The Electric Picnic was bloody brilliant

Marq

That is all.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yes. yes it was.

arrested development

SheroN

J5 were class.

Bit pissed off with Lee perry not showing though! what was the reason did anyone hear?

KevIRL

Twas classness alright.

J5, Grandmaster Flash and Arrested development the highlights for me. Hopefully this festival will go on for years to come

tman

there's rumours of it coming back as a 2 day festival next year if this one was a success... judging from the feedback i've heard so far, i'd say it was

DiscoStu

Great day indeed.

Bribing bus eireann drivers, sneaking in through a side enterance because they didnt like my camera, the piss wall, the astonishing smell of weed everywhere, grand master flash, the furries.

Some photos up too if anyone wants a gander.

irishguy

it was a great day, alot more effort put into it than at oxegen.It was so layed back didnt get searched at all going in and i could have just walked through numerous holes in the fences.The body and soal area was cool such a nice place to sit and have a smoke.It wasnt that mad though, more relaxed,older crowd,with very little scumbags [except the guy who tryed to fight me on those tea cup things when we were all ****ed] other than that it was fun. Sorry to all the people i walked over who were lying on the ground in the pitch dark

bombidol

Were Soulwax Any use?

KevIRL

bombidol wrote:

Were Soulwax Any use?

Certainly were. I'd like to see them play in an indoor venue, a gig of their own like.

alb

I thought it was good, but I don't agree that it was better organised than oxegen at all. The bus eireann service from dublin was pretty bad. we had to wait ages in Dublin just to get on one, then it took three hours to get out for some reason? Also having to walk about 3 miles after the gig to get back on a bus was poor.

There weren't enough bar staff by the looks of things, I managed to get served once and figured it wasn't worth the hassle after that. surely the Oxegen system of ordered queues for each person serving is fairer and you can estimate how long it'll take you.

As for the music....
I saw the end of Arrested Development (looked great, damn bus eireann for making me miss most of it)
Grandmaster Flash (good - really got the crowd going)
Deetroit Cobras - not familiar with their stuff but they rocked
Soulwax - excellent, as expected
Jurassic 5 - also excellent and good to see it wasn't just the same show as last time I saw them.
Only caught a bit of the Super Furries, they looked great but I wasn't gonna miss J5
Groove Aramada - wasn't in the mood really, main stage was too packed and i was knackered so headed off early.

Did Cut Chemist or Numark actually do sets in the tent? I went in there at various stages during the day and there was always some other DJ on, did anyone see them were they any good?

radiospan

Did Soulwax do a DJ set as 2 Many DJ's, or did they do a rock gig?

KevIRL

plazzTT wrote:

Did Soulwax do a DJ set as 2 Many DJ's, or did they do a rock gig?

Did both. Soulwax badn set on the main stage and later a 2 many DJ's set in the electric arena.

froggie_1

had an absolutely amazing day....weather was some bonus though. added to the day no end, maybe even the makings of the day...day came out of nowhere like!

started off with Arrested Dev...they were so funky and really got the crowd going...some way to start off the day... drummer was deadly...his solos! then the DJ solo...classs
went in to the comedy tent then for a quick lok at the match and a pint.
then back out for a wander around and get a feel for the place.

went into the Bodytnic tent...unreal in there, some amount of messed up people...savage craic and great atmosohere in there though.

then accross to the electric arena and saw some of Grandmaster Flash (who i met in the Heritage hotel in Portlaois!!) he was rocking the shop completely. everyone was gone nuts....i loved it. then we went for more beer and caught some of David Kitt on the way...nothing too hectic there, sat down and watched him for a while and had a few tokes. tried to take a pic of a fat garda eating a solero, but he caught us and made us delete it...would have been class "a pig with a pop"....! anyway then we got more beer and battled our way up the front for Eric Morillo...thought he was TOP NOTCH...played a banging set and got everyone hoppin. then we got some grub and came back for J5...UNREAL. then we came out and i saw the 1st half of Groove Armada who i loved and i caught the last half hour of 2Many DJs. they wrecked the place aswell...all in all a savage day.
then we camped in the carpark. stayed up til 6...great atmosphere there too.
perfect end to a deadly summer. disappointed to have missed Plump DJs and Erol Alkan, anyone see them?? any good??

lodgepole

froggie_1 wrote:

tried to take a pic of a fat garda eating a solero, but he caught us and made us delete it...would have been class "a pig with a pop"....!

He's not allowed do that. As long as he's on duty you could set up a video camera following his every move and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

FX Meister

I saw a chick in the back stage area take a cops yellow jacket and hat off a Garda and pose with him while her friends took pictures. He didn't seem to have a problem.

Lodgepole wrote:

He's not allowed do that. As long as he's on duty you could set up a video camera following his every move and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

uberwolf

TBH I didn't think it was great. I was really looking forward to the concept and I could see an awful lot of the small details (butterflys in trees) had been attended to but the major things were in some cases terrible. The jacks were in bits, the bar queue's silly and the walk to the bus ludicrous. Noone told us where to go. Between the in's and outs we were 1.20 hrs leaving venue to find bus.

