Electric Picnic 2025 **No Ticket Sales / Requests** - Hot metal and methedrine, I hear empire down

Attended the first 20 mins of Biig Piig pretty sure she lip synched all songs, one of the biggest disappointments of the weekend for me.

Then went to Cranberry Lads and, as expected, Dermot butchered the songs, he wasn't the right person for the job. Should've been Roisin O / Lyra or someone of that ilk

Was my first time at EP this year and was volunteering (Thursday day and a whopping 14 hours on Saturday) - I've been a loyal ATN goer since it first started and generally prefer smaller festivals but after years of seeing EP content and hearing reviews from friends I wanted to experience it for myself to deal with the fomo.

There's a lot to EP, a lot to love, but sadly also some not to love.

The good
The freetown area is absolutely class, I spent a lot of time wandering around providencia/trenchtown/jerry fish/6 bars/salty dog just taking in the vibes and the scenery. I'd say Brutopolis was one of my favourite areas, the actors were great and a big shout out to the women at the ryanair desk in providencia. I did my best to get them to break character and they wouldn't!

Staging in general is very good, I personally didn't experience sound issues anywhere and was surprised how little the small stages were impacted by the (often branded) stages nearby, the sound was well managed imo compared to ATN, very little soundbleed. Decorations and set also phenomenal.

Loads of places to sit outside the main arena, sheltered or not sheltered, every time I was ready for a sit down there was a decent place for me to sit down. The ground on site was solid, and held up well in the weather (which I honestly think wasn't that bad at all).

Food options; there were hundreds of them. A lot of the same stuff under a different name, true, but easy to pick up something tasty to eat at any given point.

Punters; I volunteered most of my time at the campervan showers (hi if I saw you!!) and had lovely chats with so many punters. The campervan area felt a bit more civilised compared to where other volunteers were stationed, and it was fun hearing punters experiences at EP over the years and to see the life return to them after their shower.

Toilets; staff toilets were poorly maintained but otherwise I either got lucky or they were genuinely well kept, especially impressed with the main arena toilets. Maybe the separation by gender is the reason?

The bad

The chatter above about the late line up meaning smaller acts miss out on people coming across them in research is a big one for me, as someone who isn't a "main stager" and likes to do the homework. It feels like an essential part of going to festivals I couldn't do.

Rubbish; The place becomes a kip so quickly. Was honestly shocked at the amount of rubbish everywhere and the lack of (even an iota) of respect for the land. I get it's a festival and we all go a bit feral but I couldn't get over the amount of rubbish. I'm not sure if it was a lack of bins, disrespectful punters or a bit of both.

Punters; while I had many lovely interactions, there was a lot of unsavoury behaviour and unsavoury characters. I saw women groped, children pushed over and a general lack of festival etiquette especially in the main arena. Also 80k people is just too much for someone like me. I always found myself going to a stage against the stream of people leaving main stage and acquired quite a few bruises from trying to dodge people.

Line up; while I saw some good acts, in general it felt uninspired. Having chats with punters and not being able to relate to anything on their must watch list made it clear to me that I am not the audience for this festival. It also meant that by Sunday, when I was wrecked, I just avoided talking to people altogether as I felt I couldn't relate anymore.

No freeflow is a major pain point for me, it entirely changes the vibe and is just annoying because I had to lug back the coolbox with nearly all the cans still in it (staff campsite was far away so no nipping back for a quick drink). It also means queues and delays entering the arena and encourages sneakiness and sketchiness.

Acts I watched:
Ragga Puffin in Brutopolis
Curtisy on Coke stage
Barry Can't Swim
Sexy Tadgh (twice)
Fatboy Slim (was actually blown away, great set)
Horsegiirl
Andy Irvine (pity there were some issues at the start he seemed very frustrated!)
Ispini na Eireann
Marc Rebillet
Becky Hill
Effy
Smidgen of The Kooks (wedged and only because Viagra Boys were delayed)
Viagra Boys
Shark School
High Fade
And a host of random stuff in Rub a Dub hi fi (behind the curtain in providencia), Rathaus, treasure beach/trench town stuff, providencia main stage, Survivor, Salty Dog,…

Someone else mentioned above that the festival is soulless, and I think I agree with that to an extent. EP tries to be a lot of things at once, and if it was a festival just the freetown area I would be there every year. In terms of vibes and atmosphere it didn't have a patch on ATN for me, even with all the "extras". That said, I had a good time, and have now officially scratched this itch. Thanks for having me!

You’re 100% correct she was a little weak, I’d put that down to lack of experience and she will improve no doubt, she also had some kind of auto tune that wasn’t working too well at the start, her mic even cut out a few times, but had you stayed she vastly improved towards the end, I took a couple of vids and they gradually got better.

Acts will always lose out to poor scheduling and there's no real pattern to it, the point I was trying to make earlier. Every act has a bad day (or more) at festivals and it's not always easy to predict.

I remember The Horrors (a band who'd appeal to a lot of Cure fans) losing out badly because they were scheduled opposite Robert Smith and Co in 2012. Worse again was Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds playing to literally 200/300 people at Oxegen 2009 as the crowds headed to Kings of Leon & the Pet Shop Boys.

Hopefully Just Mustard are pretty phlegmatic about it and we'll see them on tour soon. Big crowd for them when they last played EP at the 3Music stage in 2022. Superb set too, best I've seen by them.

Clashed with Kneecap. Good luck to anyone playing opposite them at any festival this Summer. West Holts at Glasto was shut down 50 mins before their set even started.

