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

if you were a “sheep” it was !

I got in from Pink Moon, on Thu to Saturday, via the woods, they eventually put up a barrier on the path just down from Fishtown, (marked in purple below),i encountered that, for 1st time on Saturday about 16:30, i asked nicely to be let in, and i was left in. Sunday morning no barrier, i had brekkie in trailer park about 9am, hardly anyone there, and better than the massive q’s for coffee in PM.

Later on Sunday morning, we were heading to some Mindfield stuff, and could not get in from PM at 11:15, as they had not gotten the all clear, so we went via the woods again, no issue.

Whoever was pushing 100 gecs on here, well done. They were excellent. Friday in general was great for music. Fred Again, Glass Animals. Kneecap were excellent on sat afternoon, filled Rankins Wood at 4pm.

Home and hosed. Not sure I'm ready for a review, not sure how I feel about the whole thing yet. I'll say first that I had a great weekend. In Eco for the first time feck all space by the time we arrived down on the Friday but were blessed to get a lovely pitch at the fence bordering on the Rave in the Woods. Loud as bejaysus at night but I slept pretty well and we'd loads of sitting out space, lovely neighbours. Everyone connected to Eco was sound, really happy with it.

Lots of decent music, Sleaford Mods top of the bunch for me absolutely loved them. Also really enjoyed Mick and Susan, Naked Lungs, Thumper, Sack, Silverbacks TCM, the Scratch, CMAT, Just Mustard and Arctic Monkeys. Saw way fewer full gigs that usual lots of bits and pieces. This was down to the absolutely undeniable fact that there was a HUGE lack of depth to the quality of music on offer.

Always about balance, isn't it? A few people have touched on it already. We joke about the teenagers on here sometimes but we all love our music and jaysus the cheek of the likes of me telling a teenager to do one while i nod my head to 'Bet you look good on the dancefloor'. Seeing a young lad roaring their heads off to 'There is a light' is a beautiful thing. But it has to be for all of us, that we have an equal share in it. That's gone this year, no question. The youngsters owned the main arena, whether it was some 18 year old on stage or the Pixies.

I disagree with the Oxegen comparisons but only because of what was outside main arena, all the magic that Jerry the Salty Dog, trailer park etc bring that I've never got anywhere else before but punters like me shouldn't be confined to thise areas and that's where we're headed.

Commercial set ups rule the arena now alright and I agree that it's almost impossible to chill out there anymore. The old Body and Soul area has been lost when it could so easily have been replicated. They've turned it into a throughway rather than a destination in itself. They're even dispensed with the fire.

Freetown has lots of potential but still really underutilised. They have to make it somewhere people want to visit rather than pass through.

Look, I was down with the brothers and we had a great time but I'm pretty sure or the first time in 10 years I won't be buying my ticket straight away. Maybe ATN is the way forward.

Last word for the crowd I met from on here. I'm so happy we started actually meeting up. Met loads of new Boardsies over the 3 days absolutely lovely people to a man. Or woman, soz @chanelno5 @desk tidy. Hardly a gig where I didn't have a few words with someone. It was an absolute pleasure.

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.