Electric Picnic Day 3: St. Vincent's A Showstopper, Irish Contingent Impress Once Again

It hasn’t gone unnoticed this year that Irish acts have been firmly given pride of place at Ireland’s premier music festival. There might've been a time where organisers would've stuffed the bottom rungs of a festival line-up with a few Irish acts as a token gesture, and a reviewer would do the perfunctory coverage of these.

No more.

Ireland has enough talent to fill the entire EP bill if it wanted to. You'd've gotten your festival's worth of good music this weekend if you only saw other Irish acts. That should be common knowledge now and it shouldn't be forgotten for every promoter and organiser in the country.

To that end, Day 3 kicks off with Sorcha Richardson at the Rankin’s Wood Stage. One of the finest voices in contemporary Irish music, she’s goes through her backlog of previous singles and manages to pull in punters to the tent even at this awkward early hour of the day. ‘Waking Life’ and new single ‘Can’t We Pretend’ are among the highlights of the set. I managed to miss the infectious ‘Ruin Your Night’ at the start of the set, but Sorcha being her good self, she stops by the Hot Press Chatroom and plays a stripped back version of it, as well as talking about her long-awaited album.

ALL-IRELAND

There’s a few Philistines hanging on back at the Mindfield stage for what was surely the most predictable and boring All-Ireland final in years. Fair play to them. We opted instead for the Electric Arena, where Bray trio Wyvern Lingo prove themselves to be anything but those things. Take their cover of Drake’s ridiculously chilled 2017 hit ‘Passionfruit’. Wyvern Lingo can take a song like that and transform it into their own unique arrangement. ‘When I Can’ is the unexpected highlight of the set, showcasing the incredible interplay of their voices, as well as reminding us that the trio's debut album is packed to the rafters with hits. Wicklow, you're destined to forever suffer when it comes to the GAA, but Jaysus you've got the music to make up for it.

After Wyvern Lingo, it's a quick sprint over to the Rankin’s Wood tent to catch the end of Wild Youth. There’s a palpable atmosphere of witnessing a band who are mere steps away from the big time. Genuinely, the tent is jammed. There’s young ones screaming the lyrics at the front. Frontman Conor O’Donohue has a lump in his throat as he confirms that this is the best – and biggest – gig that the band has ever played. With standout tracks like ‘Can’t Move On’ to throw around the place, you can see why people are turning up in numbers.

Next up on the schedule is Jessie Ware at the Electric Arena. The London RnB artist isn’t drawing half the crowd that she rightly should have (the All-Ireland strikes again), but by the time she’s polished off ‘Your Domino’, there’s a steady trickle of late-arrivals. With three discretely brilliant albums under her belt, she’s got more than enough variety to keep things entertaining over the course of an hour.

A quick trip back to the Hot Press Chatroom is absolutely vital at 5pm. Alongside a contingent of people from the Ana Liffey Drugs Project and the LSE Drug Policy Unit, as well as former Assistant Garda Commissioner Jack Nolan, an important discussion takes place on the need for a more sensible drugs policy in this country. The speakers themselves give heartening, informative words, but what's perhaps more heartening is the huge turnout and the range of voices from members in the audience. For any on-the-fence politicians, there’s a serious dialogue happening around decriminalisation in this country, and this Drugs Panel proves it.

Moving on to the Main Stage for the first time to hear a selection of hits from the greatest dance-disco-funk back catalogue in history. Some commentators had been disparaging about Nile Rodgers & Chic returning to these shores, wondering if there could’ve been a slightly bigger late-announcement for the Picnic considering that the disco legends only played only three months ago. Try telling that to the thousands of people who are here to see the funk legends at half 5 on a rainy Sunday afternoon. There doesn’t seem to be any grumbling as they dance their way through tracks from the band itself, all the way through Nile Rodgers’ most legendary collaborations (‘Let’s Dance’ is the highlight once again). The same goes for those who take to the stage for ‘Good Times’ at the end. NB: If you spotted a few familiar ugly mugs in the crowd, that would be the Hot Press senior staff.

Having stayed for the entirety of Chic, I make it to the Electric Arena to find it completely empty and am informed that Mercury Prize winner Benjamin Clementine put on a 20 minute set riddled by technical issues before he apologised and took off. What a shame for one of the most truly innovative artists in the world.

Following this, The Most Polite Man In Music - Mr. George Ezra - makes sure that the Main Stage stays busy. It’s hard not to love the 24 year old English singer, especially considering he’s never off the radio in Ireland and his latest single ‘Shotgun’ has been on top of the Irish Charts for 10 weeks straight. He’ll talk to the crowd, explain the backstory to every song, and sing his hits with all the gusto you’d need, meaning that even with the rain coming down, he's kept everyone happy.

I make a quick visit to the Body & Soul arena once George has packed up. The naturally sloped amphitheatre makes a perfect place for a sitdown, but I’ve barely got my jeans muddy before Fontaines DC have me on my feet again. It’s such a rare thing to have a band who are without a debut album and yet have so quickly perfected a sound and an image, so listening to Fontaines DC release single after single has been a real musically treat this last year. They’ve now got a setlist which makes for a consistently raucous live show.

I manage to catch a bit of hometown heroes Picture This delivering to a teaming horde of fans on the Main Stage, before heading over to the Electric Arena for St. Vincent. ‘Art-pop’ and ‘experimental’ are labels she’s often attributed wit - and they’re appropriate - but at the heart of her music Annie Erin Clark is purely and simply one of the best rockstars in the world. She blitzes her way through songs from her two most recent albums, St Vincent and Masseduction, taking 75 minutes to deliver the most intense, and quite possibly the best, set of the day.

Last but not least, the camp is divided for the Sunday headliner options. Those looking for a mellower finale stay in the Electric Arena for The Kooks, while Hot Press don't turn our noses at the opportunity to witness The Prodigy’s return to Ireland. They’re at their most engaging when they’re dropping those era-defining tracks from the ‘90s, and even if their more recent material doesn't have the same immediate recognition, it shows that there's still gas in the tank. An incredible, riotous act from start to finish.