The low-down from Cork’s Indiependence Festival

With dusk falling on the Saturday evening of the Indiependence Music & Arts Festival, a gravel- voiced female festival-goer is displaying early symptoms of the festival equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder: "Why is my voice like this?"

There are many reasons for this, and most are self-inflicted. And while an autumn chill cut through the sunshine on the second day of the festival, that perennial bugbear of domestic outdoor events — the weather — was mostly kind to those who found themselves in the area of Mitchelstown this bank holiday weekend.

Two years ago, Indiependence was visited by a downpour of biblical proportions and each year since has seen the organisers take positive steps in tackling that problem, resulting in relocating campsites and stage areas to areas of harder ground and this year covering the last remaining exposed stage area, the Canadian Main Stage, with a marquee.