Electric Picnic 2015

padjo5

First EP in 6 years. Enjoyed it as much as I have ever done, despite my ability to recover each morning being a lot less than back then!

Massive event, with huge organisation needed, hats off to em. Yep it had more of a commercial feel to it but that happens all good things eventually!

Had a ball.

shampoosuicide

Wooderson wrote: »

@Irish_rat

Bars playing awful music at deafening volume is not unusual at EP, nor are sporting occasions being shown or pop acts playing on the main stage. If people swapped Paul Kalkbrenner into that spot you'd need to have your head examined.

The site is large enough to take these disparate aspects of the fest and they not impinge on enjoyment one way or another.

they've never shown GAA matches at EP before this year (possibly last, i didn't go either year).

discodiva92

Many parents bringing kids to it?

ghostdancer

shampoosuicide wrote: »

they've never shown GAA matches at EP before this year (possibly last, i didn't go either year).

nope, they've been showing them for at least 3 years now.

shampoosuicide

ghostdancer wrote: »

nope, they've been showing them for at least 3 years now.

must have completely escaped my attention in '13 then, or it was off in the woods somewhere?

Jonotti

JohnDaniels wrote: »

It was a weird festival for myself. The condescension towards the 'pill' heads and what I felt from the larger crowds at the picnic this year was disgust which made the experience quite jarring for large parts. I usually go to one festival all year and it is the only time I take pills for the whole year. I understand it brings certain elements but the pint drinkers should really get down from your high ****ing horse, if you seen the state of people falling out of nightclubs or coming home late at night during EP or even the really boozed up drinkers during the day it is not pretty. I think alcohol is probably the worst drug of the lot but everyone is different so if boozing your weekend away is your thing then cool it just isn't mine.

I'm pretty obvious when high, my pupils dilate to unhideable levels and just in general I couldn't hide it if I wanted too, the big grin that I can't get rid of is probably another dead give away. I have never been to an EP where so many people wanted to give their opinion on the state of me in the normal areas, actual disgust from some, to shouting directly at me. I have never experienced anything like it at EP and can only attribute it somewhat to the change in crowd. If you haven't done pills before you might not know this but I'm in a wee world of my own where everything is awesome and you are killing my buzz. The only time I felt comfortable high was in the woods. I was chatting with a mate in the woods on Friday looking around talking about how great the crowd was. Yeah if you see it from the outside, probably looks like lots of undesirable elements, people off their faces but man that crowd was in great form. Everyone saying sorry if they bumped into you, having a laugh and dancing their little hearts out with not one bit of trouble or hint of a fight. If that was a boozed up crowd it would have been carnage.

Sorry for the long post but I was a little taken a back to see the huge swing in attitude. I have no problem with different demographics attending the festival but to feel so unwelcome in a place that has nothing but happy memories through the years was quite disconcerting. I mean I don't sit judging your choices to sit plying yourself with alcohol until you can't walk so why the **** are you judging me.

Sorry to hear that. It was always going to be that way with the lineup (manic street preachers, blur etc) and gaa matches on. You don't have to be a raving pill head but at least acknowledge that they are the primary cause of good vibes at a festival. Giving out about too much dance music ffs.
Get yourself to Bloc next year or one of those big Croatian festivals.

risteardo

That 2 hours plus in Little Big with Mano Le Tough and Julio Bashmore was just sublime. That, Despacio, Chvrches and Ride was where it was at for me. Oh, and really enjoyed LA Priest, Shamir and Hundred Waters at B&S. Lovely stuff.

Arne_Saknussem

shampoosuicide wrote: »

they've never shown GAA matches at EP before this year (possibly last, i didn't go either year).

Showed them in 2005 & 06 too, not sure about after that.

shampoosuicide

Arne_Saknussem wrote: »

Showed them in 2005 & 06 too, not sure about after that.

sorry, definitely calling B.S. on this. people used to leave the festival grounds on Sundays because they had no other option if they wanted to watch the sport. (losers imo, but whatever)

Arne_Saknussem

shampoosuicide wrote: »

sorry, definitely calling B.S. on this. people used to leave the festival grounds on Sundays because they had no other option if they wanted to watch the sport. (losers imo, but whatever)

They showed them in the Cinema tent, also showed Germany 1 Ireland 0 in 2006.

symbolic

shampoosuicide wrote: »

must have completely escaped my attention in '13 then, or it was off in the woods somewhere?

I haven't been since 2007 but didn't they show it back then in the cinema tent? Or 2006 anyway. Kilkenny in hurling final?

Trimm Trabb

Jonotti wrote: »

Sorry to hear that. It was always going to be that way with the lineup (manic street preachers, blur etc) and gaa matches on. You don't have to be a raving pill head but at least acknowledge that they are the primary cause of good vibes at a festival. Giving out about too much dance music ffs.
Get yourself to Bloc next year or one of those big Croatian festivals.

