The Great thing about Bestival other than being a great festival, is that it’s like what T in the Park is to Oxegen. Its a great indicator as to what acts will be arriving on EP’s doorstep the week before. I love the set up of their website also. I really wish electricpicnic.ie would get it’s act together with theirs. Another sick thing about Bestival was just how much good weather they got last year. I don’t think i saw one picture with a clowd in it. It pissed all EP and then we went on a huge dry run of settled weather all the way into bloody October. I’m still only just getting over this by the way. Weather makes everything in my eyes. Some amazing acts announced already and it’s only the first batch too!
Stand out ones for us are in bold! Oh yeah Dizzee Rascal can piss right off, he needn’t bother coming.
Dizzee Rascal / The Flaming Lips / Hot Chip / LCD Soundsystem / Gil Scott Heron / Chase & Status / Echo and the Bunnymen / Simian Mobile Disco / Delphic / Rolf Harris / Marc Almond / dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip / Ellie Goulding / Fat Freddy’s Drop / Flying Lotus / Four Tet / Kitty Daisy & Lewis / Stornoway / Tinie Tempah / Vitalic / The Cuban Brothers / Chilly Gonzales / Beardyman / Tunng / Hurts / Gaslamp Killer / The Vegetable Orchestra / Ulrich Schnauss / The Twinkle Brothers / High Llamas / The Antlers / Archie Bronson Outfit / Beth Jeans Houghton / Mixhell / Glen Matlock / Samuel and the Dragon / The Japanese Popstars / The Lost Brothers / Hear We Go Magic / Goldhawks / Countryside Alliance Crew / Laura J Martin / A Genuine Freakshow / Bookhouse Boys / King Charles / Three Trapped Tigers / Worship / French Horn Rebellion / Sisters of Transistors / Spindle and Wit / Starless & Bible Black / The Boy Who Trapped The Sun / Telegraphs / Tim and Sam Band / Unicorn Kid
DJ sets from Rob da Bank plus Annie Mac Presents / David Rodigan / Ewan Pearson / Dixon / Greg Wilson / Nathan Fake / Huw Stephens / Mary Anne Hobbs / Jaguar Skills / Joy Orbison / Horse Meat Disco / DJ Derek / Greg’s Greats / SBTRKT / Ramadanman / Seth Troxler / Untold / The Broken Hearts / Back To The Phuture
Even just a few of these acts would be a good start to things. Now how long will we have to wait to hear Picnic’s first batch?
Anyone keen for fun in Dublin this Sunday needs to check out the Bacardi B-Live party in Pod. Bacardi and Pod have teamed over a good few bank hollier Sundays over the last 2 years and always seem deliver the goods with 3 rooms each containing a different style of music from Brazilian Drums to sweaty electro. Tickets are 20 Eurex and can be bought up here.
DJ Mehdi knows this venue well and we expect him to lure the crowd in with his typical blend of french house, electro bangers and Queen rock anthems. Complementing him is Glaswegian hip-hop maverick Hudson Mohawke, and Dublin’s own hip-hop/dance mini-orchestra Kormac’s Big Band.
In the meantime, check out Mehdi’s latest mix ‘Black Black Black’ below:
The full I Love Techno running order has been announced and can be downloaded for print out here. As expected there’s a good few clashes like Adam Meyer and Boys Noize but overall we’re happy because set start times are staggered which means you can pretty much run around and see everything. As expected, Ryanair flights have booked up super-fast and will now set you back over 160 Euro return. So if you’re interested in going make sure to book soon! You can also check our detailed post on the lineup here.
What a gig, oh I hope there’ll be another contakt show again! ILT 2008 was good but this was better. The Visuals were amazing as always but where it really beats all other shows was the sound. Brixton is a massive venue and at some points if you looked up, you’d actually think the gig was outdoors because you couldn’t see the roof, and the sound travelled brilliantly throughout. We always feel that if the bass makes your nose tickle than you know its a good soundsystem! It was full but quite easy to get up the front if you wanted. Bizarrely they had no smoking area so there was at first a massive queue of people waiting to get out for a smig. But by the end of it, everyone was smoking inside, nobody gave a fook! The music certainly seemed more techno than the show at ILT2008 but i could be wrong. Federico Maurizi and Barem as support acts were great too. Here are some vids i got on the phone, there suprisingly ok actually! But i’m a retard as i brought my camcorder this time only for the thing to die on me as i walked in the door. Grrrr!!
