Longitude Friday: Stormzy and Picture This Rock Marlay Park

Let’s get straight to the point. The first day of the Longitude festival, which attracted a capacity attendance of 35,000, was brimming with special musical moments.

Sarah Mooney led proceedings on the Woodlands stage with melodic and elegant house music. Sage took the stage afterwards with no fanfare. The music continued seamlessly from Mooney to him, but the wise one soon distinguished himself with a cloudier, more abstract approach.

Bitch Falcon in the Whelan’s Tent were on a different plane. Crushing distortion was their payload, marking them as worthy contenders in the female rock vanguard that has seen women emerging of late as the primary creative force in modern guitar music.

‘Syncope’, released as a single earlier this year, was the standout: an oozing, crumbling, staggering nuclear-powered sleaze of a song that felt both sensual and menacing.

Rising star Dua Lipa did her dark pop thing to potent effect. But it was local heroes Picture This who provided the festival’s pre-headliner peak moment. They took the Main Stage by storm: there was a sense of triumph about their homecoming, their stage presence assured to the point of cockiness. The anthemic feel of their material suggested latter-day Bruce Springsteen, while their musical substance suggested reference points from U2, through mid-period Coldplay to The Coronas.

They rose above these influences, however, with compelling performances, especially Ryan Hennessy’s impressive vocals. ‘Let’s Be Young’ from their debut 2016 EP was a shrewd choice of opener – the crowd were hooked instantly.

‘For You’ was their best song, a swaying funky love-driven thing drawing on The Band and the Stones to winsome effect.

The evening drew on. There was never a dull moment and, as darkness fell and with rumblings like thunder, Stormzy appeared. To a rapturous reception he roamed across the stage showing exuberance and jeopardy in equal measure.

He professed his love for Ireland multiple times and, in truth, sounded genuine. His grime smashes – ‘Big For Your Boots’ and ‘Shut Up’ – were suitably prominent.

By no means a one-trick pony, he shifted gear for the soulful ‘Cigarettes And Cush’, providing a necessary downshift in pace.

‘Bad Boys’ from his debut Gang Signs And Prayer was up next – a vicious, diamond-tough rattler. Taken together, those two songs are a microcosm of Stormzy's world: Cigarettes and Cush, crime and punishment, pleasure and pain, cold reality and grime dreams coming true in a park in Dublin.

Because this was dream-fulfillment: it was his first festival-headlining slot ever.

His victory lap into the crowd at the end showed why he is loved: he has no airs or affected graces. He hugged or shook hands with just about everyone he came across. There is no rock-star separation between artist and audience here. He is one of us. It made a perfect end to day one…

Ryan Platts