And @Mucker46, that's excellent news regarding the Olympia gig. I hope it sells well because they've spent long enough doing the smaller venues. I first saw them supporting The Murder Capital in Galway in 2018 and then back with their own show the following year. Eight years is a long wait to get to the Olympia and I hope to be there to support them. Lovely kids, so shy and sweet when I was getting them to sign their debut album in 2018. They were so surprised that anyone was buying it that they hadn't even brought a sharpie along so used a ballpoint pen and one of them nervously ended up smudging the signatures across the front cover. Now looks like my dog could have signed it. Great to see them doing so well and I hope it continues.

I'm surprised by that. She's been around for a while and I saw her in one of the tents (3Music/Rankins) pre-lockdown when she was very good. Sounds like she's gone backwards which is very surprising.

Autotune or pure lip syncing? 20 mins was enough for me and the mate anyway, had higher expectations for her.

3rd EP for me.

Best of the weekend for me was Nile Rodgers and Marc Reblliot, neither of which I've seen before, particularly Marc who improvised the first 30-40 mins of his set thought he was much better than fatboy personally.

Seen a total of 18 acts across the weekend, mainly around the big tents / main arena. Thought Sam Fender was as solid as ever and David Gray was decent, but I thought he was going to get angry when people kept taking photos as he was singing (was actually quite funny, started out with a small group of lads taking a photo and ended up with 50+ people joining the photo). He definitely noticed it but didnt seem to bother him.

Really enjoyed Inhaler, have good potential and could see myself going to see them again. (Even the Coronas which i know many on here dont like had a great atmosphere and full electric arena, particularly liked Mundy's July which he sang with them).

Thought the toilets were much improved this year, even around the main stage they weren't half as bad as last year and the toilets in the eco campsite were cleaned regularly and were the airplane vacum type toilets. Now, on the negative side there were definitely times where you could notice the increased attendance, but nothing too uncomfortable I thought

The eco campsite really is a long walk, longer still if you cant get into the blue carpark, which we couldn't. They need to find a way of getting the right people into the blue carpark and the right people into red.

Overall really enjoyed the weekend, and with loyalty tickets it worked out at roughly €15 per artist i visited which is great value when you think of it like that.

Looking Forward to next year...hopefully an earlier lineup announcement for 2026!

Nah she deffo wasn’t lip syncing, she jumped into the crowd right beside me and got someone to sing into the Mic.

She did have recorded backing vocals playing through the feed as well as her singing.
She also had autotune, people perceive this as bad, but she wasn’t “cheating” more so as an effect.

As I said she 100% recovered in the 2nd half of her set, really infectious stage presence.

Made it down to Campervan C at about 8:30 on Thursday evening. Few cans at the van and then made my way in to see the Salty Dog No Stars. It was noticeably way busier than previous years.

Friday started with Sweets in Fishtown. They weren't really doing it for me. Change of pace with Dug at Salty Dog who I thought were brilliant. I was even handed a Dug cap by some random lady who was giving a few out to punters at the front. Molly Vulpyne in Fishtown was very good. I'd seen her before as lead singer of the two piece, Vulpynes. Much fuller sound with a band behind her. Next was Self Esteem in the 3 Music tent. Amazing show, poor crowd! Got my punk on for The Sleveens back in Fishtown and then headed to Trailer Park for Grooveline. Young fellas with great energy making good noise. Wrapped it up with the madness of the Trad Rave in The Haunt. Late one. Back at the van at around 4am.

Very slow start on Saturday. Eventually made it in to see Nile Rodgers & Chic on the Main Stage. First time seeing them. He loves himself. Should let the music do the talking instead of bigging himself up between every tune. Enjoyable. LeBoom in the Today FM Sound Garden was okay. Back to the Main Stage for the second (and last) time to see Fatboy Slim. Never seen him before. I was very impressed. Very enjoyable set and the visuals were excellent. Went to Salty then to be early enough to catch the Secret Act. Was pretty knackered so headed for a seat on one of the boats at the back. I'd no idea who was going to be performing and, from my vantage point, couldn't see how busy it must've been getting. Was sent a message shortly after 2am to say that it was Fatboy! Got quite excited...only for Norman Cook to walk on at about 2:15 to say that the stage was being shut down due to safety concerns. Gutted. Was the crowding really that bad? Did everyone already know it was going to be him?!

Sunday started with the ever reliable King Kong Company in the Electric Arena. Headed over to Marc Rebillet in 3 then. I'd no clue who he was or what to expect. What a treat! Absolutely bonkers! COUNTY FÚCKING LAOIS! Stayed there for Viagra Boys. I'd seen them a few years back on a much smaller stage. Excellent stuff! Thought I'd check out Fishtown to see who the Secret Act was. Turns out, it was Peer Pressure. Knackered by then so sat on the small stage to the right and watched from there. Back to Salty Dog for a second viewing of Grooveline before heading to Croi to catch some David Holmes. I was dead on my feet so sat on a bench at the top of the hill and caught about half an hour before trudging slowly back to the van.

Only briefly met Darzog and Rubick.

Had amazing food all weekend. A wee bit expensive, but very tasty.

All in all - brilliant weekend. I'll be online tomorrow, trying to get a ticket!

Releasing an album, and releasing a single tomorrow.

Although could be an album tomorrow, not really sure

I don't see them at EP, they were there quite recently.

Took me almost six hours to north Donegal...but that's because I'm driving a 47 year old campervan!