It’s about 5pm in Tullamore. A 74-year old gentleman in tweed is propositioning me in the turret of Charleville Castle, but a pair of irresistibly bonny toddlers are giving me the cold shoulder. No less than three free hats have been slapped on my head and I’ve already stepped on two unidentifiable figures rolling joyously around in a mud puddle – at their request, naturally. I’ve been at Castlepalooza for about 20 minutes.
But random acts of mayhem or no random acts of mayhem; there’s music to be heard. Billed as the ultimate '90s experience, Attention Bébé use vocals, guitars, a full brass and string section and a couple of sign-wielding dancers to recreate everything from Craig David’s ‘Rewind’ to Gala’s ‘Free From Desire’. This is not just a cover band. This is a dirty, funky, freak-out cover band.
Over on the main stage, power rockers CODES are sounding as delightfully grandiose as ever (special props to frontman Daragh Anderson for attacking several crowd members with his guitar), while a short but stirring set by Funeral Suits marks the instrument-hopping trio as new age electro merchants to rival the likes of Passion Pit and Delphic.
Regular Hot Press readers will be accustomed to reports of the guitar-fueled wizardry of The Cast Of Cheers, which is lucky because I can’t concentrate on the brain-busting robot rock for more than three minutes without some punter tugging on my sleeve and asking for the names of these mesmerising gents. Whatever the Dublin foursome are doing up there (next time I’m springing for a t-shirt with their MySpace address on it!), the gyrating tunesters have inspired the happiest crowd of the weekend.
This is only instrumental legends Adebisi Shank’s second Irish gig in almost eight months and it’s quite a change from their last show, which saw them thrill 300 die-hards in the sweaty confines of Dublin’s Twisted Pepper. Totally unfazed, the mind-boggling trio are blowing minds and presumably, breaking a few bones on the ‘Palooza stage with an impossibly tight and ecstatically possessed performance that mixes the frantic old with the spellbinding new.
Bray lad Fionn Regan has a tough act to follow but some impassioned strumming on darker numbers ‘Violent Demeanor’ and ‘Lord, Help My Pour Soul’ help bridge the gap. Heart-squeezing ditties like ‘Put The Penny In The Slot’ and ‘Be Good Or Be Gone’ are typically stirring. Mercury Rev finish the night off with some soaring, theatrical psychedelia, plucking happily from their 20-year pool of epic dream pop. For fans of the band, it was the perfect Mercury Rev show. For the rest of us, well, there was plenty to be getting on with.
If you’ll indulge my gushing for just a minute; Castlepalooza had everything a good time gal could want in a weekend; castle-dwelling bongo-players, beautiful people swanning about in flower head dresses, free swag by the bucket load, world-class tunes from a largely Irish line-up and most bizarrely of all, About The House’s Duncan Stewart lifting young girls miraculously over his head for photo ops.
Now here comes the bad news. The two-day festival featured a remarkably disproportionate line-up, with about 70% of the big hitters playing on the Saturday. Here, you had to make a decision; spend the Sabbath in Charleville humming along to some folky acts you’ve never heard of from a silk hammock, or follow the noise and thumb a lift down to Indiependence. For those who chose the former, highlights included James Vincent McMorrow’s caramel crooning, Daithi O Dronai’s wild fiddle loops and Brooklyn man Taylor McFerrin’s funktastic beatboxing.
Lopsided line-up notwithstanding, Castlepalooza has raised the Irish festival bar exceptionally high. Duncan Stewart high.