Electric Picnic 2010 Friday Review
Our Irish Music Correspondent Tracy O’ Callaghan went to Electric Picnic last year and here is part 1 of her review of the top Irish Festival also check out Day 2 and Day 3 Reviews
Friday
Arriving early on the Friday morning was key to claiming a great campsite spot, as late comers battle the huge crowds choking the walkway between campsites to find a suitable spot in which to call home for the weekend. We settled on a spot only a short distance from the festival grounds and most excitedly only 2mins walk from the ‘Beauty Parlour’ every camping girl’s dream! Lets face it the dry shampoo only suffices so far! The great weather added to the buzz putting everyone in fine form. With thousands of festival goers still arriving the atmosphere within our campsite was already electric as excited campers settled into their new found home & like ourselves celebrated the success of tent building with a cold beer.
At the approach of 1 o’ clock people in their droves make their way into the grounds agar to explore as the festival officially opens. Undoubtedly Electric Picnic provides the ticket holder with a unique experience, the site is creatively decorated with everything from towering flowers which line the walkway to metal sculpture and giant weaved animals. The Body and Soul area is particularly enchantingly situated among towering oak trees and is must to visit. Precisely what is unique about EP is that there’s always something to catch the eye, a performance of some sort (be it musical, literacy or a dance performance). Theres so much to do with out even including the music.
As punters explore the bewitching grounds, the first round of acts warm up on stage.
Laura Marling at Electric Picnic Review
After exploring wide eyed, my first musical stop was off to the Crawdaddy tent to see the very talented Mrs Laura Marling. Drawing a huge crowd for her set we decided to move our way slowly to the front, eager to catch this intimate performer up close, which is perhaps just as well as the vast majority of crowd in the Crawdaddy tent suffer from very poor gig etiquette, chatting throughout her set. Marling informs the crowd that she is nursing a cold and asks for a bit of quiet, which unfortunately fails to stop the persistent banter. Tracks from her ‘I Speak Because I Can’ album receives a great response from the noisy crowd but I feel the intimacy of her performance is lost in the noise and sheer volume of people that gathered to see her. She does however receive a warm reaction from the crowd that is drawn to see her. However I leave feeling that perhaps her sound would have been better appreciated in a smaller venue.
Modest Mouse / Foals Electric Picnic Review
Unsurprisingly the Friday headliners Modest Mouse draw a huge crowd to the main stage. Unfortunately their performance clash with Foals who were high on my list to see. I watch only a short amount of the performance, but I leave thankful that I manage to catch my favourite track, ‘Float On’ which produces one of the greatest sing along moments of the festival! Content I leave making my way back to the Crawdaddy stage to catch the Foals set which having seen them play in the past never ceases to impress. The band’s energy is infectious and their immense chant along songs such as ‘Cassius’ leaving the crowd jumping into a frenzy. It doesn’t take long for crowd-surfing and stage-diving to start, with singer Yannis Philippakis leading the way, taking a running jump into the crowd, and continuing to surf his way through the epic second half of the set to whoops of amazement from the delighted crowd.
Jonsi Electic Picnic 2010 Review
Our next musical spot off was to see the highly talented Jonsi preform. The performance even from the back of the arena was stunning both visually and musically with the vast array of instruments that were used. The set was joined with playful visuals including a spooky cartoon wolf that seemed to be perfectly in time with the music. The new album sounded much more impressive that what I’d expected and the crowd seemed delighted too, with ‘Grow Till Tall’ receiving the biggest response.
