Spraoi Festival August 2nd - 4th

nkay1985

Just home now having gone in at 16:30. Had a great day.

Saw two brilliant street acts - The Strong Lady and Pangottic. The Strong Lady was especially good.

Saw The Muggins as part of 'A String of Sound'. They were very good.

Then Delereves on the Waterford Crystal building at 10:15. I really enjoyed it. Music and a bit of a story but the highlight is dancing on the building!

Now just home from The Papa Zitas in Shortt's. It was a bit packed but the band were good.

Gave my fiver and will do so another couple of times over the weekend.

Looking forward to two more days.

0rt

https://www.facebook.com/events/212216858936211/

"Bringing you a taste of the harder side this Spraoi Saturday we have Found On The Floor, Noisy Coincidence and Encrypter rockin' Sal's for your pleasure.

Found On The Floor hail from New Ross and play a good time mix of Punk/Metal/New Wave. Expect catchy choruses and fancy dancin'!

http://www.reverbnation.com/foundonthefloor

Noisy Coincidence are a Gorey based outfit playing a mix of Punk/Grunge/Noise. Amazing energy, passionate performance and grade a original material make these lads one not to be missed!

http://noisycoincidence.bandcamp.com/

And rounding off the night we have Waterford's very own Dave Encrypter Jacob playing his special brew of hard dark electronica. Plenty of plenty of kickdrums with an uncommon flare and musicality. All through a lovely big slab of UNTZ rig.

https://soundcloud.com/davejacob

Handling the in between noises will be the infamous local DJ "Underwater Bingo For Teens". Playing a blend of rock, pop, disco, dance, bass, breaks and bingo, UBFT will keep you grooving the whole night through.

All this for only 5 of your euros
Doors 21.00"

old gregg

^ am almost certain to end up at this. Dave Jacob laying down the slow beats

hobo!

old gregg wrote: »

^ am almost certain to end up at this. Dave Jacob laying down the slow beats

Slow if your day is usually at 500bpm!

0rt

ahh theres probably gunna be all sorts of glitches.. how can you count bpm with glitches? :P

Sully

Popped into Spraoi a little late this afternoon. Saw the end of The Magilligans which were good, plus a little bit of Jack Wise but I couldn't see (funny fella, not sure about his magic as I missed it) so I left and went over to The Strong Lady which wasn't really my cup of tea as it was slow, predictable and you couldn't hear her because she was using tiny speakers. She is strong though, and its pretty cool despite being a bit boring at the same time.

Gave my €5r, well worth it and I absolutely love the occasion and I love them for putting it on. Gutted I missed the stuff yesterday, I passed the act at Waterford Crystal but decided I wouldn't park up as I thought it was just music!

Where the hell else would you get this much street fun and only be asked for €5? I'll be giving more. Wonderful work, fair play.

Spotted Laura Dempsey, the wonderful face painter, in Blackfriars. Very talented girl, didn't seem like many queuing but kept busy all the same. Worth bringing the kids up to get their face painted, she does wonderful work. Don't know her, she was part of the Family Fun Day I organised in Tramore but one of the girls working with me knew her and got her, so I barley spoke to her but thought the work she did was impressive. She did the makeup for the girl on the Spraoi poster.

old gregg

0rt wrote: »

ahh theres probably gunna be all sorts of glitches.. how can you count bpm with glitches? :P

Dave loves his glitches Might wait till he gets up to 240bpm and go up and ask him to play some Quo :P

0rt

or some hardcore punk.. hes got a taste for it!

MonkstownHoop

Bloody rain

Sully

Rain saw a few events be cancelled yesterday sadly. Got to see the PullUp Orchestra, very good and got their CD also. Tumble Circus I was a little unsure off as there is a lot of talk about painkillers and at one time someone attempting to hang themselves from the rope. If your a little sensitive, it may not be your cup of tea (or your childrens). A teenager beside me yesterday was asking her friend why they were pushing the painkillers so much, so that says a lot IMO.

Show got cancelled due to the rain but not before a drunken member of audience stormed over and hit one of the performers. There is mess fighting and the drunk appeared to think it was real. Odd.

Heading in again today, hope to see more acts. Good crowd around the day, but quieter at night.

Jambo

Anyone attending today please keep care of you belongings, yesterday we noticed teams of Roma acting suspiciously around the city, and just now while sitting in John Roberts Sq the seem to be at it again, where an older guy is approaching various folk distracting them with the bird whistles hes not intending to sell while a minor with him appears to be looking for an opportunity to dip into a pocket or handbag.

