, Europe and North America for the rest of the year.