College is back and electro-loving UCD students have a chance to see some of the summer’s most banging acts in the next few weeks with Felix da Housecat, Boys Noize and Deadmau5 coming to the UCD Student Bar. This student bar has seen it’s fair share of quality acts in the past including Digitalism, Erol Alkan and Justice (check the vid of Erol’s finale there a few years back below). The Ents guys have done it again with a week on week line-up in September and October. Felix is kicking off what UCD are calling ‘Ibiza in UCD’ tomorrow the 23rd of September. Then Boys Noize is set to play on the 1st of October with Deadmau5 playing an early gig on October 16th before heading for his second gig of the night in the Academy.
The student bar may not be the best venue but if you like your DJ’s at arms length, arrive early to get up the front for some up close, personal and always sweaty action. From experience, electro nights in UCD are usually utter debauchery so be prepared if you’re considering it. With tickets starting at aprox. €16 per gig and €40 for the lot it’s certainly better value than seeing these guys in the Academy, where you’re talking €28.50 for Boys Noize on October 2nd and €32.70 for Deadmau5 on October 16th.
Well another year and another irish festival has come and gone. We saw some great acts, met some long lost friends and met some interesting people from all walks of life. EP is Ep and we’ll always have a special place in our hearts for the picnic. It was the Pod Concerts last year associated with the festival and its was Festival Republics first year getting their hands on Stradbally. We were worried that EP might get “Oxegenized” now with MCD effectively having a monopoly on Irish festivals now. This year there were definitely corners cut. We got the sense the Pod were just thinking “well its our last year so lets just try and get as much money as we can out of this before we say adios!” The fencing in many places was non existent. Far too many people hopped the wall, the skobe count was at an all-time high, particularly in the Oscar Wilde campsite where one of us was staying, we heard many reports of tents robbed, and pissed on. We even saw a whopped fight at about 6am just outside our tent close to the showers, these were all firsts for us at the picnic, and we hope the last. The friendly Scottish security that have been there the last few years were replaced, cost reasons again. This years crowd hadn’t a clue what was going on, weren’t consistant in their bag searching, some people could come in with Eco Cups, others couldn’t? Its rained for 6 weeks straight, why wasn’t there wood chippings everywhere? And finally the sound, its just not up to scratch anywhere. The Electric Arena is the biggest tent there and all they had for speakers were two thin strips down right down the front, absolutely no catering towards the punters who paid the €240 down the back. Production costs just seemed down everywhere. In fact the best sound this year was at the Arcadia Stage where they had a €40,000 Funktion 1 Soundsystem, which we only discovered on the final night. Thank you Arveene for a banging 1 hour set at the Arcadia stage after Erol’s climax, what a nice surprise and a great EP 09 send off!
But lets not let all the bad outweigh the good!
We have to give credit to highonsnow on Youtube for taking this great compilation video of a few of this years acts, we think its the best video out there of the picnic, we’re still gutted about leaving our camcorder at home!
We’re spending more and more time in the Body and Soul each year, there is always such a good vibe in there all day, and every day and its so nicely lit in the after hours that you just don’t want to leave! Its such a shame to look out the window the last couple of days at the beautiful blue skies, how much would we have loved them last week? But thats the gamble you take living in Ireland i suppose, we really missed just lying out on the grass, during the day listening in on acts in each of the tents! I think the mud just took that magic feeling away from the air that usually makes the Picnic so unique! Will there be another next year who knows? We’re certainly thinking of doing a couple more abroad and maybe supplementing something else in instead of EP. It is Glastonbury’s 40th Anniversary after all!
Friday
As for the acts this year we did our best to see them all… wel the good ones anyway! Whilst one half of Hailfairy was agonizingly stuck in N7 traffic, the other had his tent pitched at 10am and manged to bop away at all the earlier gigs. As expected, one of Friday’s highlights was Major Lazer who absolutely rocked the Little Big Tent with their Electreggae entourage and even let the audience get down on stage! , Major Lazer (Just Diplo) got everyone going from 7pm onwards and sure enough the place erupted to Pon De Floor, what a great way to ring in the picnic. This wouldn’t be the last time we were to hear it that weekend either! There was a chaotic feel about the place, the MC’s were mental too! Stupidly one of us forgot our HD camcorder on our way down this year, which we’re still absolutely gutted about by the way. But we did get some grainy bits of footage on our phones, its not much but you get the impression of what it was like….
