Electric Picnic 2022 - Here we go again! - **No Ticket Sales / Requests **

Eh?

Any act that invokes "How are they allowed do this" is fine in my book. And I'll include Kneecap.

So, back home and thoughts…

I’m not sure I’ll be getting the loyalty ticket (this was my 12th EP - took a break for a couple of years). Mostly because of being an old fart, and the focus shifting towards the younger crowd (fair play to them), but also the capacity strains. The weather didn’t help. It being a poor line-up year wasn’t too much of an issue - there’s so many excellent Irish acts gigging that it papers over the cracks. The festival seemed slightly ad-hoc on organisation this year - v late scheduling making a hames of clashfinder for early bird arrivals. Plenty of security and stewards without a baldy on any info. 11th hour finishing on Freetown. But no matter.

My experience - Thurs arrival was a bit later than planned - got caught up in rush hour traffic but no issues once in Stradbally vicinity. The slog from Green car park to Eco was as expected, but I saw Pink Moon punters lost and frustrated at the closed off Freetown entrance - they’d been given contradictory directions by staff. Eco was noticeably jammers even on Thurs, compared to last time out. Hendrix looked full on Thurs night - which made me wonder just how messy it was going to get on Friday.

Anyways - Salty Dog No Stars w Mik Pyro do the Stones was just the ticket - I do love the old tribute jams on the Dog.

Friday. Annoying delay on opening the Freetown entrance up means the long trek around to Salty Dog for Monsuier Pompier, Beef Supreme, and a mooch about the arena. Bitta Harvest, then Lime Cordiale, who seemed a bit surprised at the reception they got - imagine if their Whelans gig hadn’t been cancelled on the back of Covid. Great buzz. Little Sims got the crowd going too, and I had less of an issue with the Pixies set - if it keeps Frank from peak grumpiness, it’s a price worth paying. On to Fred Again, and my first oul-lad-past-it moment - the tent was a poor choice for the demand. I did an early flight from Pixies to get in the tent, but after a while I had to leave - it was just getting to dangerous crush territory. Surprised that no capacity management was in place, as it was one of the acts that was obviously going to run the risk of too big a crowd. Escaped to the woefully under-attended Shiv at M&B, and then on to Mother.

Saturday. Bit of Mindfield meandering, but bugged out of Blindboy after his story - again - capacity not meeting demand. Bit of Havvk, and then possibly the gig of the weekend - Kneecap. Those spides know how to work a crowd, and the entire shtick is on target. As a potential ‘Garda’, I didn’t feel particularly threatened by the call-out about undercover drug squad. In general though, the whole HSE/Drug Squad kerfuffle was outshone by the excellent marketing of the purple skull yokes - someone made out like a bandit. Anyway - Kneecap rocked the joint. Silverbacks seemed eminently sensible after that juvenile behaviour. TCM didn’t hit the spot for me, but probably me. JPEGMafia was another let-down, which required the powers of Gemma Dunleavy to raise me up again. Bonus to see CMAT in the crowd, enjoying herself. King Kong Company were, I’m sad to say, pants. They’ve offered diminishing returns every time I’ve seen them, and this will be my last visit. Now, they’ve always been a bit of a dumb guilty pleasure, but the Saw Doctors style MC’ing, mixed with piss-poor newer material, terrible stage show choices (the robot with the power washer? Really?) have done me in. Their dancer/choreographer is being let down by a bunch of kack-handed creative choices elsewhere. 😞 Frank and Walters for the antidote. Sleaford Mods were my second surprise of the day - I was sure that the Cosby/3 tent was too small for them. Not at all - it wasn’t a big crowd. Excellent gig, which lived up to my expectations. One of the few acts in the initial line-up that kept the flame alive. Then to Malaki in M&B, who was giving 110%. The Cope had difficulties coping with their set-up, but kudos for trying something different. An element of The Beloved about their sound. Back to Mother, then bed in the rain.

Sunday. The legs are feeling it now, and the muck and news is a downer. Bootleg Beach Boys bring some positivity. And doesn’t ‘Brian Wilson’ look like, eh, Brian Wilson! On to the Mariachi band in Jerry Fish, which by now has the mucky appeal of Tenko. Great act though. Comedy tent for a bit - partially to sit down in something other than mud, and decent sets from Mike Morgan, Martin Angolo, and Michael Fry doing his ‘coinage’ and ‘the neeeeeck’ songs. Then CMAT - who I avoided at ATN, because her Academy gig earlier this year was possibly my gig of the year, and you don’t want to tarnish perfection. Her festival gigs are obviously the condensed version, but her show has become a machine! She’s so on top of her game as a performer, that it’s easy to overlook her real strength as a lyricist with few peers. No idea what I was at for a while, and then Gurriers in the increasingly bleak Salty Dog. Powerful gig. Acid Granny at Trailerpark was a weird one (even allowing for normal Acid Granny weirdness) - the underlying anger in the numbers seemed to become the dominant vibe, and the gig ended abruptly with Taoiseach Shame doing a runner. Maybe I was just frazzled? On to Touts, who, again, had a surprisingly small crowd. Then, I had to concede that the appeal of dragging my tired legs around the damp was’t there, so back to the tent to listen to the, frankly brilliant noise-making of Nancy Live in the woods. My phone was long dead, so I had nothing to point me to who was playing, or what, because it definitely didn’t sound like a DJ. It was a harmonic assault, and one which lived up to any finale rave in the woods I’ve heard.

