Hard Working Class Heroes is, in many ways, a perfect festival concept: the short sets are ideal, given the (understandably) embryonic state of many of the acts, and the short distance between the various stages enables punters to gorge on as many bands as possible.
Super Extra Bonus Party are Friday night’s first real event – arguably the most talked-about Irish indie newcomers of 2007, and with good reason too. The Crawdaddy venue is jammed, sweaty and filled with the scented smog of dry ice; the collective can barely squeeze onto the less-than-ample stage, but their frenetic mixture of rock, hip-hop and electronica is exuberant and explosive.
The Working Man’s Club venue is stage-less, with performers playing at audience level. The set-up seems to give artists an added touch of ferocity; the Hassle Merchants’ bawdy, Libertines-referencing punk-funk is one-dimensional, but ideally suited to this environment.
The Jimmy Cake are the evening’s highlight, though. Many of the weekend’s acts struggle in the Tripod stage’s more cavernous environs, but the post-rock collective’s expansive, celebratory feel thrives in this sort of setting.
The Tupelo Honeys are the first act to genuinely kill on Saturday night. A Swedish group, their music is actually more reminiscent of the lush, euphoric indie pop currently in vogue on the Canadian indie scene, and the angel-wings sported by several band members are pure Sufjan Stevens.
Noise Control deliver a storming set at the Pod stage: a frenetic mixture of electro, rap and rock. Rapper/vocalist Mark K.I.D certainly scoops the award for most energised frontman of the weekend: a wired, constantly pogo-ing bundle of energy, with tons of over-eager charm.
Channel One’s moody electro-rock makes for a pleasing antidote to this musical AD/HD, though they are undone a touch by the vocals, which are warbling and overbearing, and placed a touch too high in the mix.
Fight Like Apes’ set is one of the weekends’ best received, both musically intoxicating and visually intriguing. A wild-haired, animated and peculiarly gorgeous female lead singer is flanked by two bearded, glassy-eyed gentlemen, one of whom is roughly three feet shorter than the other. The buzzsaw pop of their Phantom FM-approved hit single ‘Lend Me Your Face’ elicits a particularly strong crowd reaction.
Sunday night is, perhaps, a little more sparsely attended than its predecessors, but there are still a number of storming sets to take in. Dry County’s pummelling electro thump is one of the Tripod stage’s highlights, and the mixture of frantic, restless visuals and the music’s relentless industrial whack reaches a peak on storming single ‘Heal Me’.
The weekend is dotted with enjoyable sonic peculiarities, but few are more eccentric than Grand Pocket Orchestra. Their music is an exceedingly strange mixture of childlike, simplistic melody and frantic rock’n’roll energy, and the band’s set is greeted with a mixture of bemusement and delight.
Moody post-rockers Halves are extremely unlucky. For a good chunk of their set, the group are an undoubted weekend highlight: a gorgeous, tranquil wash of glazed ambience and dreamy guitar noise. They are undone by technical difficulties though, and unfortunately, the sweet, hypnotic flow of their music is more reliant upon continuity than many other bands, who could merely ride out these mechanical glitches. But onlookers will not forget that, for a stretch, this performance possessed a cosmic beauty that few others can touch.
A wired, weird and wonderful weekend of music, which re-affirmed this observer’s faith in Ireland’s independent scene.