Electric Picnic

Well here goes:

Friday arrived with me having to work til all hours, I was crying my gypsy tears all the way down to Stradbally, well not quite all the way. I was glued to Jim Carroll's on-site blog entries to keep me going.

Headed down and all was fine until I turned off the motorway, where I sat for 4 ½ hours in my motor, watching the sun go down, and listening to 2fm coverage of the Manics and Hot Chip. To make up for it i decided to think about going to see the manics in November.

Arrived when I reckon Bjork was probably just about on stage. Arrived into the camp-site around 11.30 where my tent was already set up…big up to aoife, laura, ruth and siobhan.

Headed straight for the main site with the nog and ruth, who were already well enjoying festivities. It was time to play catch up, so we wandered around the sound. I think I caught the sound equivalent of a glimpse of LCD Soundsystem, but I can’t even be sure. Met many people who wandered to our table to ask us random things, and in fact ended up trying to get some guy a job…all part of the fun.

Left the girls and joked up at boardieland outside the inflatable church. It was very nice to re-acquaint myself with who I now call old friends, and some new ones, one of whom it turns out works with my dad…weird. Headed to silentdisco and had the best time, I believe in a thing called love was played, and some Russian gypsy accordion music…you can’t go wrong.

Headed back to camp where I accused some poor cork boys of stealing our seats, sat with them for a while, they turned out to be very friendly chaps, and then ruth heard my melodic night time screeching, and I made her come with me. We re-visited silent disco but it was closed. But was just about time for bed at that stage anyway…

Woke up Saturday to find my inflatable mattress had deflated in the night, my hips hurt, went into the main site, to find some vaguely survivable toilets. The ones on stilts in red were a no go area. Headed into the main site, still in pyjamas. I find that any sense of decency or dignity goes out the window at these things.

Headed into the main site, and had queued for the crappiest breakfast I’ve ever experienced. Me and O’Cons or spuds as we vaguely christened her once, were not hugely impressed with those rotten rolls. We pottered around for a while before heading back to camp to get dressed and sort ourselves out for the afternoon.

Discussed going to Marlena Shaw, but time sort of ticked on and kinda missed out on her.

Headed for Chk Chk Chk or !!! (cool site btw) in the Electric Arena, and they were deadly. They were really a highlight, have their last album, and have listened to it a fair bit, but they put on such a great show. The lead guy has the energy of about 10 energiser bunnies…in fact the whole band were on form. There was a lot of tongue in cheek crazy dancing and fun times. I think !!! were prob a highlight…afterwards for the rest of the weekend, I kept looking around thinking the lead singer was behind me…
anyway it kept turning out he wasn't but that hair, that act, that energy, that show. Wow!

Was trying to time things to see as much as possible, so nipped up for a bit of Bonde De Role, who i think are great fun. Love that james bond song. They came on after annie mac who we saw a tiny bit of. I thought they were good, but a bit of a poor man's CSS. good auld craic though for your sat afternoon.

Right afterwards we nipped down to M.I.A. i had been really looking forward to seeing her, had been reading a lot about her, and she was the talk of the town (probably just in my head). Had a good gawk when i got in there. The sound wasn't the best, but i think she was pretty phenomenal. I've tried to describe her sound to people, and i keep saying lame-ass stuff like fusion, world, hip-hop, and then just saying look ill make you a copy. She's destined for greatness.

This is becoming a novel, so i think i should finish up...or else save it for another day...thats lame, ok in a nutshell

Magic Numbers - Summer Funners
chair-o-planes
polyphonic spree - damn good fun
lost vagueness - where i nudged the air around Jarvis Cocker (swoon, if only i had my camera)

Sunday
tones of the gospel choir from far away - very pleasant opener
Bat for Lashes - Excellent, bells, shiny things, sounds brilliant!

Dans le Sac vs Sroobius Pip: this deserves more than a single line of words. These guys were deadly, my good friend Catch put me on to these guys, and in a word...like WOW!!! they were so good, at one stage, scroobius whipped out a copy of the periodic table, learning and tunes all in one. he also did a cool tune where he changed hats, and ties and stuff, im all for teh dramatics. Really great act thought with Dans Le Sac turning out beats, and Scrobius doing sort of spoken word singing.

together Dans le Sac vs Scroobius Pip and !!! rocked my world, well my weekend at least.

UNKLE: outside the tent, still sounded electric
The Go! Team: bleedin packed in that place, not as good as i thought they'd be and the sound was a bit pants.
Legged it to some Primal Scream who were grand, maybe a little bit dull, so, legged it to the cinema tent, to dance for footloose was a-playin.
Nipped back to Main stage, for Movin on' up, by primal scream. It was pretty much the song i wanted to hear, and it was pretty deadly on return!

headed to a sort of weird soul dance session in body and soul, fell down many times, but had so much fun. while trying to get into body and soul, got vaguely crushed in teh queue, it was very weird, and the only bit of sort of half bother for teh whole weekend, (except the toilets on stilts!)
stayed on for mad techno-ie rave which was brill-city!
headed for silent disco where i met up with some buddies to dance away the sadness at leaving ep.

things that were funny to us: We built this city on sausage rolls, and an on-going joke about hats, hatlone, hatlethe, hat “the cope Gallagher” the hats and a little lady, and the hat man who we invited to primal scream and then swiftly lost. playing the dancing-to-the-music-in-your-head-and-your-friends-guessing-0what-it-was-game, mini disco in teh hall of mirrors place, gorgeous bbq garden, sunshine, home made jackets, wandering, chatting, dancing outside the food stalls to kate bush, missing the ghost train, etc.

Oh and i saw John Reynolds, i was very impressed,

and Duke Special fell out of his hammock beside us. on film.

don't have any pics yet, soon hopefully

if anyone reads the entirety of this....fair play and fair dues, and i'll bring you out for a pint and quiz you!