Just a small point but I've seen a couple of people mention blur as the sort of band that will attract louty pint drinkers - besides a few singles in the 90s which themselves are tinged with a certain amount of irony, their catalogue is interesting and their albums have been quite experimental. I'm a pretty enthusiastic blur fan and I'd say even though they attracted a big crowd to the main stage there on Saturday in general Irish crowds are indifferent to Blur and they actually have quite a small following in the country these days.

SteelyDanJalapeno

dublingaa wrote: »

Disgraceful that people are actually trying to give 'positive' advice to the effects to pill popping, I'm not condoning people over drinking either if ye can't handle yer drink don't drink so much simple.... But after trying to help a young boy of 21 who's body went into uncontrollable seizures Saturday night after pill popping and now it in intensive care I'm sure his parents would see no 'positives' in taking that risk. No one should be giving advice how happy or good buzz it can be......

Was that your 1st Electric Picnic "dublingaa"?

shampoosuicide

symbolic wrote: »

I haven't been since 2007 but didn't they show it back then in the cinema tent? Or 2006 anyway. Kilkenny in hurling final?

Anyway don't see the problem myself.

yeah i don't necessarily have a problem with it (if anything it thins out the herd) but it's another sign that the festival is more populist and less niche/unique than it used to be.

lbj666

Had a great weekend, Battles, J5 and H9O99 were my highlights. Given the crowd jurrasic 5 attracted having them on main stage was a good call.
From my point of view the line up was no where near as appealing as previous year so it kind of was in a no pressure situation, really enjoyed the weekend but its not the mind blowing weekend for me anymore. Every year i come in with lower expectations and still have great time.


I have a massive gripe about the decline in the quality of electronic acts being booked over the past say 2-3 years. I thought it was a move to curb undesirables from coming, yet every sponsored area like sound atlas and elites had some mediocre dj blaring out choons all weekend which just attracts utter knobs altogether.

For all the increase in capacity there were still dismal crowds in the main tents at a time of the night where they should be full but comfortable. I said before that the reason the festival feels so full is that alot of the time is people are in not main tents actually watching acts play.

Don't get me started on the cocktail place, i had to wait 10 mins last night outside there last night and i wanted a bomb to drop on it.

symbolic

shampoosuicide wrote: »

yeah i don't necessarily have a problem with it (if anything it thins out the herd) but it's another sign that the festival is more populist and less niche/unique than it used to be.

But they used to show it back in 06..

Jonotti

dublingaa wrote: »

Disgraceful that people are actually trying to give 'positive' advice to the effects to pill popping, I'm not condoning people over drinking either if ye can't handle yer drink don't drink so much simple.... But after trying to help a young boy of 21 who's body went into uncontrollable seizures Saturday night after pill popping and now it in intensive care I'm sure his parents would see no 'positives' in taking that risk. No one should be giving advice how happy or good buzz it can be......

Yeah I'm a 33 year old parent that still parties a couple of times a year. I don't need to be lectured by yourself.

neilthefunkeone

right o.. have had my sleep on the couch and i feel alive again..

First picnic since 2008/2009/2010.. Just the 4 of us and we camped up just short of Hendrix.. Friday was a good laugh with a few cans at the site and catching up..

Went in and caught Ham Sandwich, Daithi, Some cheese & beer making in the theatre of food.. Enjoyed the wander around trailer park and the corndogs were savage! Late night saw 2unimited!! underworld(ok) and the surprise of h09909 in body and soul.. They were so surreal but good!

Saturday was a just a lovely day and sitting around the main stage sipping on beers was great! Chvrches, Blur, Battles and SOAK all really good.. plenty of drinks and rave in the woods saw off a great day.. Think the cold of the campsite seemed to keep everyone in their tents after the rave!!

Sunday... Here we go.. Crowds were horrible in the arena.. and the campsite was getting messy.. drunk groups pissing on tents as they couldn't walk 50 feet to a unrinal etc.. In the arena the amount of kids running around the place wrecking heads!!
But we enjoyed the early part of the day with Dublin gospel choir & Jurassic 5, who were absolutely brilliant! Vengaboys was hilarious especially the encore with the same song again!! Metz on the cosby were really good and will be checking them again in November in whelans.
Then to Florence as the other half's wanted to watch her..

Back to the campsite and finish off the cans.. The messing with lighting fires started around 4am and it was a real pain as couldn't relax with that sh*t going on.. As someone said above yes they had somehow managed to find 2 car tyres somewhere and were trying to light them on fire too..

Some bad points but sure may as well raise them.. Number of portaloos for lads in the campsites was stupid.. The recycle beer cup thing was a scam, full on! If they really wanted people to bring their cups back they would go back to the hard plastic cups from years ago and put a 1 euro deposit on it!

