Festival season officially gets underway this weekend, with a host of huge music events set to take place across the country
There's plenty of huge concerts taking place over the coming days for music fans to get excited about, including the return of one of the first big festivals of the summer, and a huge open-air gig from one of Ireland's biggest pop acts.
Now in its 12th edition, Forbidden Fruit at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham is one of the big festival success stories of the last decade or so, selling out most years, and welcoming some of the world’s biggest acts, and an inclusive line-up that doesn’t cause Longitude-style better-in-my-day rants from grumpy has-beens who haven’t listened to hip-hop since The Blueprint. And even though the crowd veers young, aka people like me are getting old, there’s still a blast of nostalgia this year.Nelly Furtado is playing her first Irish show in 23 years, mixing her early 2000s poppy R&B over the field with her more recent edgier synth-pop and hip-hop cuts. Irish duo Bicep are the maximalist standout of the weekend, with their techno and eye-razing installation AV concept Chroma. After adding his rugged rhymes to The Bug’s heavy dub destruction in Dublin earlier this year, grime MC and partner Neffa-T will be the heaviest piledriver in Kilmainham, while Four Tet is celebrating his long-awaited crossover success with another freewheeling set of electronic alchemy. There’s plenty to keep electronic fans front left, with Barry Can’t Swim’s live, the techno pairing of Daniel Avery and IMOGEN, DJ Boring, DJ Gigola, and DJ Seinfeld, covering everything from lo-fi house to deep techno. The hip-hop heads are covered with the raw, unfiltered gangsta rap of Freddie Gibbs, along with Frankie Stew & Harvey Gunn and Lord Apex in the mix. Gemma Dunleavy is set for the biggest singalong of Up da Flats, while the much-hyped New Yorkers Infinity Song are making their Irish debut. And to keep an eye on the future tent headliners, the RTE 2FM Rising class of 2024 are Big Sleep, Brad Heidi, Chubby Cat, Jordan Adetunji, Qbanaa, Saibh Skelly, Shee, Sick Love, Strabe and The Cope. And even though the party at Kilmainham finishes at 10.30pm, an early night isn’t mandatory. After-parties featuring the likes of Barry Can’t Swim, DJ Seinfeld, Interplanetary Criminal, Sally C are taking over Centre Point, Wigwam, Grand Social and Tengu. All Sunday tickets are sold out. Extremely limited Saturday and weekend tickets remain and are available via Ticketmaster but are expected to sell out in advance.The artwork for Irish producer Iglooghost’s new album Tidal Memory Exo goes in hard. It’s him waist deep in the ocean with a set of decks and hardware, about to drop the needle on a circular saw — and there’s a jellyfish hanging off the decks. Seamus Malliagh is a young prodigy of sorts — an electronic composer, designer and vocalist who released his first EP as a teen, which was a bubblegum rave-pop concept album about a dimension-hopping space worm. Tidal Memory Exo is another concept album he concocted while “living in a rust-ridden flooded squat in a weird UK seaside town”. There’s elements of glitchy hip-hop covered in “oceanic scum”, cold wave, electro, techno, dub hallucinations and twisted maximalist Brainfeeder funk, with his abstract vocals always out of reach. Tickets to Iglooghost gig at Workman’s Club in Dublin this Saturday are available on Ticketmaster, priced at €18.00 each.Compared with the easy task of getting the Luas to Heuston Station and walking a few minutes to Forbidden Fruit, the trek to Open Ear may feel like a voyage too far. But the underground weekender isn’t made for easy digestion. Set in the breathtaking Sherkin Island off West Cork, it’s a festival at the very edge of Ireland, and the outer limits of experimentation you’ll find at any Irish festival. Since 2016, with the odd year off for Covid and rejuvenation, Open Ear is a no-bullshit, no commercial pandering celebration of thoughtful electronics, drones, outsider global folk, techno and whatever weird noise you’re willing to dance to at the edge of a cliff. They don’t do big headliners, but there’s no stage clashes all weekend, and gigs covering the whole island, so technically you could tick off every act on the line-up. The festival opened last night with a free performance from Syrian Kurd folk musician Mohammad Syfkhan, while other artists over the weekend include Kate Carr & David Donohoe, da Googie, Saturn Returns, Rustal, Hilary Woods, Ossia and loads more.Picture This St Anne’s Park, Dublin - Tomorrow, €49.90-59.90; It's weird to think that hype is dying down for Picture This while they’re playing a big outdoor venue that’s hosted the likes of Lionel Richie, Dermot Kennedy, Pulp and Noel Gallagher. But it’s all relative, after a three-year explosive rise that turned them into the most hyped act in Ireland, and a band the industry was backing to the hilt. In 2015, Kildare duo Ryan Hennessy and Jimmy Rainsford formed Picture This when Ryan put a demo of the song Take My Hand on Facebook and it caught Jimmy’s attention. They recorded Take My Hand in October 2015 and it went viral, when young people were still on Facebook and it wasn’t just your crap uncle sharing ‘remember this’ memes. Tickets to Picture This's gig at St Anne's Park are still available on Ticketmaster, priced from €49.90–€59.90.It takes a brave brass neck to run a big outdoor rave way outside Dublin, when Forbidden Fruit is just there in the city. But Punchestown has secured some big names for this two-day festival of sorts, that runs from 5pm, with last entry at 10pm. Headlining tomorrow, Detroit house star MK will blast big room global dance hits like Push the Feeling On, Look Right Through, and 17. Before MK, guest DJs Dom Dolla, NewEra, Conor Coates and Jen Payne will be warming up. Topping off the bank holiday weekend, Dublin duo Belters Only will be loading up their dance-pop confections Obskür, Route 94 and Jazzy will be on first — and expect Jazzy to join her collaborators Belters Only on stage.Rewind St Anne’s Park, Dublin - Sunday, €49.90 These turn-back-the-clock festivals always feel like a throw a dart at a board full of retro acts and see what you get. There’s nothing much that binds Gabrielle’s 90s R&B, Squeeze’s new wave boogie, or T’Pau’s big-haired power balladry, beyond knowing you’ve heard their hits on the radio in Centra, or the car when you stop at Classic Hits FM. But nostalgia is an ever-bulging business, especially when more generations are ageing out of the cultural zeitgeist. Rewind also features M People’s Heather Small, shiny 80s pop from Nik Kershaw, the inoffensive pop-rock of The Christians and Go West’s catchy pop. And the Irish acts still play in ‘regular’ line-ups too — Hothouse Flowers are still going strong, Tom Dunne’s Something Happens come out of retirement all the time, and Jerry Fish is the Nile Rodgers of the Irish festival circuit, playing every year at whatever is going.Sign up for our daily newsletter to get the latest news direct to your inbox Join the Irish Mirror’s breaking news service on WhatsApp. Click this link to receive breaking news and the latest headlines direct to your phone. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don’t like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you’re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
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