Johnny Feeney concludes his round-up of last weekends’ Electric Picnic with his view on Sunday (his thoughts on Day 1 are here and day 2 here). A huge thanks to Johnny for taking the time to do this, I for one have enjoyed reading them & I’m sure I’m not alone.

The sun was out in force on Sunday and there were a lot of lost-looking souls around the place after two hard days of partying, some of whom I met decided to go home early, but with the influx of day-ticketers Sunday certainly felt like it had the biggest crowds of the weekend.

The first act I caught was Dublin electronic duo Forrests in the Little Big Tent. Their dreamy, ambient electronica first came to my attention only a few weeks back so I figured this would be a nice way to ease myself into the day. Their music comprises of layers and layers of sounds on top of not-too-heavy beats and is extremely easy on the ear and introspective for a nice piece of escapism. Very enjoyable and I shall look forward to more from these.

Dublin Gospel Choir are something of an institution at the Picnic who I’d always contrived to miss because of their early Sunday main stage time slot but I made the effort to catch them this year and I’m glad I did. They specialised in gospel versions of crowd-pleasers such as Arcade Fire’s ‘Wake Up’, Elbow’s ‘One Day Like This’ and the Killers’ ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’. There was a big crowd for this with most just sitting down and relaxing in the sun while taking in the performance.

Mmoths AKA Jack Colleran, like Forrests before him, is a skilled proponent of blissful, ambient electronica and his set in the Little Big Tent offered up his usual high-quality tunes heavy on dreamy synths and sounds. This is music to get lost in rather than dance to and if that’s your thing, look no further.

I was very excited about seeing Of Monsters and Men and it was clear by the packed Crawdaddy Stage that I wasn’t the only one. Opening with the joyous ‘Dirty Paws’, this was unbridled feel-good indie-folk from the off. The ubiquitous radio hit ‘Little Talks’ was always going to get the biggest reaction from the crowd but highlights for me included the slowburning ‘Lakehouse’,  ‘King and Lionheart’ and the sensational closer ‘Six Weeks’. The band seem to be as astonished as everyone else with their meteoric rise and this was obvious when singer Nanna got the crowd to sing her father a happy birthday over her phone and the drummer took pictures of the crowd on his camera at the end. Delightful.  

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, the alias of dance producer Orlando Higginbotham, tore Little Big Tent apart from the get-go. This was the set of the weekend where everything just came together perfectly. Included were a pumped crowd dancing like lunatics, outrageously entertaining female dancers and Higginbotham switching vocals with his female vocalist and dropping top-class dance tracks such as ‘Tapes & Money’, ‘American Dream, Pt II’, ‘Household Goods’ and ‘Stronger’. The album Trouble is definitely worth checking out. Head and shoulders above anything else I saw over the weekend.

Next up were Lanterns on the Lake in the Cosby Stage. Playing to quite a small crowd, this was very slow, quiet, dainty folk-pop and didn’t particularly grab the attention. I was quite taken with last year’s debut album, Gracious Tide, Take Me Home, but felt this wasn’t the right setting for them. 

Bat For Lashes’ Natasha Khan is every inch the star. Here, dressed elegantly in black evening dress and high-heels, she delivered an incredible performance. The older, more otherworldly material such as ‘Horse & I’ and ‘What’s A Girl To Do’ sounded great while the new songs left me excited for the upcoming album The Haunted Men. However it’s the more delicate piano-led songs that amazed most here. New song ‘Laura’ is just gorgeous while the impossibly beautiful ‘Siren Song’ tugged at my heart strings and left me fighting back the tears.

Festival favourites Hot Chip never fail to get the party started and here was no different as they closed the Electric Arena in style. Heirs apparent to the sadly departed LCD Soundsystem, they belted out classic tracks such as ‘Over and Over’, ‘Ready For the Floor’ and ‘One Night Stand’ while the ground underneath the heaving, dancing crowd shook. A great way to end what has been a great festival.

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While I was otherwise engaged at the weekend, my frequent gig-going accomplice and all round good guy Johnny Feeney was at Electric Picnic. Without further ado, here’s  what happened on Saturday (his thoughts on Day 1 are here).