Mad amount of people puking and collapsed in heaps everywhere.. Girls saw one young one in a portaloo being attended to by ambulance crews.. 2 lads rugby tackling each other beside the urinals and rolling around in piss.. Some nasty people about!!!

Over all very good weekend.. but if i'm going again I will be going that private camp-site or getting a kid so can go family camp site!!!! :eek:

Edit: Pablos app was fantastic.. Used it all weekend!

shampoosuicide

shampoosuicide wrote: »

yeah i don't necessarily have a problem with it (if anything it thins out the herd) but it's another sign that the festival is more populist and less niche/unique than it used to be.

allegedly ;-)! i was there in 06, if it was on in the cinema tent (i had no idea), it's still different to having a big screen set up in the festival area proper (which i understand was the case at the weekend). it's not that really big a deal i guess though, just an observation. next they'll have big screens flanking the main stage and stuff like that. so it goes

* this was supposed to be in reply to symbolic

Right Turn Clyde

Jonotti wrote: »

"Two, the amount of house music being played was a problem for me"

Well done on ruining the festival with your presence.

So your festival was ruined because one person, that you've never met, didn't like the amount of house music being played at it?

Haha, you've actually outdone my negativity and cynicism. As Bart Simpson says, "the ironing is delicious."

Also, the big button that says 'Quote' is for, you betcha, quoting.

budgemook

neilthefunkeone wrote: »

Over all very good weekend.. but if i'm going again I will be going that private camp-site or getting a kid so can go family camp site!!!! :eek:

Edit: Pablos app was fantastic.. Used it all weekend!

The Chaplin campsite was quite pleasant. Agree that there weren't enough portaloos.

JohnDaniels

dublingaa wrote: »

Disgraceful that people are actually trying to give 'positive' advice to the effects to pill popping, I'm not condoning people over drinking either if ye can't handle yer drink don't drink so much simple.... But after trying to help a young boy of 21 who's body went into uncontrollable seizures Saturday night after pill popping and now it in intensive care I'm sure his parents would see no 'positives' in taking that risk. No one should be giving advice how happy or good buzz it can be......

I'm incredibly sad to hear about that boy and my thoughts go out to his family. I really do hope he makes a full recovery.

I do feel though your aim is somewhat off here. Firstly I would be incredibly surprised if the boy doesn't have some underlying health condition, a bad pill, mixing, or general lack of knowledge of the drug. If you were in the woods late at night clearly you see the amounts of people who want to take ecstasy. Prohibition doesn't work, we need better education on drugs, testing areas in festivals along with other things to make it as safe an environment as possible for something which is going to happen regardless. Like most things in this country though we stick our heads in the sand, sweep it under the carpet and pretend it isn't happening while instead we could be doing actual things to prevent loss of life and incidents like the one you mentioned.

You casually wash over the fact alcohol is fine but if you looked at scientific studies comparing the danger between the two you'll usually find alcohol near the top with mdma near the bottom.



The problem with all this is we don't seem to be able to have a proper grown up conversation about drugs in this country without the 'won't somebody think of the children' brigade shouting louder and longer than everyone else while simultaneously being the most ignorant voices in the conversation.

Right Turn Clyde

Jonotti wrote: »

Sorry to hear that. It was always going to be that way with the lineup (manic street preachers, blur etc) and gaa matches on. You don't have to be a raving pill head but at least acknowledge that they are the primary cause of good vibes at a festival. Giving out about too much dance music ffs.
Get yourself to Bloc next year or one of those big Croatian festivals.

I think some people, myself included, were complaining about the amount of poor quality dance music, particularly superficial deep house.

Have you ever been to Bloc or Dimensions? I have and each time I was treated to world class dance/electronic line-ups. I want more of that at Electric Picnic, not less. The majority of dance artists at this year's Picnic are simply not good enough to play the festivals you mention, especially Bloc, so you're barking up the wrong tree with that line of argument.

Try reading and understanding each post before you waste your time writing a reply.

cherryghost

So I headed home last night. Only act I wanted to see was Tame Impala but was too tired to stay. Over the weekend I saw:

My Morning Jacket - Pretty good, nothing overly amazing
Belle & Sebastian - Energetic, fun, great to watch
LA Priest - Epic set to finish Friday off

Aquilo - Really loved their set. I was dismayed when I counted 32 people at the tent during their opening 2 songs.
Hot Chip - Really got the crowd going, pretty good
Shamir - Probably the best act of the weekend. Not sure if anyone else here was at their 11pm skit but a bunch of lads got thrown out by fans after they started calling him queer and other names.
Blur - Left after 40 mins, it was good, not great
Roisin Murphy - Abysmal. Played mostly new stuff and completely arrogant and cocky to the level that people were leaving the tent in their droves.

Django Django - I felt like they OWNED that tent yesterday. They were amazing.
Interpol - Despite their wooden performance, I enjoyed.

