Jesus & Mary Chain - poor?? You gotta be kidding me. They were absolutely amazing. Some Candy Talking was a major highlight for me of the weekend.

You also seemed to have missed the big talking point of the whole weekend - Iggy & The Stooges. One of the best rock gigs I have ever seen and I would by no means be a major fan. Calling the crowd up on stage to ensuing chaos was just brilliant, especially when one guy jumped on to the stage and knocked over a dancing naked guy! Iggy just kept rocking throughout. They really did make much of the other acts I had seen seem very contrived. This was something to behold and made you realise why you love music so much.

Other than that I was amazingly happy singing along to Hyperballad with the legend Bjork, pleasantly surprised by Malajube, sorry I wasn't up further for the Beasties excellent set and very happy to be front row centre at CYHSY despite average sound.

I didnt realise Bat For Lashes played, damn. I missed Lonely Dears too.

This was my first picnic and I suppose I should have known this beforehand, but there was too much 'dance' music. I really cannot stand it. I caught all of LCDs set and I thought they were atrocious. The guy can't sing, has no stage presence and it had very little to distinguish it from much other random-beep generators. Except maybe more actual lyrics, and even they were dreadful. I was laughing at whatever 'song' it was that just goes 'yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,' or whatever.

...jumping around to System Of A Down at the Silent Disco was good fun too.

My First Electric Picnic

·Arrival on site: Friday afternoon 2pm

·Bands seen:
-Friday: Bjork, LCD Soundsystem
-Saturday: Chemical Brothers, Magic Numbers, Marlena Shaw and Orchestra, Beastie Boys, Ladytron, Delorentos, 65 Days of Static, Redkid, Annie Mac, Bonde Do Role
-Sunday: Primal Scream , Iggy and the Stooges, Horace Andy, The Go!Team, Unkle, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Bat For Lashes.

·Impressed by: Ladytron –excellent music and great lighting show- and Annie Mac- a fantastic dj even if i don't really like that kind of music.

·Tears of joy:
-Friday night, state of emergency by Bjork ---> crowd singing, amazing lights, great voice, nice brass orchestra, i couldn’t help crying with joy, and her finale was magic!
-Saturday night, Chemical Brothers ---> lasers+ screen+ starcloth +strobes, the visual aspect what just amazing, really simple lighting (one color and just flashing)and it was all based on the great visuals they had
-Sunday night, Iggy Pop ---> him making the audience go and dance on stage, him acting like a sexy bitch, him jumping and screaming in his mic, him being so committed (politically) and intelligent, him being so old and so good looking!!! He is a LEGEND!

·Other than music: went on a caroussel friday night, had pasta ala carbonara and paella valenciana, the body and soul area was perfect to chill out and looked like a fairyland, i went to see some poetry rapped in the spoken area.

·Two major regrets: i went to see Bjork so i totally forgot to run and catch the end of The Good The Bad and The Queen AND i forgot to go and watch Sonic Youth coz i was too busy dancing with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
anyone went to The Good, The Bad and The Queen or Sonic Youth?

·Departure from site: Monday morning 2am

·RIP: a 23 year-old guy died during the chemical brothers, he was just there enjoying the gig with everyone, sharing this moment with the other festival goers, and he collapsed and died, we don’t what happened to him yet but anyway that sucks big time. http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0902/picnic.html?rss

Bands of the weekend (that I saw), were..

Good, The Bad & The Queen
The Jesus & Mary Chain
Go! Team
Erasure

I missed Iggy, but seen him play a few times with the Stooges - they're always good! Forgot to go to Ladytron. Arrived too late for Hot Chip. Got up too late to see FLA, but overall had a blast. The Body & Soul area was class.. no probs at all with anything (toilets were a tad s**t.. to be expected). Managed to get thru the whole weekend without changing as much as a sock, so happy days!

Final Fantasy ... He/she/They were on my ' I dont know what they are like, but plenty of people are saying alot of good things' list.

Please tell me I went along at the wrong time or to the wrong tent .... A bloke comes on with a fiddle & starts wailing like a pig to the slaughter ?


Really enjoyed the whole of EP. Dance music Rocks !!

Final Fantasy was absolutely brilliant!!! The skill of this one man will blow you away. Also he seems to be a very down-to-earth bloke...

Bjork was savage and Im not even that big a fan.

Nicky Wire losing it after numerous problems with his bass and smashing the s**t out of it - was highly entertaining!

I enjoyed Fionn Regan despite his guitar level being too low, the lack of female backing vocals which can make some of the tunes on the album and despite the noise of the crowd in the southern comfort bar.

I was pissed that I couldnt get into Modest Mouse after Bjork but you snooze you lose I suppose...

I enjoyed Nouvelle Vague. It was a fun gig to watch and dance to, particularly 'Love will tear us apart'

Beasties sounded good at the sunday gig... but like everyone else I was a bit too far back to see anything

Sonic Youth sounded deadly!

I'm with Floodzer...
Final Fantasy, superb.
Bjork, brillo-pads.
Sonic Youth, Kim Gordon.


Pie minister!!!.... I want to speak to the pie minister!!! Where is he? When's he getting re-elected? I demand an appointment.

Hearty - Such a whining list of petty s**te leads me to believe that either you have never been to a festival before (hence did not know what to expect), or that you are in fact Victor Meldrew;


"signposting (could have been better)," - Are you very short sighted? There were signs everywhere. God forbid you'd have to stop and ask someone!

