Sunday best for Indiependence Festival

LIKE any sport that is characterised by endurance this year’s Indiependence Music & Arts Festival in Mitchelstown, Co Cork, seemed to communicate the value of peaking at the right moment.

After doing enough to keep things ticking over on Friday and Saturday the festival reserved all its knock-out blows for Sunday.

Last year, windswept Dingle rockers Walking On Cars were installed in the newly installed Beer Hall stage at the festival. On Friday they were close to the top of the bill on the Main Stage and proved good value for their placement as they climaxed with breakthrough single ‘Catch Me If You Can’. Ivor Novello-award-winning songwriter Tom Odell’s Billy Joel-isms can lean towards the over portentous, as if he’s trying to craft the break-up version of ‘Goodnight Saigon’ but it’s fascinating to see his audience embrace such old school blues rock numbers of his as ‘See if I Care’.