Never saw the main stage all weekend, never mind a main stage act. Still have no idea what Picture This sound like.

Spike Island had braziers going.

Delete please

So where do I stand now that I have experienced the festival again?

Line up

As commented many times the line up nowhere near as strong as before from my perspective. Is this a once off as the world rerights itself in light of Covid and Brexit or is it a trend that will continue? Hard to know but suspect a bit of both with a larger weight on the latter.

Having said that I 38 saw full or partial sets (some due to clashes some for poor performances) over the weekend some of which I found brilliant (Tame Impala, Mick and Susan, Wolf Alice, Sprints, Just Mustard, Khruangbin) and the rest largely really good. Despite the headliners largely not being for me I still went to 2 of the 3 main headliners ( TI & AM). I also have to recognise as I get older there will be new popular music I don't like and the younger festival goers should be treated to what they like (this year however with a few notable exceptions thought the youngsters were a bit cheated by a low number of international acts).

Demographic

It definitely looked younger however is this really a surprise as it is likely that the additional capacity was picked up by a younger demographic as those older heads that go unlikely to be new attendees. Have to say they didn't annoy me that much.

Commercialism

Annoys the he'll out of me but always been an issue and it does generate funds to support the festival (I know and FR)

Areas

Did I feel pushed out of the main arena? To an extent however most of my yesterday was Rankins, 3 All for music and Electric Arena with a good smattering of the main arena on the other days so still plenty for me. Think the addition of fishtown and the work on salty have been great additions but they need to do more with Freetown and terminus to spread the crowd more.

Based on the above I while there were concerns I still had a brilliant weekend of a great variety of music and I changed my mind and will definitely buy a ticket and likely will go.

One of thevreal highlights of the weekend for me was meeting so many people from here, each and everyone of you are super people, even met a lurker, you know who you are. I go on my own as I enjoy the freedom to go and do what I want, and herself has an aversion to portaloos so will never come. However it is really nice to share the experience with others and through you I get both. Go to what I want regularly meet a boardsie, share the gig and a chat after and then go our own ways so big thanks to all of you.

Last point

Most annoying thing of the weekend, men who make the effort to go to the toilets and then p*ss against the fence 2 foot from a free urinal WTF

Roll on next year, how many sleeps Scruff?

Doubt it.

reacted saturation point, sure longitude and fairview shows did poorly this year.

Anyone with grey/no hair in the vicinity of These Charming Men, Harvest, or Jerry Fish heritage acts, is suspect. Also any washed-out indie teeshirts.

We say where we are meeting and tshirts we are wearing. There was also a photo from the last meeting and think keplar has a few from this year that might make an appearance

Excellent question. I think it's the obvious aura of middle aged decay emanating from each of us. That or the photo that went up from the last meet up. Some people also mention tshirts that they might be wearing that day.

The T-Shirts/grey hair combo could lead you astray and you could end up talking to (complete) strangers.

The photo helped. And random luck of sitting on a bench beside Seathrun. It was all downhill from there. 😉

Now my cover is blown I'll have to head to South America for that plastic surgery I've been putting off for a while now. I might get that tummy tuck as well.

Well there will always be people who don't get it. The problem was in the audience not the stage and some gobshytes intimidating people should not prevent a band that have recently riled the Democratic Unionist Party in similar manner from having a poke.

You got that wrong too, you chancer. It was my brother though so close enough. It was lovely to meet you Genghis.

Who let Arlene on boards?

I'll be buying again next weekend, not sure if I will go or not though. If I don't it won't be becuase of this year. Had a great time and saw a massive amount of acts and discivered several new artists which is what makes EP for me. Not sure if that is possible at other festivals.

Gripes, staff didn't seem very well briefed on site layout, what was and wasn't permitted etc etc. Signage was also very poor and on Thursday the sign that was fixed at Salty Dog was mounted 90 degrees out. They did seem to fix that at some stage on Friday but for any first timers it would have caused a lot of hassle.

There were a lot of issues on Thursday with physical tickets from 2020. I was one stopped and sent to tickmaster station at the paintball entrance. Girl I dealt with was obnoxious and in no way interested or helpfull as I was concerned about others arriving the following day on tickets I had booked.

I didn't see anyone on the main stage but walkewd by a few times and it all seemed fine. General behaviour was fine. I had no food issues but I don't care what I eat so when hungry I'm going for the shortest queue - problem solved.

Did walk to entrance one on friday from SD and the camp sites were mayhem and a distinct smell of crap and that was Friday. I would think they really should address the general camping space and enlarge to accomodate the numbers in some sort of safety and comfort. Glastonbury doesn't have that problem and while the areas are fully they are well orgnaised and seem self policing.

I was at kneecap, on my own. I'm around 6'4" and had no issue at all, thought it was a geat gig but do hear what people are saying about there style. The way I saw it 99.99% were ther to have a great time and there will always be the few nutters with a chip on their shoulder or feeling inadeqaute and that they need to prove something. Thing is you are as likely to encounter them idiots in a queue for a coffee as anywhere else. Dickheads are just dickheads.

One thing I would like to see is a bit better lighting from main arena to EA, Rankins and up to trailer park as its very open and quite dark at night. More bins would be nice and I can't understand why the urinals aren't like glastonbury which is basically half a waving pipe all the way round the fence like a roof gutter. Simple and takes some talent to miss it.

So, in summary delighted with the weekend even though based on what we knew the week before was putting me off. Will I go next year - not sure and will depend on what else is planned during the year but I will have tickets and a pink moon booking just in case.