IT WASN'T quite like the days of yore with crowds pushing up towards the magic 100,000 mark but Slane '93 will still go down in many people's book as one of the year's musical highlights.
With a couple of not-so-golden showers putting a damper on proceedings early in the day, the crowd was thin on the ground when The Blue Angels went on stage, and proceeded to give it loads. Those who watched closely weren't disappointed - the Angels are one of Ireland's hottest live acts right now, and they turned in a powerful performance.
Next up were 4 Non Blondes who put on what can only be described as a spirited showing. Quite what lead singer Linda Perry had in mind when she dived into the crowd is hard to say but she won herself a front page story on the Sunday World (I'd say it was a slow day). "People normally pass me along, over their heads but here they wanted to take my trousers off," she complained (sort of). "They had my zip down and my trousers around my knees." Well, it was enough to get the World frothing, and 4 Non Blondes say they have no problem about making a return trip to a country populated by such red-blooded males, so I guess everyone's happy.
James were up next and failed to set the place alight before the first highpoint was arrived at in the shape of The Sawdoctors, who arrived on a barge which they'd sailed up the Boyne! Without a doubt they're a live act of real international clout and they proved it again here, grabbing the gig by the scruff of the neck and delivering a powerful set which will have won them new fans - and which included a fine and welcome musical and verbal tribute to the Minister for Arts and Culture Michael D. Higgins. If you stayed hanging around the VIP area beside the castle you'd have no idea just how well The Sawdoctors did - but down among the heaving masses towards the front, they were winning new fans by the number.
By comparison the great Van Morrison was a calming influence. I'm not sure that Van's music can be done full justice in the open air - it is so monumentally intense in confined spaces that here it seemed to drift away into the stratosphere - but it was a good show nevertheless from a man who seems remarkably at home with himself and his music right now.
Pearl Jam were next up and they split the crowd right down the middle. "They're fuckin' crap," one well known singer commented in the VIP area but the hardened fans didn't agree. In fact at about 7.30 you could have been forgiven for assuming that up to 15,000 of the 30,000-odd at Slane had actually come for Pearl Jam, so thorough was the audience's identification with the band, and so well did they seem to know the tunes.
"This is our first time here. We didn't know it was so cool," lead singer Eddie Vedder said. "We're gonna have to come back and do some club dates or something,". And there the band launched into "Teenage Wasteland", their final number and as good a stab at classic hard rock as you're likely to hear in a long while.
Any impression that people had come to see Pearl Jam was demolished however, when Neil Young hit the stage, with Booker T and the fabulous MGs in tow. He launched immediately into upfront assault mode, staking his claim to the Godfather of Grunge title with dirty FX-driven guitar sounds and long intense, searing solos. "Like A Hurricane", "Helpless" and an incendiary "Powderfinger" were early highlights before Young pulled out the acoustic guitar and launched into "Harvest Moon".
It's fair to say that, with the sun going down and glowing red over Slane, a marvellous hush descended on the place and in that moment of rare tranquillity you could feel the tender shoots of romance, drawing people together beneath an enveloping sense of wonder. People sang along, and it felt warm and good and Slane '93 made complete and utter sense, the rapt attention of the crowd a fine statement of appreciation for one of rock's great pioneering spirits.
From there on, the emotions mounted so that by evening's end Neil Young had led people down all sorts of memory lanes and yet had made it feel utterly contemporary. Only the churlish can have gone home dissatisfied.
One tired and bedraggled T-shirt seller, who'd been let down by his van man, stood beside a box of merchandise in the deserted streets of Slane a couple hours after everyone sane and sensible had long departed and smiled. "It was a fuckin' good day," he said, "I learned a lot."
When the elixir is right, nothing else matters. Tonight, it was and nothing else did.