I first reviewed a Kneecap gig at the tail-end of 2019. Having recently released their debut mixtape, 3CAG, they were on a high. They’d played their biggest ever gig at the Academy, Dublin, in front of an audience of around 800 – and stirred a few local headlines after chanting “Brits Out” at the Empire Music Hall (a certain William Windsor had been at the venue a few days before).

Solid as their trajectory was at the time, absolutely no one in 2019 could possibly have forecast where the band would stand five years later.

2024 was the year that Kneecap went stratospheric. They released a film to widespread critical acclaim, and it is picking up award nominations left, right and centre – including being sensationally shortlisted for the Academy Awards in two categories. They shared their long-awaited debut with the world, and it was a huge hit – as well as being selected at No.2 in the Hot Press Albums of the Year critics poll.

They did a series of blistering headline gigs and festival slots, in Ireland, the UK, the US and elsewhere across the world. And Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí also embarrassed the now-Tory leader Kemi Badenoch by winning a highly-publicised UK court battle after she denied them UK cultural funding.

In truth, every negative headline about them has been an instant PR win; and every attempt to label them as problematic has only emboldened them further.

But controversy us only a small part of the story of their success ober the past 12 months. The most important element of Kneecap’s recent surge is that they’ve emerged as exceptionally talented musicians. Their debut album, Fine Art, is a masterpiece. A superbly produced concept album that incorporates elements of rap, rave, trad and rock, it helped establish them as serious artists. Fine Art was both funny and serious, without having to compromise either aspect of their appeal.

At the SSE Arena, fans are aware that – even by being there – they’re helping to make history: this is the biggest-ever Irish language gig in Belfast city.

The trio are supported by Gemma Dunleavy and Gurriers, two Irish artists who have rightly become major contenders in their own rights over the last few years. Also supporting is Young Spencer, a high-energy loyalist rapper who has some razor-sharp bars – delivered in a raucous west Belfast accent – and who might be called the Shankill’s answer to Kneecap.

His being there is a mark of the cross-community, Belfast-focussed nature of the event itself; if you’d assumed a Republican Irish language gig could never involve people chanting ‘P.R.O.D’ to a loyalist rapper who’s as British as they come, then you haven’t been paying attention to how the North has changed in recent years. As Young Spencer rightly puts it, “Cunts try and divide us, but this is our wee city.”

Kneecap are the main event though. The two rappers come out wearing their familiar garb of casual tracksuits to the strains of Radie Peat’s voice on ‘3CAG’, while Próvaí heads to the decks in his red boiler suit and a tricolor balaclava (rumour has it that at a Kneecap merch event in the city earlier in the day, said balaclavas sold out within minutes). They kick things off with ‘It’s Been Ages', while the background visuals flash with newspaper columns documenting some of Kneecap’s controversies over the years.

There’s a live-wire energy about the place. Already the audience seated in the stands are on their feet, where they’ll stay for the next hour and a half. ‘It’s Been Ages’ leads into ‘Amach Anocht', which was probably their best song at the time of its release back in 2018, showcasing just how lyrically brilliant Kneecap can be.

Next comes ‘Fenian Cunts’, then ‘Mam', where we’re introduced to one of several special guests of the night, in the form of fellow Irish rapper Dyrt. Every time I catch Dyrt on stage he proves once again why he’s one of the most talented lyricists Ireland has ever produced.

Móglaí Bap mentions that ’Sick in the Head’ got its Oscar nod last week, and they blast it out in fine style. It reminds you just how pointed they can be as artists: “Seasaigí, tú ar do ghlúine/ They’re doing it to ya constantly/ An individual is surely what ya want to be/ You’re born to stand out/ Live your fantasy before they eat you up/ And spit you out and laugh at ye.” They might sing about getting fucked up on nights out, but that doesn’t mean they don’t also have potent messages to deliver.

You experience this again, on a song like ‘Your Sniffer Dogs Are Shite’, which is as much about heavy-handed policing as it is about recreational drug taking (incredibly, the band posted a photo on social media prior to the gig, showing PSNI sniffer dogs in their backstage rooms, proving that sometimes life really does imitate fine art).

It’s there too on ‘Parful', which is delivered at the SSE Arena with DJ Próvaí taking centre-stage. This high-intensity rave track is actually one of the most emotive songs they’ve ever penned; it hits you in ways you don’t expect and you’re left passionately agreeing with every word they sing about embracing a feeling or forming a connection on a mad night out: “Getting whacked in the rain IS powerful”... “Chain-smoking with your mates IS parful.” They’re absolutely right.

At the start of ‘Better Way To Live', Mo Chara introduces the final guest of the evening, Fontaines D.C. frontman Grian Chatten. Fontaines D.C. have also had a phenomenal year – establishing themselves as perhaps the biggest rock act in the world following the release of their latest album, Romance – and Grian, appropriately, oozes a steely rock charisma as he belts out the track, wearing a button leather jacket and blackout shades. (His steeliness is only ever broken when he takes a few swigs from the bottle of Buckfast standing beside the DJ booth, which – let’s be honest – you sort of have to do if you’re onstage with Kneecap.)

After ‘Get Your Brits Out’ and ‘CEARTA’ get their turn, the final song of the night is ‘H.O.O.D.’, which was released in 2019 but has only gotten better with age (especially since the Kneecap film helped retrofit a backstory to it).

‘H.O.O.D’ is arguably Kneecap’s most important Belfast number. The song is about real life in the part of Belfast they grew up in, with all the casual discrimination, prejudices, addiction issues, etc., laid bare. ‘H.O.O.D’ was also the song that saw Kneecap incorporate more of the English language into their Irish language rap, and they did so in a way that was both balanced and inventive.

You listen to them performing the lyrics of ‘H.O.O.D’ and you can’t help but feel like they use the English language as a mere plaything, something to be messed around with or to help them finish a rhyme before they move onto the next Irish language bar. And it’s fucking hilarious sometimes. If, as Seamus Heaney once said, Irish poets “take the English [language] and make it eat stuff that it has never eaten before,” then surely he would’ve approved of 10,000 Irish people singing phrases like “‘Keep ‘er lit the fuck or fucking fuck off'/ Jesus said on the cross/Two tins of Boost, 20 fegs, and the fuck it is lost” in the middle of Belfast. Fucking unbeatable.

After the Kneecap songs, we’re treated to one more moment, and it’s an emotional one. The band shared the news just hours before they went on stage that Gearóid Ó Cairealláin, Irish language activist and father of Moglai Bap, had passed away the night before. And rather than cancelling or postponing, Kneecap decided to do the gig in his memory. An image of Gearóid is displayed behind the gathering, as the band and all their special guests take to the stage once more for a rendition of ‘Fairytale of New York'.

Everyone is arm-in-arm, except for Móglaí Bap, who stands on one of the front speakers and surveys the crowd like he’s trying to take in everything he can about the moment. I can’t even imagine what it would take to perform a gig immediately after something like that has happened, but looking at him, it’s like he’s treating this occasion as a joyous celebration of life.

As with every negative Kneecap have had to deal with this year, alongside the highs, adversity only seems to make them more stronger. Their Belfast homecoming was a triumph. It will live in the memory for years to come.

As it should be.