Electric Picnic 2009 (1 Viewer)

[evil bandit]

I had a great weekend and I didn't notice a higher then usual level of scumbags at all, I guess I was just lucky.

Highlights - Billy Bragg, Passion Pit, Explosions in the Sky, The Big Pink. Falafel, not getting stuck in mud.

Low points
Missing Magazine and Dinosaur jr, my tent leaking, having no sleeping bag, the impossibility of returning the cups you were forced to pay for.

 

[photon]

I had a great weekend and I didn't notice a higher then usual level of scumbags at all, I guess I was just lucky.

I'm of the same opinion. This was only my second one, and I thought the atmosphere was friendlier than last year. It might have been because of the lower numbers, so people weren't as stressed out due to queuing and whatnot. But maybe I was just lucky was well.

Musically, pretty great, I thought. My own highlights were (roughly in order from best downwards) Magazine, Amidou & Miriam, Kid Creole & The Coconuts, A Flock of Seagulls, Chris Cunningham (although he had a tendency to repeat his video clips far too ad nauseam), The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and Madness. I probably would have put Chic up there as well had I seen more than the last 30 minutes (which despite being only "Le Freak" and "Good Times", were excellent).

The two lowlights were the Michael Nyman Orchestra and Amorphous Androgynous. The first was probably great if you like that sort of modern classical music, but I personally don't. The latter seemed to think that if you take all that was bad about acid rock and put it into a blender, something good will come out. They were wrong.

Overall, I had a blast. I liked it better than last year's.

 

[krossie]

E P krossphader ruminations



(these are purely personal views based completely on the overall gig, the crowd at it, the context, the drugs or lack, the sleep or lack and my own peculiar tastes in musical entertainments and what I saw obviously!)

Good/Excellent

The food (as ever), learning the zombie dance from Thriller with 100 or so other hang overed folks on a rainy Sunday morning in the cinema tent, Acadia, Body and Soul in general and DJ Ollie playing reggae while people jumped up and down and destroyed lovely wooden benches, Amadou and Miriam (the live set of the picnic for me if not the year), Baba Maal, Kid Creole and the Coconuts (too short!) Major Laser, Buarka Son Sistema, Flock of Seaguls, ABC (outstanding), Magazine (what i got of them) Orbital (a bit same old same tho') Madness (tired?)

Indifferent

Tunng, Amorphous Androgonous (Photon's comments are apt - hard to belive these or some of em once wrote such tunes as stakker huminoid or papua new guinea), Florence and the Machine (Misus a tip for ya - at least leave the divine Candy Staton out of your vortex of gothy shreeky for fracks sake!) Lisa Hannigan, Bell something or other and the one tokenistic windmill with 200 petrol generators – ya had us fooled for sure, mud!


Bad – shite

David Kitt (there are 2 types of robot - funky and kittser). Fleet Foxes (faux harmonys, faux folk, faux beach boys, faux beards, genuine tweee, retro shite of the highest order!), Sunday detailed security, cavity searches of everyone trying to get into the main arena – feck yea and your low beer sales (try reducing the price perhaps!), toilets obviously (though lower numbers improved the situation a tiny bit – camp site ones weren’t so bad) ESG and Bat for Lashes cancelling and E P not BOTHERING TO TELL ANY ONE (it was already a very, very THIN line up without this) Neutronix in the woods till 5 am (must thousands suffer for the obscure and weirdly dated musical tastes of the last 3.5 goa trance fans in ireland!?!), lack of video screens on all stages and no info in general, emergency car parks miles from main entrance...
(keep em in the dark and feed em portaloo shite!)

Overall a decent picnic – much better then I expected!

kp

 

[avernus]

here thanks for all the concern we're all grand now. looking back I think we were pretty lucky not to end up in worse shape. getting punched in the face isn't the end of the world once you don't lose teeth or have anything broken.

the things I did enjoy were the pizza, burritos, mojitos, not ever buying a beer from the bar, not ever using the main toilets (trip velvet all the way), having an air mattress.

but from now on, it's Primavera or bed.