"weather (great on saturday, poor on sunday)," It IS a festival in Ireland. Imagine; rain?!?! - fancy that!

"traffic (was in it for a long time on friday)." Imagine; bad traffic in Ireland on a Friday afternoon?!?! And on the day of a festival - who'd ever have thought that?!?!

"poor - the sound at most venues." - Hard of hearing as well as short sighted? You ARE Victor Meldrew!

"the mobile phone coverage." 35,000 in a field in Laois - all texting Phoning at the same time. What ever did we do before mobiles?

"the toilets." At a festival? Toilets? That's what the trees are for!

"only being one ATM." Bring money to a festival? Now that'd be just too much pre-planning. They'd no Post Office either, or shops selling postcards. My mother will be highly dissapointed.

"the crowds at the beasties." Was it the size of the crowd or the type of people in the crowd? Being one of them, I take offence to this!

"JaM chain (caught about 10 minutes, was bored)," Ahhhh, poor you. Bless.

My personal low-lights were the lack of newspapers available, there were no tea & coffee facilities available beside my tent, I asked for a wake-up call at the reception on the way in only to be laughed at, there was no sign of a cleaner any day I stayed there (despite the mud blatantly showing on my fly sheet) and when I checked out at 12pm on the dot, there were still people asleep in tents. I demand a refund.

Sorry Mully, I must disagree. I think he's a genius and that his performance was far and away the outstanding thing of the festival. Nice dude too, completely humoured me talking s**te to him on Sunday night after he played a jam session in the Body & Soul area with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Architecture in Helsinki.

I wrote a ton of stuff about my weekend and what I thought was good on my blog last night ...

thrillpier.blogspot.com

Bat For Lashes, MIA, Iggy Pop, Rilo Kiley, Beastie Boys were all amazing.

A classic case of each to their own. Just not my cup of tea. No big deal, Unicron.


I heard some great music on over the weekend ... Hotchip, LCD SS, !!!, Architecture in Helsinki, Ladytron, Iggy & Sonic Youth.

The Next Stage in the forest was a great way to flake out after all the goings on.

I thought Final Fantasy was great also, was totally unfamiliar with his stuff beforehand and got increasingly into it as the gig went on. I was sceptical at first because those looping pedals seem to have become the de riguer gimmick for singer songwriters of late but he used it really well.. he seemed pretty humbled by the amazing reception he was getting too. Fujiya & Miyagi in the same tent on Sunday was another highlight, enjoyed their set far more than I was expecting to because I'm lukewarm on their recorded work. Also enjoyed MIA, Bjork (I've heard others saying that her set was sub-par but this was my first time seeing her so I was happy anyway), Si Schroeder (a bit sleepy, but very nice when it got going), Bat for Lashes, The Fall (entertaining, but repetitive), Electrelane, The Jimmy Cake, Hot Chip (good New Order cover), Deerhoof were great too.. Pissed that I missed the Warlords of Pez set because I've heard that they were extremely funny. Other stuff: food was generally excellent, though quite pricey.. camping was fine, not overcrowded and a generally nice vibe although the security seemed somewhat dour and over-zealous.. toilets were okay though they could have scheduled the emptying a little earlier than they did (there seemed to be a point on Saturday evening when they were all starting to overflow). I've heard a lot of people complaining that the sound was poor but I thought it was generally okay, if you take into account that sound quality in temporary venues where bands have had a short soundcheck is always going to be a touch iffy and you have to move around a bit within the tent to find a good spot. Only discovered the existence of the 'Body & Soul' area on Sunday night just before I was due to leave - d'oh!

Precisely.

jamie T - do you have any opinions that aren't smart arsed attempts to be outrageous and start fights?
Because its getting kind of boring.

thanks,
Victor

If he says no don't believe him.

Oh come one dude - you were at a bloody music festival, not a weekend in Butlins. LISTEN to what you complained about;

signposting, the weather, the traffic, the mobile phone coverage,
the toilets, only being one ATM, the crowds at the beasties.

And you've the cheek to call ME the grumpy old man. Figures.

Great weekend, highlights:

Iggy and the Stooges - the stage invasion and choas for 10 minutes was brilliant.
LCD Soundsystem - had lost all my friends at this stage but had a good time dancing around on my own.
The Chemical Brothers - Amazing lights and visuals, only downside seeing that poor fella being taken away.
Primal Scream - Swastica Eyes, Moving on up, Rocks, need I say more.
Bjork, The Good, The Bad and The Queen, Sonic Youth, The Jesus Mary Chain.

Mad I missed:
Hot Chip, Polyphonic Spree, Spiritualized Acoustic, The Go Team, Bat for Lashes, 65 Days of Static

I'm quite surprised that nobody has mentioned Modest Mouse. I saw them at Primavera as well and they were far better at electric picnic. Also the highlights for me were:

My Brightest Diamond - (very early in the small Nokia tent)
DHOL Foundation - (happened to stroll into the tent but they rocked like the preverbials)

I was quite impressed with Fight like Apes, they had a big crowd for a reasonably unknown Irish band. Bonde de Role were quite good. CYHSY tried very hard with poor sound. LCD SS were hit and miss. !!! were good for a band I didn't know much about.

I'm pissed off I missed bat for lashes and final fantasy. I really don't get Deerhoof. I was a bit disappointed in Si Schroeder (maybe I just wasn't in the mood but I did see a funny t-shirt at the gig, it said Been there, cut that. John Deere). Had to leave on Sunday evening so I missed the Go Team, Sonic Youth etc.