In what has been a very busy year for live music in Ireland, festival fever is well upon us. As Electric Picnic rolls round again next weekend, we asked music fans, well known and otherwise, about their own festival memories . . .
For Joni Mitchell, it was a blissed-out osmosis with nature on her song Woodstock; Jarvis Cocker of Pulp was left nonplussed by the whole experience on Britpop classic Sorted for Es and Whizz; David Bowie "talked with tall Venusians passing through" on Memory of a Free Festival; and Edwyn Collins, well, Edwyn Collins cut through hippy fantasies on the wonderfully snarky The Campaign for Real Rock when he crooned, "Yes, yes, yes, it's the summer festival, The truly detestable summer festival . . . "
And just like the above artists (incidentally, Joni didn't play Woodstock in ’69), we’ve all had good, bad and plain mad festival experiences.
Me? Well, I still have flashbacks about The Monsters of Rock at Castle Donington in August 1992.
EMI Records, then the home of British Metal, had flown a bunch of music hacks over to the metal Mecca, which took place every year under the shadow of a 14th century pile in the Sylvan pastures of Berkshire.
The line-up was pretty stonking - Iron Maiden, Skid Row, Thunder, Slayer, W.A.S.P., and The Almighty - and the tribes had gathered on the hillside for their traditional reenactment of a medieval battle.
Bonfires burned late into the night, plastic cider bottles full of urine were flung into the crowd below, and hard-rocking suburban Visigoths and Vandals in double denim emerged from the smoke, wild-eyed and hopped up on the local scrumpy.
But there was work to be done and earlier in the day, me and my fellow hacks gathered to pay homage in the backstage court of Blackie Lawless, the colourful front man of American gonzo shock rockers W.A.S.P.
Just as I was about to ask Mr Lawless a question about his band’s latest album, The Crimson Idol (in particular, a song called Chainsaw Charlie (Murders in the New Morgue)), I queasily realised my earlier visit to a burger van was perhaps ill-advised and my lunch promptly ended up on the 6'4" rocker's shoes.
Ever the pro, he didn’t bat an eyelid, lose his train of thought or throw me headlong into his rider but coolly continued to regale us with tales of rock mayhem.
Meanwhile, one of my fellow hacks was corpsing so badly that he took a slug from a plastic cup of water only to find it was pure vodka, which he then proceeded to spray out all over everybody else.
I wandered off in mortification and ended up sleeping it off in the nearby East Midlands Aeropark underneath a De Havilland Chipmunk T.10. Or was it a Vickers Vanguard 953C . . . ?
Anyway, a less than perfect day ended when I was refused admission to a local nightclub (I was a glutton for punishment back then) and advised that there was "an Irish club down the road."
Cathy McGuinness - Pillow Queens
First festival - Oxegen 2005. My co-operative parents dropped me and my friends up to Punchestown. It was the beginning of a long career in festival-going. I remember seeing Green Day, Foo Fighters, Jimmy Eat World, Beautiful South, Queens of the Stone Age, The Killers - to name a few.
Best festival - Knockanstockan in Wicklow will always hold rank as the best festival that ever was, followed closely by Nowhere in Spain and Wicklow's Beyond the Pale. I got to go to Beyond the Pale this year, it was the first festival I've gone to as a ticket holder in years and boy it did not disappoint. That booker knows how to make a line-up!!
Worst festival - As a festivalgoer, I would say you can have the best time at any festival with the right crew of friends. There are so many moving parts to festivals, line-ups, logistics etc but it's the people attending that make it, in my opinion. I've yet to meet a festival that I haven't liked.
Weirdest festival experience
I have been to a few regional 'Burn' (Burning Man) events in Spain, New Zealand and South Africa. These events are otherworldly, the art and installations are incredible, the costumes and people you meet are indescribable and can only be experienced properly by attending. In New Zealand, I learned how to weld while working on a flame throwing art installation. At the same festival, a marching band mistook me and my friends as A Ministry of Silly Walks event that was due to start. They started following us with no explanation. That was absolutely bizarre. It was a band of about 20 brass musicians just following us wherever we went until they realised we were just a bunch of eejits having the best time.
Pillow Queens tour Ireland this November and December
Leo Varadkar - TD
First festival
The first festival that I attended for real and camped overnight was Electric Picnic 2015 and it's still the one I remember enjoying the most. I am a Blur fan so it was good to see them in concert again and I also saw Florence and the Machine and Grace Jones for the first time.