 

[Mix Tape Public]

A good Picnic, but definitely not best weekend of the year like last couple of years. I've got serious festival fatigue flu, no fun. Had to fly like a mud covered exhausted lark on Sunday due to sickness coming on, and the need to be clean & dry, I'm definitely getting too old for this stuff.

Soaring miles above any other performance at the weekend was Chic, holy jesus. I only became a real convert over the last few weeks while swotting up for the festival, and was just blown away. The energy of the band & the audience was unforgettable. Every favourite good time song you've ever loved was played. Lots of happy faces up the front.

Also enjoyed The Walkmen immensely, and will be catching up with their body of work asap. The Temper Trap played the same time Friday set as Jape did last year and started off the weekend perfectly, whereas Jape on Sat seemed a shadow of former glory. Might have just been our location & shit sound. Brian Wilson was fun, felt like calling my Dad to thank him for getting me into Beach Boys when I was little.

Body & Soul is the perfect antidote to overindulgences on carnival rides. Dark Room Notes give me hope for the future of Irish music.

Downsides - the mud, its just exhausting to tramp in for 3 days. Tiny trickle showers. My mate in the VIP queue for 1.5 hours on Fri evening, huh?! I missed Magazine, Seasick Steve, ABC etc while keeping her company. Another year when I manage to not find the Salty Dog. ESG cancelling, boo! Last disappointment, missing Passion Pit, Okkervil River, Blitzen Trapper, Florence, Foxes & Flaming Lips cos I was a lightweight.

Roll on 2010, although I now might need the name of that hotel with the shuttle bus....

 

[magnetize]

Amorphous Androgynous.....seemed to think that if you take all that was bad about acid rock and put it into a blender, something good will come out. They were wrong.

ha! yea. the fair city version of psyche was my opinion of them at greenman. overblown nonsense... gaz cobain made a big deal of saying that they werent a "retro thing". ive got nothing against retro but they made oasis look like autechre.

 

[jcdonaggio]

it's the maldron hotel portlaoise. costs €45 for the shuttle bus service but well worth it. room rates are obviously are pure rip off though. it was full of ep people so was actually a bit of banter. shuttle service was amazing, called on saturday night at 4.55ami sh to be picked up and they were with me in 10 minutes. sound. the guards give them a designated pick up point outside.

 

[ernesto]

it's the maldron hotel portlaoise. costs €45 for the shuttle bus service but well worth it. room rates are obviously are pure rip off though. it was full of ep people so was actually a bit of banter. shuttle service was amazing, called on saturday night at 4.55ami sh to be picked up and they were with me in 10 minutes. sound. the guards give them a designated pick up point outside.

your missis spoils you.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

I arrived late on Friday and Left early on Sunday - I suspected the car park was going to be a fiasco on Monday and needed to get to Cork early on Monday. As it was I had to be towed out of the car park on Sunday night.

I didn't see a huge amount of music.

Billy Bragg
Sublime. If I had been allowed to write the set list myself that's what I would have picked. I was welling up there towards the end. Warmest Room :heart: Milkman :heart:.

Neko Case
Isn't Kelly hogan great! Why does every festival schedule a quiet band last a night in a tent beside some pounding dance crap. Also is there a rule that nothing but dance can be heard after 12 at a festival? The combination of crowds, dance music and darkness gives me the fear.

Explosions in The Sky
I love em.

Okkerville River
Sometimes seeing a band live makes you like them less and not more. What was with the hand clapping and running around the stage and sundry other bullshit? Did that girl actually play a note on that guitar or was here sole job fiddling with pedals and plugging shit into other shit. Last song had a fucking woeful smell of Where The Streets Have No Name off it too.

Brian Wilson.
Yip.

Still though EP is getting a bit tireseome. It's status as the officially endorsed Ryan Tubridy eco festival = shitloads of Dublin 4 type cunts getting their freak on for the weekend.

Like someone said earlier the music seems increasingly to be a sideshow to the nouveau crusty lifestyle bullshit. I mean a farmers market for fuck sake....

