Electric Picnic Festival – Stradbally Hall, Ireland 3-5/09/2010

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Words by Mic Wright

If Oxegen is Ireland’s V-Festival, a corporate clusterfuck of sponsorship and landfill indie, Electric Picnic pitches itself as the Emerald Isle’s Glastonbury. While it lacks Glasto’s medieval-tent-city scale, it has a similarly eclectic approach to picking acts, so much so that some parts of the bill feel like they were put together using some judicious dart chucking.

Friday

Stumbling onto the site in blazing sun on Friday, we were greeted by Chew Lips making their second appearance at Electric Picnic. Lead singer Tigs arrived togged up in a Partonesque tasselled jacket before making like Debbie Harry kidnapped by a Depeche Mode splinter cell. But while the band has a gift for penning hooks, over the course of a 45 minute set the sparkling singles can lose some of their lustre.

The Jolly Boys delivered a lesson in longevity. Named by Errol Flynn back in the fifties, the band are making a return to the spotlight with an album of modern songs given a mento spin. Their takes on Amy Winehouse’s Rehab and The Rolling Stones’ ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ were perfect for lazing in the late-summer sun.

After a ludicrous introduction (“It is a pleasure to introduce you to the canvas on which Janelle Monae will be painting her emotional pictures.”), the soul singer only partially lived up to the billing. She dances like a marionette controlled by a pilled-up puppeteer and while her songs fizz on record, some of their power was dissipated on the afternoon breeze.

For Black Mountain, it could have been the dead of night. Safely ensconced in a tent, they conjured up an entirely different ‘70s sound to Monae, channeling the hair and heavy riffs of classic rock with rib-shaking intensity. New song ‘Let Spirits Ride’ wouldn’t sound out of place on an Iron Maiden record from their glory years and ‘Stormy High’ is deliriously powerful.

Going from Black Mountain to Hurts is like ditching a bottle of Jack Daniels for some flat Vimto. While plenty of people seem to have been seduced by the band’s Disco Lento-influenced emoting, I felt like I was watching the nightmare vision of a group dolled up in Westlife’s old suits playing Robbie’s cast-off b-sides.

Laura Marling is all about sincerity but her set was stymied by some seriously strained vocal chords. She was obviously struggling at the tail end of a gruelling festival season and the Stradbally crowd didn’t do much to help. While they sang along to more strident songs like ‘Devil’s Spoke’ and ‘Ghosts’, the quieter moments were drowned out by chatter. After begging the crowd to be quieter, she left the stage 15 minutes early.

Foals were welcomed onstage by an incongruous Ramones-style “Hey! Ho! Let’s go!” chant and dived straight into a typically twitchy set. With their choice of songs bolstered by second album, Total Life Forever, they have a new depth while old tracks like ‘Cassius’ still fizz with energy. Their big problem is still a failure to connect, barely uttering a word to the roiling crowd before them.

Jonsi, dressed like a Native American chief after a Hoxton shopping spree or Big Bird suffering an identity crisis, had no problem connecting with his crowd. The task of whipping them into a frenzy was helped by the sheer energy of songs from his latest album Go and the fact that they are in English rather than Icelandic or Sigur Rós’ compelling Hopelandic nonsense.

While they don’t draw the audience lured in by rival headliner Roxy Music’s familiar smooth pop, PiL put on a blinding performance. John Lydon’s piercing stare was in full effect as is that jutted gorilla jaw and while the 15 minute version of ‘Religion’ sometimes stumbled into the dangerous territory marked “challenging”, PiL’s pop side was also given free reign with stunning versions of Rise and Public Image.

Saturday

In Saturday morning drizzle, Heathers played ‘Remember When’, the soundtrack to the Visit Ireland TV ads twice. It didn’t distract from the typically contrary Irish weather or the fact that the acoustic guitar duo play too many covers (a rickety take of The Mountain Goats’ Heretic Pride and Beyonce’s Halo) and indulge in onstage chatter that makes them seem like an indie Jedward.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble had more luck cutting through the drizzle with their collision of hip-hop with a colliery band. But in front of a tiny crowd in a tent that could cram in a few hundred more, rapper and R+B ballad merchant K’Naan was frustrated: “So, looks like we have about 20 fans in Ireland.”