Opening proceedings on Saturday on the main stage were the Trinity Orchestra playing Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I don’t think there could have been a more perfect start to the day. In pleasant weather with the sun still deciding whether to come out or not, the sizeable crowd were treated to grandiose, sweeping renditions of Floyd classics such as ‘Wish You Were Here’, ‘Money’ and ‘Us and Them’. The showstopper for me was ‘Great Gig in the Sky’ – there was a serious set of lungs on the female vocalist for this one. As if all this wasn’t enough, for encore we were treated to a dose of funk with some Stevie Wonder songs including ‘Superstition’ and ‘Sir Duke’. Heavenly.

Next up was the performance of Tieranniesaur on the Cosby Stage. Annie Tierney and co really know how to put on a party with catchy songs such as ‘Sketch’ and ‘Here Be Monsters’, funky percussion that’s heavy on the cowbells and groovy basslines. If you haven’t seen this band live yet, you’re really missing out. 

Quite by accident I caught Róisín O playing the Bamboo Stage in Body & Soul. They grabbed my attention while I was passing and they were doing a boisterous cover of Florence & the Machine’s ‘Dog Days Are Over’. My interest piqued, I stayed for a few songs after and was impressed with what I saw of their country-flecked rock. They release their debut album The Secret Life of Blue later this month and it should be worth keeping an eye out for that.

Back at the Cosby Stage the Cast of Cheers were doing what they do best with their super-tight, angular indie rock. The tent was packed to capacity as the Swords four-piece blasted through songs from their debut album, Chariot, and the recently released follow up, Family. It’s always a treat to see these guys live.

Wild Beasts played to a surprisingly small crowd on the main stage for this mid-afternoon slot. I positioned myself to the side at the front near one of the speakers. The sound was once again superb and the bass was actually rather unsettling on the stomach it was that heavy. Nevertheless, this was a solid performance as they ambled through songs such as ‘Albatross’, ‘Loop the Loop’ and ‘Hooting and Howling’, where singer Hayden Thorpe’s ear-piercing falsetto is showcased to its true potential.

Not Squares’ sound has certainly changed since last year’s brilliant Yeah OK. The first half of their set in the Little Big Tent included new songs such as ‘Fall Far’. It’s got a more disco sound with really distorted vocals but it’s still highly danceable and it’ll be really interesting to hear more. Things pick up in the second half as they play the older more gung-ho electronic stuff like ‘Release the Bees’ and the excellent ‘Asylum’ with some of the best live drumming you’re likely to see. Great show.

Richard Hawley is always someone who I would have labelled a crooner but his latest album, Standing at the Sky’s Edge, is a new direction for him and an absolute treat of psychedelic rock. In the Electric Arena he played primarily new songs such as ‘Standing at the Sky’s Edge’, ‘Down In the Woods’ and ‘Don’t Stare at the Sun’ which all sounded fantastic live. There was also room for older songs such ‘Tonight The Streets Are Ours’ and ‘Open Up Your Door’. Gorgeous from start to finish.

I’ve had problems with The Horrors live in the past due to a number of different reasons mainly involving sound issues but I was willing to give them another try at the Crawdaddy Stage. While still not perfect, it was a much better show from them. They have some of the best songs of the last few years in ‘Scarlet Fields’, ‘Sea Within A Sea’ and ‘Still Life’ so it was a pleasure to hear them live and not have them reduced to a squall. The different instruments and synths were discernible throughout although Faris’ vocals were a bit low and hard to hear. The closing ‘Endless Blue’ was superb, a treat of pure space rock which sent me off satisfied.

Baxter Dury drew a rather pathetic crowd to the Cosby Stage but he was competing with the Cure so we can’t give out too much. He released a gem of an album of quirky, lo-fi pop in Happy Soup last year. His cockney-geezer half spoken-half sung tales of everyday life sounded great here with the likes of ‘Hotel Brixton’, ‘Claire’, ‘Afternoon’ and ‘Isabel’ standing out. This deserved a much bigger crowd.

I was a little bit disappointed with Grimes at Forbidden Fruit earlier this summer but once again felt she was worth giving another try. There were no excuses here – a guy helping out on a drum machine (although he seemed only to wave about a fluorescent wand), two male dancers and a packed Cosby Stage. She has the songs such as ‘Genesis’, ‘Nightmusic’, ‘Oblivion’ and ‘Circumambient’ that should really get a crowd going but, as before, there just felt like there was something missing. Halfway through a girl standing beside me turned to me and asked “Does it not get more intense than this?” I replied “No this is it”. “Oh,” she said. That sums it up really. Not bad, just slightly underwhelming.

