Cois Fharraige Festival in Kilkee, Co. Clare

Things really kicked off in earnest at Cois Fharraige when The Blizzards – the penultimate act – arrived onstage on Friday evening. As it transpired, the Mullingar group represented a decent starting point for the weekend: their playful, disco-tinged pop-rock marks them out as one of few genuinely fun Irish acts, and a soaring cover of Heaven 17’s ‘Temptation’ proved to be a real highlight. Another plus point: vocalist Niall Breslin’s gigantic frame dwarfs his guitar to the point that he resembles an overgrown child playing a toy instrument. You’d have to love him for it!
To my ears, Fun Lovin’ Criminals – the evening’s bill-toppers – ran out of enjoyable variations on the formula that made them successful some time ago. A headline slot only serves to highlight their dilemma, as the set must be padded out with the wafer-thin rewrites they have been producing since their brief moment in the sun. Still, the paradox is that, on the night, ‘Scooby Snacks’ and ‘The Fun Lovin Criminal’ provide highs that few acts can match. They just need to hit a new groove once in a while, that’s all.
The smaller-name bands on Saturday afternoon ended up playing to relatively small houses. Neither The Kinetiks nor 28 Costumes successfully take the bull by the horns: they both inhabit the mainstream indie milieu of Franz Ferdinand or the Arctic Monkeys, but as yet – understandably perhaps – exhibit considerably less style. A similar accusation could be levelled at The Enemy, but they deliver their clichés with such snarling, teeth-gritting ferocity that the originality deficit is easier to ignore.
Context: many years ago, this budding music fan attended an Ash gig at which the first support act (name escapes me, came below Chicks on the bill, to give an idea of their profile) performed a set so obnoxious that it has remained buried deep in his subconscious to this day. Upon setting eyes on the Republic Of Loose’s lead vocalist Mick Pyro, there is a sudden, awful moment of realization – Pyro was a member of the offending group (I’m finally understanding how Ed Harris’ character in A History Of Violence felt, upon hearing that the man who gouged his eye out is now being feted as an clean-cut American hero).
Perversely, the Loose’s set proves to be a weekend highlight: Pyro’s sleazy laddishness has at last been placed in a fitting context, and the group’s feisty, uninhibited R&B is a treat.
Saturday’s two remaining acts are intermittently enjoyable. Ocean Colour Scene sensibly play to their strengths, summoning forth their anthemic, melodic side, rather than the workmanlike, muso tendencies into which they can occasionally slip. Finally, Paddy Casey steps up to close the event in fine style – and any reservations this observer may have about him are swept away amid the frantic, hands-aloft crowd sing-along to ‘Saints And Sinners’.
A pleasing weekend’s music, that made for an enjoyably relaxed comedown from the Electric Picnic.