Crystal Castles have substantially more as seemingly every hipster in Ireland swarmed in to fill the tent in anticipation of their set. As usual, it was like being violently mugged by electronics before being mildly brutalised by Alice Glass’s unconventional vocals. Tracks from their second album, Crystal Castles II, sneak in some more melody but it was Crimewave and AirWar that turned the crowd rabid.

Bernard Sumner rolled up with Bad Lieutenant but it was the scattering of New Order songs that really flew. As pleasant as the new material is, it struggles to complete with ‘Ceremony’ and ‘Regret’. Sadly though Peter Hook was plying his trade elsewhere on site, there was no reunion to be had.

Inevitably, Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip were the first act of the weekend to dare to make Westlife and U2 jokes. Their British hip-hop was utterly brilliant and deserving of a bigger stage, especially as the small tent meant we had to deal with one irritating girl throwing her hair around. ‘Get Better’ should be piped into every British high street on a Saturday night.

Steve Earle used his battered acoustic to good effect with renditions of ‘The Devil’s Right Hand’ and ‘Copperhead Road’ but for new converts it was his version of Tom Waits’ ‘Down In The Hole’ (aka the theme from The Wire) that kicked things up a gear. ‘This City’, his contribution to another David Simon creation, Treme, was the set’s most affecting moment: “This city won’t wash away/ this city will never drown…”

Hot Chip are custom built for festivals. While ‘One Life Stand’ is egregiously syrupy, songs like ‘Over And Over’ are laser-guided to hit the very heart of an inebriated mind and get you dancing. Joe Goddard was absent on paternity leave and a missing guitar had to be replaced with a loan from LCD Soundsystem but the Hot Chip machine rolled on.

Speaking of LCD Soundsystem: the New Yorkers valedictory tour continued in impressive fashion at Electric Picnic. Hitting the stage to 10CC’s ‘I’m Not In Love’, they rattled through a near-perfect set that range from the tear-jerking ‘New York I Love You…’ to the delightfully ridiculous ‘Drunk Girls’. Don’t go James, you’ve got so much more to give.

Sunday

Playing to a crowd of zombified Irish folk recovering from a heavy Saturday night soundtracked by LCD Soundsystem was never likely to be an easy task. Neon Indian were hampered by poor sound but their psychedelia-played-in-a-store-room-full-of-broken-arcade-machines schtick was still charming with synth burbles and Theremin soothing sore heads.

Stornaway promoted themselves to the honorary Irish band status on the strength of Brian Briggs’ Irish parents. They needn’t have begged home crowd privileges though as songs like ‘Here Comes The Blackout’ and ‘Zorbing’ earned them enough good will from the crowd.

Irish pop-punkers Fight Like Apes were reliably chaotic with frontwoman MayKay tossing her hair around like Siouxsie Sioux’s delinquent niece. They’re at their best when they stick to songs with a comedic edge and Jake Summers and Lend Me Your Face had the crowd pogoing happily.

Outside and battling the return of the wind and rain Friendly Fires played their last gig before disappearing to finish their second album. Their restless energy easily counteracted the depressing effects of the Irish drizzle and the odd phenomenon of blokes pissing on fences with toilet blocks only metres away.

The Big Pink are a contrary bunch and their penchant for extended intros and bouts of guitar noise put pay to large sections of the crowd that had streamed to see them. Clearly lots of the crowd where there to hear Dominos and when it didn’t appear quickly enough they started to drift off. They missed out though a new song lacked the hooks of first album standouts like Velvet.

There was no fear that Mumford & Sons wouldn’t deliver a crowd-pleasing set but in the increasingly blustery early evening their banjo-powered folk went floating off on the four winds. That’s the risk of playing outside in Ireland: the whims of the ever-changeable weather. ‘The Cave’ and ‘Little Lion Man’ were as energetic as ever but they didn’t necessarily reach the edges of a crowd that seemingly contained 90% of the festival punters.

The rain seemed strangely appropriate for The National whose mordant world view suited the lashing rain and swirling clouds from the smoke machine. Meanwhile, safely ensconced in a tent Mark E Smith looked like an extra who got lost on the way to the filming of the final Last Of The Summer Wine as he lead The Fall through a chaotic set with all the usual unnecessary amp twiddling and grumpy old man gurning.

Finally, as Massive Attack played in the growing storm, Wolf Parade warmed our hearts with their guitar hammering, keyboard bashing indie rock coming off like Jonathan Richman amped up on cheap vodka. The weather tried its best to dampen our spirits but in the end, the Picnic ploughed on regardless.