There was nothing underwhelming about Orbital who delivered a whopper of a closing set on the main stage. A huge crowd going crazy, dazzling visuals and cracking tunes such as ‘Halcyon and On and On’ and ‘Chime’. What more can you ask for? Another triumph from the Hartnoll brothers who were similarly impressive on the late Friday night main stage slot a couple of years back.

 After this it was on to the Salty Dog with me for one more slice of funk from the hard-working Tieranniesaur. The Salty Dog is such a great stage – a pirate ship set into the forest with a band stand, sound system and canopy overhead – and was still going strong at four in the morning. Unfortunately I wasn’t and retired shortly after.

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While I was otherwise engaged over the weekend, my frequent gig-going accomplice, the ever reliable Johnny Feeney was at Electric Picnic. Without further ado, here are his thoughts on Day 1.

This was my sixth time making the journey down to Electric Picnic in Stradbally. The crowd has changed somewhat over the years but it’s still one of the great weekends of the year with so much on offer and the first weekend in September is always kept free in my calendar. This year’s line-up really had me excited and the weekend certainly didn’t disappoint.

First up for me was recently reformed Grandaddy in the Electric Arena. Jason Lytle and co played a dazzling set of their distinctive, hazy electro-tinged rock, belting out classics such as ‘AM 180’, ‘Now It’s On’, ‘the Crystal Lake’ and ‘Hewlett’s Daughter’ to an increasingly appreciative crowd.  The epic closer ‘He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot’ was the set highlight for me – ten woozy minutes of jaw-dropping beauty. It was a real privilege to be here.

Grizzly Bear used their later slot in the Electric Arena to roadtest a lot of new songs that will be on their forthcoming album, Shields. As delighted as I am that they’re back with new material I was left wishing that they’d played more of their recognisable songs. The band themselves look like they’re only getting to grips with the new songs. They’re certainly more heavily layered and denser and it bodes well for the new album but this wasn’t really the time and place for them. Having said that, the closing pair of songs, ‘Two Weeks’ and ‘While You Wait For the Others’ (one of my all time favourite songs), provided redemption of sorts and this was as brilliant a ten minutes of music I experienced all weekend.

Metronomy played a barn-storming set to a packed Cosby Stage and really had the place bouncing. Perhaps a bit surprisingly, they drew more from their dancier second album, Nights Out, than from the recent Mercury Prize-nominated album, the English Riviera, but this was a terrific show.  I got in just in time for the excellent ‘Love Underlined’ with the crowd going nuts and it didn’t let up for the next 45 minutes. Standout tracks included ‘Corinne’, ‘Heartbreaker’, ‘Everything Goes My Way and the Look’. A really impressive and accomplished set.

The XX took to the main stage and opened with the sublime ‘Angels’, a song of almost staggering beauty off their new album, Coexist. The sound was superb and the band were great live but I felt the main stage at 9 on the first evening wasn’t the best place for them to perform. The crowd at the main stage were up for a party and this is certainly not party music. You could feel the crowd getting excited every time Jamie XX started dropping the beats in but just as quickly it’s back quiet again. They did a really slowed down version of Crystallised which didn’t particularly work for me and I would have preferred the original. There were moments of real beauty though such as ‘Angels’, ‘Heart Skipped A Beat’ and ‘Shelter’ but nothing mind-blowing. For me, these are a band who need a roof over their heads.

I wasn’t really sure who to choose next between The Vaccines and Mark Lanegan so I made the hard decision and did half and half. With the Vaccines, you know what you’re going to get – short, sharp indie that’s lots of fun but without much depth. They fly through songs such as ‘Wrecking Bar (Ra Ra Ra)’ and ‘Wetsuit’, really getting the crowd going. Mark Lanegan is a much different proposition – gloomy, brooding blues rock with Lanegan’s incredibly deep, gravelly voice at the centre of everything. He’s a magnetic presence on stage and it’s very easy to get lost in this music.

With Azealia Banks sadly cancelling due to exhaustion a couple of days before the festival, there was nothing else I was absolutely adamant on seeing so I spent the rest of the evening exploring the site. The great Casa Bacardi area was packed and full of dancing revellers with DJs playing house music into the small hours. From there I went into the Body & Soul area, a real favourite of mine where there’s always a hundred and one things to do with its numerous stages and nooks and crannies which really gets going when the sun goes down. All in all, a very good start to the weekend with no major disappointments.

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