Hozier homecoming delivers at Longitude Festival

The homecoming of Hozier was the unofficial theme of day one of the Longitude Festival in Marley Park, Dublin, with the Wicklow chart-topper delivering a relatively rare Irish performance after a year busily conquering the US and elsewhere.

“It’s great to see such a big crowd,” he said. “It’s even better to be home.”

As festival headliner, the 25-year-old is undoubtedly a natural. His big, booming songs — a canny mix of anthemic and organic — were a perfect curtain-closer. He road-tested several new tracks and rewarded fans for their patience with hits ‘Take Me To Church’ and ‘Someone New’.

Unfolding in the heart of suburbia, Longitude has, in just three years, carved a distinctive niche.

The attendance at Marlay Park was youthful and firmly middle class. Indeed, anyone over the age of 30 who did not speak in a South County Dublin faux American accent might have felt out of place.

Fortunately, the music was of such consistently high quality that the persistent sense of being a stranger in a strange land didn’t intrude on your fun.

Nicole Hughes, Amelia Slattery, Louisa Collins, and Nicola Barton enjoy the weather and the tunes at Longitude Festival 2015 in Marley

Park, Dublin. Picture: Tony Kinlan

Saturday was distinguished by the early appearance of Years and Years, who celebrated their debuting album shooting to number one in the Irish charts this week with a spry, shuffling set.

Headlining that evening were Caribou and Alt-J, purveyors of awkward dance-pop and awkward arena rock respectively.

Geeky and gawky, both outfits were natural-born outsiders who had somehow transitioned into festival headliners — a state of affairs that appeared to leave them simultaneously baffled and delighted.

Away from the festival’s main stage, plenty of off-beat alternatives awaited.

The intimate Whelan’s tent, for instance, attracted a near-capacity attendance for Girl Band, a Dublin quartet on the brink of an international breakthrough (nerdy music bloggers can’t get enough of their teetering alternative pop) while, on the Heineken Stage, electronic artists Toro Y Moi and Hudson Mohawke deployed quicksilver grooves.

Back on the main stage, the early evening lull almost wasn’t noticeable thanks to Le Galaxie, a ferociously bearded home-town ensemble whose frenetic electro rock is equally enjoyable and absurd, and Jungle, a scowling London ‘collective’ specialising in avant-garde r’n’b.

Revelers at Longitude in Marley Park. Picture: Tony Kinlan

A festival lives or dies by the weather and in that regard Longitude, with a daily attendance of approximately 16,000, was mostly blessed.

The sun gazed beatifically down on Saturday and clement conditions were expected on Sunday also.

And because this was an urban affair in the heart of chattering-class Dublin, patrons were not required to rough it at a campsite.

Sterling tunes combined with the absence of the traditional Irish festival mud-bath ensured Longitude was a journey in the right direction throughout the weekend.