Indiependence

Indiependence Music & Arts Festival was held this weekend in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork.  About 5,000 folk travelled to the not so sunny South of Ireland for this small boutique festival.  It most definitely did not disappoint.

Friday night saw Enemies steal the show (of course!).  There was nobody there to start with, about 5 of us. Before long their energetic set attracted half the festival and there was at least 50 people there to finish off - hey, small festival!  I was disappointed that more people didn't show up for the weekend's top band but also thrilled that I got to see them in a huge empty tent.  I also met Harry from Croupier, another top Kilcoole band,  and his lovely GF Aoife.  Rest followed Enemies in an unfortunately boring fashion, seemingly where the band had better places to be! We stuck around for Daft Funk who, believe it or not, packed out the tent beyond capacity!  They were great in all honesty - played exactly what we all wanted to hear!  A night in the Silent Disco was followed by the Havana Club Tent disco and bringing 2 chaps from some band back, only for one to pass out and the other to be more interested in the blonde chick in the tents beside us.  All's well that ends well!

Saturday began with the worst hangover of my life.  Go hard or go home should not be taken as a challenge.  The night's top spot went to none other than Meath's own Ham Sandwich.  The tent was jammers this time round and a set that included confetti canons and giant balloons did not disappoint.  As usual, they delivered a sweet mixture of rocking tunes and powerful songs.  Very impressive.  Other notable bands on Saturday included Jogging, Shouting at Planes, Sacred Animals and a fucking unbelievable party hosted by Dan le Sac Vs. Scrobius Pip.  We finished the night off with an extremely long set from headliners Ash.  The crowd were excited to bop along to their childhood heroes but after 45minutes of waiting to hear Burn Baby Burn and remembering that you only know 3 Ash songs, the punters grew weary and filtered off to the Silent Disco.  Their set was good but the rain and the bored crowd put a wee damper on things.  I was suffering from the "fine for 10minutes, dying for an hour" hangover death so I hit the hay and slept until 4pm on Sunday!

Sunday was a lot easier to handle than Saturday.  I started the day off with the intention of going home as our tent flooded on Saturday night and I was still suffering from Friday.  The lads hit up the town for some dinner while I tried to sleep off the death  - thank God for air mattresses is all I'll say!  Nick was kind enough to bring me back some Gaviscon and I slowly rose to face the day, unfortunately missing Butterfly Explosions & We Cut Corners.  The lads headed off to The Minutes while I hit up the Cyprus Avenue Tent for Bats.  I've never seen Bats live before and they were simply superb.  What a band!!  The energy they put into their set rivaled, and destroyed even ASIWYFA's on stage efforts, who incidentally I saw next.  The main stage was packed for And So I Watch You From Afar and their short set was pretty much exactly the same as the other 13 times I've seen them in the last year and a half.  I should have went to Not Squares.  Don't get me wrong, I love ASIWYFA - their stuff is amazing, but there's only so many times I can watch them play the same songs - 14 to be exact.  The night was over, the rain was pouring down and we headed back to camp to destroy ourselves once again!  After midnight, myself and Peter ventured to get chips and stumbled into an 80's DJ set banging out all the classics.  What an era!

Overall, the weekend was a huge success housing the best festival showers and portaloos I have been fortunate to combat.  Security were a bit rough but otherwise Indiependence was perfectly sized, incorporating the best vibes, tunes and folk I've ever experienced at a festival.  The free ticket definitely helped too!