GMF was great. Arrested development pretty good, GA sounded pretty good too. Food was allright.

behanj

Not enough Toilets
Not enough Beer
Not enough Food
Not enough Space

Music was good though, what little I heard of it due to the fact I spent ages queuing.

Doubt I'll go again, the attitude of the organisers was completely cynical in my opinion - Cram 'em in, Take as much as you can, Get 'em out.

On a differenter note, I like Arrested Development and next to J5 they were the highlight for me. But why the constant T-Shirt selling? Lifemusic my backside.

BrianD

behanj wrote:

Not enough Toilets
Not enough Beer
Not enough Food
Not enough Space

Music was good though, what little I heard of it due to the fact I spent ages queuing.

Doubt I'll go again, the attitude of the organisers was completely cynical in my opinion - Cram 'em in, Take as much as you can, Get 'em out.

On a differenter note, I like Arrested Development and next to J5 they were the highlight for me. But why the constant T-Shirt selling? Lifemusic my backside.

What did you go for?

knifey_spoonie

Ah in fairness it was the first time they had organised such an event, I'm I bit disapointed I never took that ticket , but I could only get the one. According to Thomas it it looks like It will be going ahead next year with a bit of modification as to how drinks and food are served to improve efficiency.

behanj

I went for the music.
At one stage we decided that the best bet would be to head into the town, relax for a minute, and come back, but we were told by security that if we left we wouldn't be allowed back in. I doubt this is legal. Can anyone confirm if this is legal or not?
Has anyone any reasons they do this other than wanting to keep you as a captive audience where you have to eat their food, drink their beer?
I've been at a few festivals, but what I can't understand about this one is why they cramped us into such a small area, when there was so much ground that could be used.
Plus, this was organised by POD who have plenty of experience at this sort of thing. So much so that they've gotten the rip-off end of it down to a fine art.
Great setting, Excellent Lineup, Sh1te organisation.

StickyMcGinty

behanj wrote:

Great setting, Excellent Lineup, Sh1te organisation.

welcome to ireland man!


always the same

Miguel_Sanchez

I really enjoyed the whole thing - Jurassic 5 being my personal highlight - thought they were absolutely brilliant. 2 Many DJs played a great set too.

I was a bit disappointed with Grandmaster Flash - started off well but the newer stuff he played was a bit crap (he did get the crowd going though)

As for Eric Marillo - I thought he was pretty poor. Being on stimulants would have helped I suppose but overall I thought he sounded like a sub-standard nightclub DJ. Plus - he went way over time and ate into Jurassic 5's time. Did anyone else spot the roadie kneeling beside him pulling his sleeve and telling him to get the **** off?

Still though - a great day with some brilliant bands.

Roll on next year.

honru

I get the idea that this is the make-up that Aiken Promotions made once they lost the support from Mean Fiddler to set up Reading Ireland. They should definetly bring this back next year, yet make a two-day festival and place it at the same time as the UKs Reading/Leeds festivals, so that they can pouch most of the bands (still call it the Electric Picnic of course). I would also like to see more variety in the lineup (ie. rock-based groups; the reason I didn't go this year). Ireland badly needs a festival at this time for more rock-based acts. The only problem with this idea is if it clashes with Slane, but judging from this year, I would still go for it.

StickyMcGinty

loose the rock acts, thats what oxegen AND slane is for
the emphasis should be on dance

honru

VinnyL wrote:

loose the rock acts, thats what oxegen AND slane is for
the emphasis should be on dance

That's like me saying get rid of the Dance tent at Oxegen because the emphasis is on rock/pop. Seriously though, Oxegen misses out on many bands because it is held in the middle of July. Don't get me started on Slane. We all know what happened this year and it is not a multi-stage music festival, rather a headliner with special guests.

While the Electric Picnic is emphasised on dance and comedy it would do no harm to expand with extra stages to suit more genres. Ireland really needs a multi-stage music festival at the end of August to suit these areas, whether it be Electric Picnic or something else.

lodgepole

f®eak s&#169 wrote: »

While the Electric Picnic is emphasised on dance and comedy it would do no harm to expand with extra stages to suit more genres. Ireland really needs a multi-stage music festival at the end of August to suit these areas, whether it be Electric Picnic or something else.

Ireland doesn't have the market for two large festivals. That's a fact. Witnness began as an August festival and i've always thought it should have stayed that way. As a country, I don't think we could fill two like minded festivals in the summer.

I like the idea of the Electric Picnic being a smaller, more laid back end of summer gig.

honru

Lodgepole wrote:

Ireland doesn't have the market for two large festivals. That's a fact. Witnness began as an August festival and i've always thought it should have stayed that way. As a country, I don't think we could fill two like minded festivals in the summer.

I dunno, countries like The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria have more than one multi-stage music festival a year.

And there is definetly a market for two music festivals, because they are held at different times of the summer, thus will have a varying lineup of bands.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

electric picnic wasn't about dance, it was about hip hop

hip hop damnit!