Electric Picnic: Sunday, September 4

Sunday at Electric Picnic and there’s a heady whiff of nostalgia in the air. A hodge-podge of old-timers are headlining and even the younger acts seem in thrall to the past. It’s perfectly in keeping with the festival’s ethos, harking back as it does to the positive values and unvarnished optimism of an earlier era. Also, if you’re the far side of 30 – as a fair whack of those in attendance are – it’s always a novelty not to feel horribly behind the times for once.
Squint, for instance, and you can almost see the ghost of Moz on stage as The Drums enthrall a packed CrawDaddy tent, their jangly antics deeply rooted in the angst-slathered ‘80s. Their first album was a heavenly mix of early New Order and Go-Betweens but for the just-released follow-up, frontman Jonathan Pierce confronts a traumatic childhood spent amongst barking bonkers Pentecostal Christians in backwoods Virginia. Naturally this lends the music a darker cast, though the gloom is somewhat alleviated by his Ian Curtis-on-hot-coals dancing style. If bands are going to sell the past to us all over again, then please can they all be this exciting?

On the Main Stage, meanwhile, The Family Stone are sweeping us back to the funkified ‘70s with ‘It’s A Family Affair’ and ‘Dance To The Music’. The turn-out is initially modest, but it doesn’t take long before the crowds are arriving en masse.
Still in their 20s but with a sound that feels as old as Stradbally Hall, Northumbria folkies The Unthanks also cast a spell on the Main Stage. While they’ve had the deep misfortune to arrive just as horrendous acts such as Mumford & Sons are besmirching English folk, it would be unfair to lump The Unthanks in with such pretenders. Channelling a lifelong love for the traditional sounds of Northern England, their music is elegiac and, even on a jolly Sunday, distinctly haunting. They can bare their teeth too, as demonstrated with a rough-house cover of Tom Waits’ ‘No One Knows I’m Gone’.

There’s a bittersweet air to The Go! Team’s turn at the Electric Arena. High-kicking front-woman Ninja is in typically ebullient form and the group’s cinematic mash-up of ‘60s and ‘70s grooves are as gorgeously astute as ever. But, appearing at the Hot Press Chatroom, the band had earlier revealed that they have decided to split up, making the Picnic something of a last supper for them. Sob.
Representing music’s future rather than a fondly remembered past are Mercury-nominated Manchester foursome Everything Everything. With jittery laptop beats and LCD Soundsystem guitars, it’s mystifying that their dance-funk sound has to date failed to win a following here. Maybe that’s down to the fact they’ve never actually played Ireland until now.

One of the most anticipated performances of the weekend is the Main Stage turn by Beirut. Zach Conlon’s weird, wheezy orchestral pop ensemble have been a cult affair for years but with latest album The Rip Tide receiving swooning reviews, it seems they are about to step up to a higher level. Before a big crowd, they don’t disappoint. A soaring ‘Nantes’ is sublime, as is new single ‘Sante Fe’, a synth-driven paen to his New Mexico hometown. “Sunny Sante Fe,” he croons as an autumn chill prematurely descends on Stradbally. Somehow he manages to make you feel as if you’re standing beneath a baking desert sky and loving it. We’re sucked deeper into the nostalgia whirlpool as darkness steals over Stradbally and a grizzled Underworld take the stage. As was the case with The Chemical Brothers the previous evening, their once bleeding-edge dance music now feels as familiar and comfortable as a pair of well-worn slippers. Yes, doing your best early ‘90s jerky hands dance to rattling techno classics such as ‘Cowgirl’ is the musical equivalent of sucking on a Werther’s Original, but then that’s one of Electric Picnic’s enduring charms. As night steels over Stradbally and the countdown to Pulp begins – and fellow ‘90s survivors Mogwai get ready to rock the bejaysus out of the Electric Arena – the sense of being perfectly poised between past and presence is intoxicating.