Luckily anyone they have approached so far have had their wits about them. I suspect not everyone will be so lucky.

nkay1985

Jambo wrote: »

Anyone attending today please keep care of you belongings, yesterday we noticed teams of Roma acting suspiciously around the city, and just now while sitting in John Roberts Sq the seem to be at it again, where an older guy is approaching various folk distracting them with the bird whistles hes not intending to sell while a minor with him appears to be looking for an opportunity to dip into a pocket or handbag.

Luckily anyone they have approached so far have had their wits about them. I suspect not everyone will be so lucky.

Yeah I saw the young lads walking around the plaza at various times yesterday with no interest in what was going on, just staring at the ground looking at bags etc.

Old Perry

nkay1985 wrote: »

Yeah I saw the young lads walking around the plaza at various times yesterday with no interest in what was going on, just staring at the ground looking at bags etc.

True, sometimes there is so many it is just blatantly obvious, just be sure to only bring the essentials and have a buddy keep an eye on you while you keep an eye on your buddies stuff. Pick pocketers like that are the scum of the earth.

Having said that, there was a great atmosphere around yesterday, fabulous to see the city in full flight and at its finest.

On another note, would anyone who was there last year or before be able to hazard a guess at where exactly the fireworks will be let off. Specifically, how many detonation points might there be and what distance they might spread roughly?

MitchKoobski

Fireworks are usually let off from a boat on the quay. You can see them from anywhere on the quay or around that general stretch of road.

Old Perry

Goodman Mitch, are these let off from one boat or a number of boats?

MitchKoobski

Couldn't say for sure, think it changes from time to time.

dzilla

Fair disappointed with the amount if cans and bottles being drank in the plaza last night. Its maybe just me but it gives off such a bad image

Dave_Power

Can anyone tell me what time the fire works are on
I ask this because i can hear fireworks and im living in tramore, is it possible that I'm hearing fireworks from 8 miles away!!
ok the noise has finished now at 22.48pm

Green Hornet

That was them.

razor_ryan

Dave_Power wrote: »

Can anyone tell me what time the fire works are on
I ask this because i can hear fireworks and im living in tramore, is it possible that I'm hearing fireworks from 8 miles away!!
ok the noise has finished now at 22.48pm

Fireworks were disappointing this year all 5 minutes of them

Dave_Power

cool. so i heard them all the way from traaaaaamore. diddnt see them tho

decies

Heard the banging for about 10 mins anybody got links to videos of parade what was it like ? Bucketing rain now sounds like spraoi got lucky with the weather .

MonkstownHoop

Thought the fireworks were very good, its quality that counts

Sully

I thought the fireworks were perfect time and quality wise.

Hats off to the organisers.

decies

The parade lads the parade ? What was it like lol?

Sully

decies wrote: »

The parade lads the parade ? What was it like lol?

I was enjoying the last band in the plaza, assumed it would stop for the parade but I was mistaken!! Lol

mooseknunkle

razor_ryan wrote: »

Fireworks were disappointing this year all 5 minutes of them

go way out of that they went on for a good 15 mins if not more

fairplay to everybody involved another successful spraoi hats off to everyone

razor_ryan

mooseknunkle wrote: »

go way out of that they went on for a good 15 mins if not more

fairplay to everybody involved another successful spraoi hats off to everyone

Here you go all 5 minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugtTmI_wSJ8

old gregg

Loved the fireworks (as always)

Jason Todd

I thought the parade was very good. It was fairly long compared to most years iirc, seemed to be more large floats than usual along with the performers on the ground. The kids loved it. My 2 year old has a fascination with fish so the look of amazement and wonder on his face will stay with me a long time. The fireworks were good too, a little bit of smoke and cloudiness hid a few of them from us though, we were at the bus station.

Overall I saw no trouble, everyone seemed well behaved, especially considering all the underage drinkers I saw in JR Square. A few tired and emotional people, but no fights thankfully. It is so obvious though, the people who are in to have a good time and the tourists who are there for the sights and sounds, compared to the eejit s who are just there to drink in public and be loud and obnoxious. The only criticism I had of the whole weekend was we queued along the edge of the footpath for 40 minutes down near Gladstone St. for the parade. We had 3 buggies with us and waited there as we wanted the kids to have a good view and then as the parade came near the Tower everyone just pushed past us and waited right in the middle of the road creating a bottleneck. Some stewards came along and didn't do anything about it and the kids view was ruined. We ended up having to push up also and stick the kids on our shoulders so all was not lost and we ended up being pushed back by Gardai when the parade reached the clock tower anyway. I just felt some barriers would have stopped the 'sheep' mentality.

Super weekend overall, very proud of the City for having something like this and glad it looked so well to ourselves and visitors.