How was it for you? Irish Examiner arts writer Ellie O'Byrne selects her highlights of 2020
Highlights for Ellie O'Byrne, left, include Bitch Falcon, Tiger King and Susan O'Neill.
I was lucky enough to attend Music Minds festival in Doolin, Co Clare at the end of January 2020. Little did I know this would be the first, last, and only live music of 2020.
Fortunately the line-up included the fabulous SON (Susan O’Neill), who went on to get an RTÉ Folk Award alongside Mick Flannery this year, for their duet Babytalk.
Electronic duo Sollkatt shone and a first encounter with Limerick songwriter Emma Langford was breath-taking. Had I known this would be the only live music of 2020 maybe I would have listened more and spent less time having the craic at the roaring braziers laid on outdoors by the venue. Or maybe not: maybe it’s the people, the humour and the atmosphere I’m missing most.
Bitch Falcon’s Staring At Clocks was released in November – given the Dublin trio’s accomplished musicianship and position on the gigging circuit, the fact it’s a debut full-length album seems astonishing. Huge drums, Lizzie Fitzpatrick’s virtuosic guitar, and for me, satisfying nods to grunge nostalgia. The emotion-laden Turn to Gold and Gaslight’s wall-of-sound heaviness are particular favourites.
I didn’t read any new books in 2020. I’m ploughing through Thomas Kinsella’s translation of The Táin at snail’s pace, living vicariously through Dervla Murphy’s life on the open road in Full Tilt, and slowly digesting GAIA Foundation founder Stephen Harrod Buhner’s The Lost Language of Plants.
It was impossible not to fall under the spell of the enthralling Tiger King, if only because it was one of the few things out there more surreal than actual life in March 2020.
During the summer, when the travel itch was bad, I found myself binge-watching episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s globetrotting in No Reservations – including the final, painful season when it was clear Bourdain was struggling. His ability to use the medium of food to transcend cultural and political divides is amazing.
I began recording my own podcast in 2020 – Green Bites, the Irish Food Sustainability Podcast - and they are so bloody time-consuming that I haven’t been listening to much. I heard one episode of the phenomenal Wind of Change, Patrick Radden Keefe’s exploration of the CIA’s putative Cold War use of music to fight communism. It was amazing and I’ll finish it when I have time.
I’m getting tired of the outright abuse of the term “Live.” To me, “Live” is being in the room with the thing, while the thing is happening. I’m not much one for TV and let’s face it, variations in presentation aside, a televised revolution is what the deluge of streamed and recorded gigs and performances dominating the tail end of 2020 amounts to.
Privately, many interviewees this year have admitted that their tolerance for “online events” is actually really low – they log in to show support, but often won’t sit through the whole thing. I worry that engagement figures might be artificially inflated, and I worry that government funding to venues to produce such a plethora of the stuff will lead to over-exposure for the small pool of Irish acts doing the rounds whose performance can adapt to the medium.
There’s no substitute for live and we need it back as soon as possible – hopefully this will be the second half of 2021.