They were really impressive and put on great shows. I love 80s and 90s pop. Vengaboys were a lot of fun as were Bananarama. It was reassuring that most of the crowd who were younger than me knew all the songs!
Best festival
That's hard to say. I've been to EP three times and am sure I'll go again. Went to Body & Soul on an amazing hot sunny summer's day in 2017. What I think I enjoyed the most was that it was so chilled and I didn't know many of the artists so rather than rushing around or trying to keep to a schedule, I just enjoyed it at a slow pace and saw lots of new acts. I've really enjoyed Primavera Sound in Barcelona and that was the first time I went to a festival in the middle of a city which is a very different experience to one in the countryside. It's really well organised and Dua Lipa blew it away. Made it to British Summertime (BST) in Hyde Park this year and I love Winter Pride in Maspalomas for pure tacky LGBT-themed, hetero-inclusive fun. Have never been Glasto as it clashes with the Dáil summer session so that's now high on my bucket list and I have heard great reports about Sziget in Budapest.
Worst festival
I'd prefer not to say which one but suffice to say it was cold, wet and muddy and the traffic plan didn't work on the day. The water even got into our tent. It's just no fun no matter how hard you try to make the best of it.
Weirdest festival experience
I am not sure I should answer that one. I don't want to embarrass anyone or myself. I think the party in the woods at EP was an unexpected extra which isn't on the official programme. The number of Irish people at Primavera Sound in Barcelona was definitely weird. I felt like I'd taken a taxi back to Dublin for the night.
Dave Fanning - broadcaster
First festival - Student Summer job, steel-pressing factory near Frankfurt. I saw Rory Gallagher and Black Sabbath; don't remember any of it. I do remember Coliseum or maybe it was Jon Hiseman’s Tempest. The two I deffo remember were Sly and the Family Stone and The Faces. Rod Stewart was riding high, topping the US and UK singles and albums charts. There were riot rumblings. The huge crowd seemed to consist of GI US soldiers stationed in Germany. Rod and The Faces were not their thing; they were Sly fans. Sly DID play but only for about fifteen minutes. He exited stage left and never came back - crowd not happy. When Rod came on, the chant of 'we want Sly Stewart, not Rod Stewart’ started getting scarily loud. Did Sly come back? Course not. Did Rod win ‘em over? Can’t remember!
Best festival - The ones where you do an all-day scope of the whole arena and come across various acts you might never have had an interest in or even heard of and they turn out to be really good. I remember once - might have been the Picnic - I came across a three-piece band. Sounded like Nirvana - no vocalist. Didn’t know who they were. Still don’t.
In the not-too-distant past, the festival revolved around the music. But now, tickets have a habit of selling out before Christmas, before any line-up is announced. A big choice of the biggest acts is no longer an option. Too many headliners are simply not headliners, so, these days, the music revolves around the festival. Maybe that’s not a bad thing - the festival is the attraction, the music just a big part of it.
But mad thing? The mad line-up from Oxegen at Punchestown in 2011. Spread over the weekend, everyone from Liam Gallagher’s Beady Eye to The National, Eels to The Manics. The headliners over that July weekend? Black Eyed Peas, Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Coldplay and Beyoncé!
Worst festival
Some people actually like the mud. Others don’t care about the weather. To me, the weather isn’t everything . . . until it is. All-day downpours can give way the next day to ‘Revellers don’t let incessant rain dampen their spirits’-type headlines. Maybe I’m just not a genuine reveller.
Weirdest festival experience
Helping to catch David Byrne’s dog, who’d run out from backstage. Easily identified. He had a laminate tied to his collar with his name and picture on it. His name? Can’t remember. He came back on his own. And last year, driving around on a medicine hunt to Dublin pharmacies the day before an under-the-weather Billie Eilish was headlining the Picnic. We eventually tracked it down. She played a great gig, even though she was forced to drop a couple of numbers.
Dave Fanning's Story of Irish Rock is available to stream here
Faye O'Rourke of Soda Blonde
First festival
First festival was EP in 2008. I was 16 and it was my first ever time being on a stage and my first time at a festival. We played the Little Big Tent at around 5pm on the Friday to maybe 30 people. We stole booze from Joan As Police Woman's dressing room and then went off to see Sigur Rós. Funnily enough I’ve just been listening to The Solution is Restless by Dave Okumu, Joan As Police Woman, and Tony Allen recently . . .
