Top picks for this weekend's three Irish music festivals
The weekend ahead has three of the major summer music events.
gives the lowdown on each of them and selects the must-see acts.
All Together Now
Roisin Murphy
As front person of Moloko and later a solo artist, Roisin Murphy stands head and shoulders above as Ireland’s most fascinating pop star.
Her music, a savvy electro-funk that swings from vulnerable to imperious, speaks to her powers of invention.
She is also an arresting live performer, who, without a major label budget, utilises simple costume changes and props to create her own pop universe.
Plus, she is at the forefront of re-calibrating what it is to be an independent artist in the wild frontier that is the post-physical sales music industry, with 2016’s Take Her Up To Monto inspired by a song her father used to sing about Dublin’s Red Light District and also about the brutalist architecture of her home in London.
Her next project will be a movie about her experiences as a teenager during the ‘Madchester’ explosion, after she moved to the UK with her family.
Fleet Foxs, Mogwai, Villagers, Nils Frahm, First Aid Kit.
A new festival in a new setting. The grounds and gardens of this County Waterford big house are the backdrop as promoter Pod add to a festival portfolio that already includes Forbidden Fruit and Metropolis.
The tone is bohemian escapism and while the music lineup is impressive it is just one among many components.
A “Gospel Brunch” curated by chef Paul Flynn and featuring the London Gospel Choir will appeal to foodies as will a farmers' market showcasing Waterford suppliers.
Another highlight surely will be Arcadia Spectacular, starring the ‘Arcadia Afterburner’.
This is a flame-belching techo stage designed by scrap metal sculptor Pip Rush Jansen and engineer Bert Cole, the seeds of which were planted when the duo met in Ireland 10 years ago.
A comedy stage will feature David McSavage, and Tommy Tiernan while the All Curious Minds literary and spoken word area welcomes avant-garde novelist Will Self and poet and performer Saul Williams.
And for families, the “Kids Together” area in a walled garden has been programmed by the team behind the Lollibop children’s festival in London.
Prince’s old backing band The New Power Generation perform some of the purple pop deity’s greatest hits, Cork’s Talos conjures dreamy soundscapes and a DJ set by Groove Armada brings the beats.
General weekend camping €169.50; family weekend camping €159.50; Sunday day ticket
BEATYARD
Kamasi Washington
Jazz is apparently the new rock ’n roll (which started as the new jazz). With music streaming encouraging hopscotching between genres, artist such as Kamasi Washington have gained a new audience.
Hailed as the “figurehead of the jazz revival”, the Los Angeles musician specialising in cosmic soundscapes that draw equally on Miles Davis and on Seventies Afrofuturists such as Sun-Ra (himself making a posthumous comeback).
His introduction to a more mainstream audience came via his appearance on Kendrick Lamar’s state-of-the-black-nation epic To Pimp A Butterfly, which Washington followed with two acclaimed records, 2015’s The Epic (named by the as one of its top LPs of that year) and last year’s Heaven and Earth.
The Jacksons, Django Django, Daphni, St Germain, Kiasmos
Eclectic hardly does justice to the latest edition of this harbourside event from club promoters Bodytonic.
Friday welcomes The Jacksons, aka Michael Jackson siblings Jermaine, Tito, Jackie and Marlon.
Saturday features aforementioned jazz wizard (and Kendrick Lamar collaborator) Kamasi Washington, electro-leaning indie group Django Django, Daphni (aka Caribou’s Dan Snaith) and Gorillaz-collaborators Little Dragon.
And Sunday has the vintage electro double-whammy of St Germain and Orbital, plus the iconic rappers Sugarhill Gang and techno guru Daniel Avery.
That’s one of the most singular and multifaceted line-ups of any festival this summer, juxtaposing the vintage r’n b of The Jacksons with the scenic techno of St Germain and Orbital and the pure pop of Django Django, whose third album, Marble Skies, has been greeted as a definitive marriage of alternative rock and thumping electronica.
A “Kids Yard” section will delight with a nautical balloon making and Legoyard – a Lego-scale recreation of Beatyard. Foodies are catered for with Eatyard, where on Sunday judges will run the rule over a “Crisp Sambo Championship”. The Dun Laoghaire setting furthermore makes the entire endeavour easily accessible by Dublin-based music fans.
three day ticket: €150, Friday €59, Saturday, €59, Sunday €59
INDIEPENDENCE
Primal Scream
Dance-rock pioneers Primal Scream are two years out from their excellent Chaosmosis LP but it’s their Nineties catalogue (Loaded, Movin’ On Up) that will draw the fans.
What separates them from their peers is that while other Nineties artists seem comfortable to lean on nostalgia, Primal Scream keep pushing – challenging both themselves as their fans.
“We’ve got opinions,” singer Bobby Gillespie once told the . “And other bands don’t seem to have opinions.
"We aren’t political in the sense that we think you should vote for this party or that party. We are making a critique of society. As artists that is your job. As I sit here and say this it sounds arrogant. But it’s not. It’s my job.”
Everything Everything, Kate Nash, Delorentos, Tom Grennan, 1000 Beasts
A surprise Mercury Music Prize nomination has shone a spotlight back on Manchester indie group Everything Everything while Kerry’s Walking On Cars are the highest profile Irish artists.
Worth checking out, too, is Kate Nash, who owned the charts 10 years ago with the bouncy Foundations and has since reinvented herself as a truth-telling songwriter (you may also know her from the Netflix hit Glow, in which she plays Eighties wrestler Rhonda “Britannica” Richardson).
Joining the healthy Irish line-up are sensitive rockers Delorentos, madcap techno exhibitionists King Kong Company and brothers act Hudson Taylor.
An urban village stage will showcase grooves from Kojaque, Shookrah, Stevie G and others.
Weekend €139; Day €52
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