Bob Vylan, CMAT, Fontaines... 10 talking points and highlights from All Together Now 2025
Wet Leg and Fontaines DC featured among the highlights of All Together Now 2025.
The UK punk-rap duo who have had tours and festival slots cancelled since their chants of “Death to the IDF” at Glastonbury six weeks ago were warmly welcomed in Co Waterford on Sunday night.
They mentioned they were originally due to play a smaller stage at ATN before “everything that’s gone on”. Cue the swelling crowd chanting “Death to the IDF”.
Not once during the 45-minute set do Bob Vylan mention ‘Israel’ or ‘IDF’ but they are synonymous with what is happening and the self-described BBC Bandits make a couple of impassioned pleas.
“Remember, it is one struggle, it is one fight that we must all join and fight together. You understand it more than those cowards back home.” They also thank the promotors and organisers of the festival “for having a fucking backbone because they could have very really removed us like a couple of festivals did but they didn’t, they stood firm with us and we appreciate that massively”.
All across the weekend, Palestinian flags are waved by crowds and watermelon clothing is abundant. People are here to have fun but Palestine is obviously at the forefront of many people’s thoughts Friday night headliners Fontaines DC declare “Free Palestine!” and the big screen states: “Israel is committing genocide. Use your voice.” The following night, CMAT leads the crowd in a chant of “Free, free Palestine” as she exits following one of the best shows the festival has ever seen.
Even Bob Geldof - who drew opprobrium for only speaking out on the atrocities last month, some 21 months into the conflict in Gaza - brings the Boomtown Rats’ Sunday afternoon show to a halt during their biggest song, to draw attention to Palestinians’ plight.
Fontaines DC's last show in Ireland was at Dublin's 3Arena before Christmas and it feels like the entire 30,000 attendees at the sixth edition of All Together Now have turned out at the main stage to welcome them back to Ireland on Friday night. In the interim they've played to 45,000 at Finsbury Park in London.
On Friday, every second person seems to be sporting the Fontaines DC-emblazoned Bohemian FC jersey. Surely the best band merchandise in recent years.
Chatten, clad all in black, conducts the crowd through the likes of and with the hopeful refrain "Life ain't always empty", shows the simple but effective way in which Fontaines DC inspire devotion.
It's not all amazing, though, as the middle section of the set needs to shake it free of a plodding couple of songs, then inducing another mass singalong before they finish with a riotous
Earlier in the evening, Spanish rock band Hinds told the crowd that their first gig in Ireland, back in 2016, featured Fontaines on support duty. It's been a meteoric decade for them since - who knows where they go next. Wherever they want - they haven't put a foot wrong yet.
All Together Now has been sold out for months and it feels busier than usual. It's the first year that they've opened the site up to all ticketholders for the Thursday, the handful of acts who performed on the night enjoyed good-sized crowds.
Organisers have made a few tweaks to the site this year. As usual the main thoroughfare has the giant wooden deer statue looking over it towards beautiful Curraghmore House. The Bandstand, scene of lots of fun over the years - including a storming set by the Knocknaheeney's finest the Kabin Crew last year - has had a glowup, becoming the Bandstand Arena, with towering pillars of lights and speakers all around. It looks and sounds great.
Another new addition, between the main stage and Something Kind of Wonderful, is the small new bands tent, called Flourish. It plays host to Cork five-piece Cliffords on Friday afternoon - another band to benefit from the busier than normal early turnout. Judging by the reaction, with almost all the songs shouted back at them, they seem primed to lead the next generation of bands in 'doing a Fontaines'.
Iona Lynch already looks and sounds like the quintessential frontwoman, explaining how Cliffords hadn't even played a show outside of Ireland a year ago. She calls for a moshpit at one stage because "We haven't had one of those before; we're not Gurriers," she jokes of the Dublin post-punk noiseniks who play ATN on Saturday night.
Lynch is happy to declare, halfway through the show, that it's already the best gig they've ever played. It feels like one everyone in the hot, heaving tent will remember for a long time past this weekend.
Another band who have enjoyed a meteoric ascent are Wet Leg, who exploded in popularity with the winking song of the summer 2021, Since then, there have been Grammys and Brit Awards and stadium support slots with the likes of Foo Fighters. For their second album Moisturizer, released last month, frontwoman Rhian Teasdale has completely transformed her look.
Maybe it's simply after finding the unexpected new love that informs the new record, but she has gone from a previously unassuming brunette from the Isle of Wight to writhing and crawling around on the ground, flexing her muscles and shaking her ass in silver hot pants.
She looks like the quintessential rock star now. She started the band with Hester Chambers who still writes and performs with Wet Leg but has taken a step back from the limelight due to a heady dose of social anxiety. It's interesting to watch her play guitar in their set ahead of Fontaines DC. She goes long stretches without looking at the crowd but still seems to be enjoying herself.
How could anyone not have fun at a Wet Leg show? Strokes-esque new songs like and sound great, while they also play the album closer, for what they say is the first time.
Nobody exits a CMAT show thinking she hasn't left it all on the stage. She's a capital-P pop Performer, regularly seen dramatically fainting to her knees or playing coy pantomime with the crowd. On her Saturday night show, Co Meath's finest surveys the huge crowd in front of her and confidently estimates it must indeed be more than the population of said town.
After a summer of heavy touring ahead of the release of third album in four years Euro-country, she and the self-described Sexy CMAT band aka "the greatest Irish country rock and roll band" are all the screaming masses want.
And boy do they get it. Eleven songs in about 75 minutes, it's not only the show of the weekend (sorry Fontaines DC) but probably the best gig in six years of All Together Now.
She revels as frontwoman, stomping across the stage, waving her butt, joking "no school tomorrow" as she cracks open a can. She finishes, as usual, with Stay for Something, jumping into the moshpit for a bop.
The set began with five old songs; it could easily be CMAT karaoke such is the fervour with which they're roared by the crowd. But it's the new songs that will take CMAT's star higher. enjoyed a viral dance moment earlier this year.
Penultimate song and latest single is performed live for the first She mentions emigration and various other social ills, pinning it on the government of 20-25 years ago. The song is brilliant, detailing "all the Berties, all the envelopes who really hurt me" and how "I was 12 when the das starting killing themselves all around me". It all adds up to one of the great festival performances.
As well as the headliners, there are plenty of impressive Irish acts scattered throughout the festival. During the afternoon, the queue to get into The Last City area is about a dozen deep, with DJ Rory Sweeney hosting a series of rappers as part of the Irish Hash Mafia Cypher. Enniscorthy rapper Lil Skag has built a connection with the young audience, just a "regular man doing regular activities".
referencing the former Ireland soccer manager, is a smart track that marks Skag out as one to keep an eye on. Over at Something Kind of Wonderful, it's a rare outing for traditional Irish music foursome Landless, whose voices weave together majestically. The crowd is sitting and lying down letting the sound wave over them. Just over two years on since her death, they finish with a beautiful cover of a Sinéad O'Connor song, which they dedicate to the people of Palestine.
Meanwhile, at Lovely Days, Morgana, formerly half of Saint Sister, is revelling in her new disco-pop direction.
It felt busier than previous years at All Together Now 2025. But the vibe of the festival has not changed at all. Everyone is friendly and drinking it all in, enjoying themselves. It's a beautiful atmosphere - helped perhaps by the nice bank holiday weather.
It also comprises age groups from young - fair play to the dad pulling his two kids up a hill with all his might during the afternoon - to savvy veterans with camping seats at hand.
