IF you’re not going to Electric Picnic, your head must be wrecked with the biggest hype-machine ever for an Irish festival. And if you’re on your way to Stradbally today, there’s no harm in gloating as you […]
Category: Festivals
Bank holiday festival round-up
BEATYARD, Dun Laoghaire, tomorrow & Sunday For years the Beatyard was an umbrella festival in Dublin city centre clubs and venues, showcasing left-field electronic and hip-hop acts and plenty of exclusives. It filled a hole left by […]
All the people: Catch the Park life at Longitude
WITH Forbidden Fruit, Body & Soul and a load of outdoor gigs already consigned to the memory bank and blurry Facebook photos, this year’s festival season is chugging along nicely. And as we near the […]
If you go down to the woods today: Body & Soul preview
IF YOU’VE been on Facebook this week your head’s been wrecked by two things — hundreds of annoying OMG posts about the Game of Thrones season finale, and pleas for Body & Soul tickets. It’s […]
Lurking within tent: Cork Live at the Marquee preview
LIVE At the Marquee is marking 10 years of the Cork city festival, and looking back over the line-ups, we’re stumped to think of a more eclectic motley crew of acts anywhere. Since the event […]
Hard-core: Forbidden Fruit kicks off Irish festival season
When new festival Forbidden Fruit was announced for Ireland in 2011 many thought it was as crazy as it was brave. In the few years after the recession, the first belt hole to tighten was our […]
Everything ship-shape: DGTL festival in Amsterdam
It’s still not warm enough to ditch your jacket and the sky is a hundred shades of grey, but we’re waiting on a ferry at the back of Amsterdam Centraal station – festival season is […]
Everything under the Sun: Solar Weekend in Roermond
IF YOU walk up to the entrance of a festival and you’re greeted by Rapunzel in a purple castle, you get the feeling you’ll be letting your own hair down for a few days. Rapunzel’s […]
Push the Sky Away: Primavera 2013, day three
Day three begins with a pact to massage the head and turn the dial down a notch, so we set up camp from 4pm in the 3,000 capacity Rockdelux Auditori, the indoor concert space in […]
Full of Fire: Primavera 2013, day two
A bit of customary second day dilly-dallying means we miss a lot of the hipster Beyoncé, aka Mrs Carter’s little sister Solange at the Pitchfork Stage. Like Jessie Ware on the same stage the previous […]
It goes it goes it goes it goes: Primavera 2013, day one
There’s a level of smugness and one-upmanship that comes with Irish music fans’ annual pilgrimages to foreign festivals. Most of us are guilty of the gloating Facebook status updates and links to obscure headliners, the […]
Down to the woods: Body & Soul 2012
After hatching as a wormhole at Electric Picnic where you could lose yourself in offbeat gigs, theatre, holistic therapy and various other beatnik mischief-making, Body & Soul is now a tentpole attraction on the Irish […]
Primavera Sound 2012: 10 of the best
A$AP Rocky (Pitchfork stage, Thursday) The next young Harlem big thing is the consummate rap chancer at Primavera, laughing all the way to the bank that’s been beefed up by a $3m advance for his […]
Declare Independence: Bestival 2011, Sunday
Four days in and I’ve still got a few goosebumps left in the tank. James Blake is nearing the end of his early evening Big Top set, and as the bass tremors burrow up through […]
Lipstick traces: Bestival 2011, Saturday
I think we’re out of luck with the weather. The clouds look like they’re about six feet above our heads and they’re getting blacker by the minute. After yesterday’s techno crusade it’s time for a […]
Moo Kid 