Electric Picnic 2005: Sunday round-up

The comedy tent pulled crowds away from the music - Adam Hills was particularly mischievous in phoning an audience member's mum to say that he was on heroin. And with plenty more material than time on stage, Dave McSavage entertained for an impromptu few minutes in the field outside the comedy tent.
But headliner Tommy Tiernan stole the show when he played his last gig here for the next couple of years. The Navan funnyman is heading over stateside early in 2006 to seek his fame and fortune there.
The main music stages, though, remained at the forefront. The Redneck Manifesto, kicked off proceedings for the Sunday in fine style, inspiring a hefty lunchtime crowd who needed little time to warm up for the dive into the moshpit.
There were last-minute cancellations from The Rakes, The Subways and Roisin Murphy, whose keyboard player went AWOL. The Arklow-born singer was clearly disappointed, but still fulfilled her commitment to be interviewed in the Hot Press chat room.
Also gracing the chat room was Bob Mould, who made no bones about what he thought of Husker Du drummer Grant Hart: "I don't trust him," he said.
He then went on to play the Bob Mould Band's first ever gig on the Crawdaddy Stage, which included Husker Du and Sugar tracks like 'Celebrated Summer' and 'Changes'
Another artist who made it to the chat room was James Blunt, who chatted to Stuart Clark and the fans that crammed in the tent. Although his main stage performance went down well, his cover of 'Where Is My Mind?' prompted outrage from diehard Pixies fans in the audience.
Over the weekend, the VIP area was filled with Ireland's great and good. Making an appearance at the festival was Ollie Cole (Turn), Paul Noonan (BellX1) and Mundy. There were rife rumours that Pete Doherty's on/off squeeze Kate Moss was in attendance, but as of yet, no eyes can confirm that.
Also hanging around was Nathan Connelly from Snow Patrol, who fed hp.com the news that Gary Lightbody's changed allegiance and has been DJing at Manumission in Ibiza. Hmmm...
For a full review of the weekend's happenings, you may like to purchase the new issue of Hot Press, out on Thursday.