Best festival
I definitely want to shout out Another Love Story. I went last year with some school friends and we had the best time. Discovered loads of new music and the atmosphere was really sweet. It’s a lovely size and there’s a lot of love put into it. Also, I went to a festival in Norway called Slottsfjell that I really enjoyed a couple of years back.
Worst festival
Oxegen. I played at it when I was 17 and stayed for the weekend. It was rough as hell. I got dragged away from my friends by this drunken man and had to fight him off in broad daylight. Most of the weekend was a blur but I remember a lot of muck and a feeling of tension throughout.
Weirdest festival experience
I have a lot of friends in theatre so I’ve seen some mates doing some very strange things at Irish festivals for a free weekend ticket. Before we were married, I saw my husband doing the entirety of Trainspotting with a mic duct-taped around his chest. A lot of things come to mind looking back over the years but I think that's the most PG answer I can give you for now.
Soda Blonde play Noorderzon Groningen 2024, Netherlands on 30 August and Bruis 2024, Maastricht, Netherlands on 31 August
Eamon Carr - Horslips drummer, author and journalist, boulevardier, guru
I've been to a music festival. Just once. And I’ve never been tempted to go to a festival again except, on occasion, in a professional capacity.
As a teenager, I had Modish tendencies that didn’t involve standing around in a field. Think of the damage to one’s desert boots.
However, beguiled by the fashionable logo for the National Jazz & Blues Festival, which, in its earlier years, hosted regulars from the Flamingo Club, Ronnie Scott’s and the Marquee in London, I ventured forth in 1968 for what proved to be a memorable event.
The weather was fine. The crowd wasn’t too big. And the music acts, ranging from Tyrannosaurus Rex to the Jeff Beck Band (with singer Rod Stewart), were superb.
My friend Henry McCullough had just joined Joe Cocker and I managed to slip backstage to congratulate them on a wonderful set which included the first live performance of With a Little Help from My Friends. Their Commer van, I recall, was wreathed in sweet-scented smoke.
Sadly, late on the Saturday, during a set by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, a roof collapsed and a fleet of ambulances ferried the injured to hospital. This distressing disturbance displeased the self-styled "God of Hellfire."
I’m happy to have experienced a music festival but have no plans to visit another.
Eamon Carr’s new book Showbusiness with Blood: A Golden Age of Irish Boxing is out now
Pete Murphy - music publicist
First festival
I'd been to a few outdoor gigs here in Ireland, but the first proper festival I went to was the Monsters of Rock Festival at Castle Donington, England in 1984. AC/DC headlined, Van Halen (Diamond Dave Lee Roth’s last show with them), Ozzy Osbourne, Gary Moore, Y&T, Accept, and Mötley Crüe on the bill too. A wide-eyed 17-year-old, I’d not seen anything like it before. Rock fans would still kill for this line-up nowadays! Incidentally, Lyric FM presenter Bernard Clarke was in Donington on the trip that day too!
Best festival
I don’t really have a 'Best festival’ but have loads of great festival memories. Electric Picnic when it was still boutique was always a great ‘last festival of the summer’ event. It was a bit idyllic for a few years in the noughties. Standouts over the years were Patti Smith at EP, New Order at EP, The Cure’s mammoth three-hour, 15-minute set at EP, weird things like watching the World Cup Final with The Saturdays, helping the Polyphonic Spree (there were about 50 of them!) get food by getting riders from dressing rooms once acts had left, and it’d be remiss of me not to mention the all-time highlight - getting engaged onstage with The Flaming Lips in Kilkenny in 2006. I was dressed as a Santa Claus and my now wife Claire was dressed as an alien, and during Do You Realise, behind the drum riser, I took the knee and asked the question... she said YES! Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne gave us his blessing after the show.
Worst festival
I’m not a fan of big dance events, with a couple of exceptions (Chemical Brothers were always brilliant!) but work demanded I be there over the years, and by far the worst was the now infamous Swedish House Mafia event in the Phoenix Park. No one could have predicted what kicked off that day. It was just bonkers.
Mad or weird things that you saw or experienced at a festival
As I said in the aforementioned Monsters of Rock note, I was only 17, and had never seen the sky filled with plastic bottles of urine, one of which hit Y&T’s Dave Meniketti square in the face. This was only outdone when, what looked like, a square catering margarine tub landed at the feet of a biker standing next to us. He removed the lid only to discover it was filled with vomit, and, without replacing the lid, said biker launched it forward over the crowd. Thankfully these hi-jinks never crossed the Irish Sea to festivals here.
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