I wandered around to find other stuff I enjoyed; The Pale, 3 bands I dont know the names of at Oxjam, Trailer Park and Earthspirit Stage (or whatever its called).

Non music stuff: I went to the Theatre of Food 3/4 times. It really is waaay too small for the crow going in there. There was normally an extra 20-30 standing outside looking in!
As much as I support the Science Gallery, there wasn't enough 'interaction' amongst the crowds after Saturday. Was all just more of the same on Sunday.
Comedy tent. Again too small for the masses. Went to see 3 acts and was overcrowded each time. Also sitting it a stones throw from the Electric Arena is a bad idea.

It's been 8 years since I did an EP. I think the crowd was generally fine and despite it being a little too crowded in places I wasn't overly bothered. I got to see most of the acts I wanted to see and thats all that matters to me. They say next year will have more people. Not sure what to think of that. I think this year looked to be tipping point between sensibly numbered crowd and 'congested mess'.

lbj666

cherryghost wrote: »

It's been 8 years since I did an EP. I think the crowd was generally fine and despite it being a little too crowded in places I wasn't overly bothered. I got to see most of the acts I wanted to see and thats all that matters to me. They say next year will have more people. Not sure what to think of that. I think this year looked to be tipping point between sensibly numbered crowd and 'congested mess'.

Can someone whos been at bestival tell how big the site is because its seems that the same 55,000 figure is what they are aiming for for electric picnic.

alastair

Mixed impressions.

Been to most of the EP's with a two year break a few years back.

The Cocktail Cocktail / Etails / Sound Atlas / Electric Ireland venues acted as a very effective filter for young un's with their hot pants and baseball caps and soundtrack seeming lifted from the Dutch amusements operators. I'll concede it's snobbery, but jeez - desperate stuff.

More obvious coke consumption than previous years - with corresponding bursts of enthusiastic dancing / arm waving / bashing into adjacent punters / screaming lyrics into other punter's faces. Nope - not my favourite drug. Felt a bit sorry for the bogger young lad ahead of me going through security who had been designated to carry a pack of legal highs on behalf of his mates - who were telling him to keep his sh!t together and stop looking so guilty. Easy for them to say, given that they had all wussed out themselves. He got through though, and he was obviously very impressed with himself, so that all worked out well. No problem with pill heads - but wonder what the ultra-irritating and hands-on Daft Punk botherer had taken at the B&S bandstand on Friday - 'Daft as Punk' were technically awful, but great fun.

Technically great, but not great fun = Le Galaxie. Would love to like them more, but they're a bit short of tunes and decent lyrics, and thought this performance was a bit flat.

Surprise like = The Strypes in Jerry Fish (having abandoned Le Galaxie). The hype and the singles just put me off them from the get-go, and their recent 'Scumbag City' number is muck, but they have some great stuff I hadn't heard before, and the performance was epic - messy, energetic, and chock full of youthful arrogance.

Other good stuff - Jape - Floating w Booka Brass band. Neil Hannon clearly in need of a lemsip and a nice warm bed, but doing his duty for Cathy Davey in The Lovely Horse Ranch, The energy at the Django Django gig, the wee bit of Bitch Falcon I saw at Salty Dog, Kinara, Polish pulled pork sandwich man, Temple bar pie man, RSAG with Jerry Fish, rosemary sweet potato fries.

Grand stuff - Ride, Underworld, Blur, Hot Chip

Down with - ill-advised hot pants and streaky legs, indian head-dress, festival suits, whoever took a dump beside the tent (again!), the two millbags who bunked the queue at the potato stall in trailer park - karma's gonna get ya!, general abandonment of quality cleaning and security on Sunday, GAA strips, litterers everywhere, the pong of BO in Despacio.

Dr. Mantis Toboggan

alastair wrote: »

Down with - ill-advised hot pants and streaky legs, indian head-dress, festival suits, whoever took a dump beside the tent (again!), the two millbags who bunked the queue at the potato stall in trailer park - karma's gonna get ya!, general abandonment of quality cleaning and security on Sunday, GAA strips, litterers everywhere, the pong of BO in Despacio.

Bloody animals!

lbj666

Which one of ye took the massive dump in the urinal by Rankins woods? come on, own up i know it was one of ye. It was almost a tourist attraction by the end of the weekend.

frozenfrozen

I never saw it but someone described it in great detail to me as I pissed on the opposite side of the urinal

KaTEA

My first EP of many to come. Enjoyed it so much with just 2 of my friends and then meeting up with a few cousins on Saturday. At first the line up doesn't sound very appealing but OMG, Grace Jones is now my idol, and I never knew, I knew so many Blur songs!
Great craic was had by all, but a friends relationship with the boyfriend is down the drain to say the least. And my tonsils are the size
of oranges! Pain is worth though
Can't wait for next year now!!