Edel Coffey: growing up and learning life lessons at Electric Picnic

Picture: Conal McSweeney

I always associate Electric Picnic with the turning of the season, the last party before we all go back to school, the final carefree weekend standing up straight in the sunshine before we adjust to a 45-degree tilt to shoulder in the shutting-down of the days and push through the gathering evenings into winter. 

But next year Electric Picnic is changing its dates to mid-August, which means this is the last time Electric Picnic will happen on that traditional last weekend of summer.

It’s probably not a bad thing. The late-in-the-season date often involved bad weather, chilly nights, and goose-pimpled skin. But as often as not, it also reaped the benefits of Indian summers, which made that feeling of the last days of summer all the sweeter.

The news that the date was shifting had me musing on what Electric Picnic meant to me and I think now, in retrospect, it was actually a defining part of my twenties and early thirties, that time of my life where I was becoming an adult, discovering myself and who I was. When Electric Picnic started, there was nothing like it in Ireland.

Before it, there was Féile, and then Oxegen, which were less about the music and more about drunk lads sneaking up on you and giving you a wedgie (in my humble experience, that is). 

Electric Picnic was pitched (sorry) as a boutique festival, a festival that appealed to a crowd who had outgrown the appeal of the drunken wedgie.

I’ve a lot of fond memories of Electric Picnic. I went every year for the guts of 10 years but as detailed in previous columns, I only camped once. I never felt like I was missing out. 

I was often at the festival for work, doing interviews with authors and bands, so it was always preferable to drive home and get a good night’s sleep.

I’ve had many magical musical experiences there, seeing bands that later went on to become global rock forces in tiny intimate settings. I remember seeing The White Stripes in an empty tent in the middle of the day. 

I stood transfixed at the front of the stage as they belted out their early songs and a cover version of Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’. I knew I was getting front-row access to rock royalty.

That was part of the joy of the festival. Electric Picnic tended to catch bands as they were just about to crest, bands who a year or two later were selling out arenas but at that moment were just establishing themselves.

There were funny moments too. I remember waiting for a portaloo and striking up a conversation with a man in the queue behind me.

We had a chat about music and he seemed remarkably knowledgeable. I asked him what he was here for. “Oh I’m playing in a few minutes,” he said. I looked into his face and said with dawning mortification, “…you’re Peter Hook from New Order”. At least he laughed.

Picture: Bríd O'Donovan

There were some magical collaborations too. I remember watching John Grant perform his album Pale Green Ghosts. Sinéad O’Connor had provided the backing vocals on the album and I remember thinking, wouldn’t it be amazing if Sinéad was here to sing these songs with John?

Seconds later she appeared on the stage and brought us all to tears, as she always did, with her voice. I didn’t know then that that would be the last time I would see Sinéad O’Connor perform live.

Often that’s the way with the last time we do anything. We don’t realise at the time that it’s the last time. Just as we don’t realise as we carry our children to bed, one day will be the last carry… we can only know it in retrospect.

The last time I went to Electric Picnic was nine years ago now, and it is fixed in my memory as a really happy time. I was dating a new man, who turned out to be my husband, I was working in a job that I loved and I was excited not to be on duty at the festival that year.

 I didn’t know that it would be my last trip to Electric Picnic. I assumed I would continue my annual pilgrimage in the way that we all assume life goes on, unchanging.

I have a picture from that weekend where myself and my two friends are smiling broadly at the camera, completely unaware that by the time the earth had gone around the sun one more time, two of us would be mothers, and a few years later the third was too.

I think what I’m trying to say here is that while my festival-going days may be behind me for now, I will always think of Electric Picnic on this last weekend of summer as the final hurrah of the year, and I will always think of my own last Electric Picnic as a happy time of new beginnings in my life that were, unbeknownst to me, already in train.