 

[pad]

i would like to apologise to niall jackson. i heard echo and the bunnymen had cancelled. they hadn't. and it would appear he missed them as a result.
my apologies.

 

[Anthony]

Nothing wrong with a farmers market.

 

[ann post]

we have those in donegal too, they cost less then 250 to get in though.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

I do all my shopping a 3 day festivals. Today I am wearing a jesters hat, love heart shaped sunglasses and a plastic poncho.

 

[Mix Tape Public]

it's the maldron hotel portlaoise. costs €45 for the shuttle bus service but well worth it. room rates are obviously are pure rip off though. it was full of ep people so was actually a bit of banter. shuttle service was amazing, called on saturday night at 4.55ami sh to be picked up and they were with me in 10 minutes. sound. the guards give them a designated pick up point outside.

Sounds poifect. I'm sure I'll be rich by this time next year too, its time.

 

[Lili Marlene]

FAO: Cinnamonboy, currently front row centre

FAO: Cinnamonboy, just in case you missed that

 

[rettucs]

I arrived late on Friday and Left early on Sunday - I suspected the car park was going to be a fiasco on Monday and needed to get to Cork early on Monday. As it was I had to be towed out of the car park on Sunday night.

I parked in the town this year. Obviously everyone can't park in the town, but the possibility is worth investigating.

Also is there a rule that nothing but dance can be heard after 12 at a festival? The combination of crowds, dance music and darkness gives me the fear.

I left the arena on both friday and saturday nights and walked into Stradbally town. There was almost no noise leaving the arena but by the time I had gotten right into the town I could hear the dance beats you're talking about. No idea where specifically they were coming from.

Brian Wilson.
Yip.

I enjoyed his set but it had more than a small amount of the shane mcgowans about it. He was barely coherent at times, didn't really play the instruments he was holding (that I could tell) and struggled with the words of some of the songs (even though he was reading them off that computer monitor that was attached to his keyboard. Overall it was still very enjoyable.

Like someone said earlier the music seems increasingly to be a sideshow to the nouveau crusty lifestyle bullshit. I mean a farmers market for fuck sake....

ah if you let it be like that maybe. I was at bands the whole time. Never saw any of that other shit that was on. After 3 years of going I still don't know where the silent disco or cinema tent are. I think a lot of it is what you make it yourself. But then sometimes you're constrained if you're with others that don't share your taste in music. I get around that by mostly hanging on my own. works for me.

I forgot - Peter Broderick was amazing too. He was playing to an empty tent at first as his set started before they had opened the arena on friday. Then later with Efterklang, utterly amazing again. I had only intended seeing some of their set then heading over to ABC. I couldn't leave so didn't. And still made the last few ABC songs too.

There was so much good stuff on. Maybe not the scale of clashes as other years (though I was gutted to miss billy bragg and Explision), but still pretty much always something very decent on on one stage or other.

 

[jcdonaggio]

your missis spoils you.

i paid for it again, just like primavera! it was her birthday though in fairness and our tickets were comps so didn't dent too much of a hole in oul' finances.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

Did anyone see Beach House on Sunday night in the Body and Soul on Sunday night? That was the one thing I was sorry I missed because I cleared out early. Did they do the Daniel Johnston cover?

 

[flynnduism]

Beach House didn't start until some time after 3am I'd guess, the B&S stage was running way behind so I caught most of Amorphous Androgenous by accident... (mixed bag of crustyness, some quality bits and some cringey) then there was a problem with the power supply, so the stage hands had to go on a few runs looking for adaptors or whatever

When they eventually played it was good, but I was so exhausted at that point it felt more underwhelming than enchanting, I wandered off and crashed

A weekend of let downs really in my eyes; Dinosaur Jr, Orbital, Beach House, Bat for Lashes all disappointments. The few acts that were as good (or better than) anticipated were ridiculously crowded

 

[warcam]

I've seen DJnr twice at this stage (though not at EP) and on both occassions, despite looking forward to them, was decidedly underwhelmed.
It was like watching your dad and his mates jamming.