From there it was on to the instantly forgettable MGMT. We really couldn’t believe just how bad they were. Cuz we remember reading an article earlier during the year about how they’ve heard so much about EP and were real excited about playing! Hmm… ironically their song Kids actually got a bigger reaction during 2manydj’s set on the Saturday night! Orbital as expected were amazing, we got a good spot where the sound was loud enough. They played a lot of crowd favourites and as we were saying there was a tough decision to be made, but once we’d heard “Chime”, one of us was out of there and straight over to catch the Cadenza Lads and Luciano’s “Aether”. We were very surprised at just how empty that was, even tho we always knew it to be stupid to have it clash with Orbital. The amount of people who said they’d have loved to have seen both but understandably Orbital came first. The show started slow, with some technical issues, but really ended well with some solid groovy techno. Which turns out was to be the only techno we’d hear all weekend, except for back at our tents !! Body & Soul til we were kicked out and then it was day 1 done.
Saturday
Possible highlight of the weekend had to be James Murphy’s disco set, it was incredible. We just can’t get over how good it really was, flawless mixing by the great man, the place was absolutely rocking, it wasn’t at all what we expected, it was proped bopping bouncy shit! 2hrs well spent!
Klaxons, yeah they’ve tightened up their set a lot since we last caught them here for the NME awards tour couple of years back. Crowd seemed to love them but the sound was shite, just too bloody low! Actually apologies, there was more techno to be had with The Hacker, such a good buzz in the tent at this stage, and it kept going with the place filling up big time for Moderat. We caught a wee bit but were persuaded to catch some of 2ManyDJ’s. Which turned out to be good fun actually, the new audiovisual thingy was great and really worked well with the crowd, but they must be bored stiff at this stage playing the same set all the time as they can’t vary at all because of the visuals. Either way everyone around us were like woah! We haven’t heard Vitalic’s “La Rock” in sooo long, and we forgot just how good it was. Has there been a better electro track released since? We think not!
Sunday
Bad start to day 3, with the poxy rain all morning, we used it as a good time to catch up on some well needed shut eye. As always with the last day we try not to take it all for granted and try and appreciate the day as it unfolds. The day came and went too fast. Even though we said we wouldn’t be going back to the Electric Arena again, well we did, we caught Simian Mobile Disco at 4pm, who were actually 40 mins late getting going, which left us bored waiting and far to sober, problem again with that tent is the further back you go, its like on a hill or something and you can’t see anyone on stage, so the set almost felt like it was quieter prelude music you hear before an act gets on stage. Which it wasn’t, SMD we usually love you, but we blame the organisers for not putting you on later and in the Little Big Tent like 2007. We’ll give you another chance when you come back to these shores again. The problem as well with their delayed start meant that there were thousand of girls rushing in from all angles saying “Is this Florence and the Machine?” Which we found to be rather funny!
Royksopp didn’t disappoint, wasn’t sure if we were bias as they can’t do any wrong in our eyes but it seems like they got an overall thumbs up from people on the forums!
We were surprised how easy it was to get down the front for Erol, as a lot of people were quite late getting in. We weren’t complaining as we were right up front middle, great sound! Good aul Switch (Dave Taylor) was hanging out of poor Erol the whole set, he was smashed as always. we were just impressed that Switch made it in from the Car Park (Anyone remember Garden Party 06)! The crowd gave it socks and Erol seemed to really appreciate it. His set seemed like it flew by, we loved his mix he did of New Orders’ “Blue Monday” into Justice’s “Water of Nazereth”! The place went off! We couldn’t believe upon leaving that that was it, no more EP!
But it was only upon walking by the Arcadia Stage did we hear Crookers “Let me Back Up”, what a tune! Place was packed and ended up staying there til 3am. It was only when we got home on Monday did we realise that we’d in fact caught the end of Arveene’s set! Was so good to hear quality electro on their Funktion 1 soundsystem, it was immense. We can’t wait for that stage next year, the crowd were mental too, hanging out of trees with flamethrowers! There was even some guy with a Saddam Hussein mask wiring everybody! And like that it was all over, back to the tent, 4 hours kip, take down tent, trench through all the mud and the walk of shame back to the car in Car Park Z! After a couple of days reflection, we’ve come to the inclusion that of course it was good, it always will be, but we just hope they review a few things for next year and learn from the obvious mistake and severe shortcomings of this year. Drop the ticket price, there is a recession going on, and hopefully with a bit of luck the Sun God might even be on our side too! As we finish writing this we’re looking ahead to a glorious weekends weather, make the most of it folks, its the end of the Summer! Don’t forget to tune in to 2fm tonight (Friday 11 September from 7pm to midnight for 5hrs of Electric Picnic goodness, we can’t wait to hear what sets they have recorded!)
Day 3 and always the comedown day for us. After the excitement of the first few days we always find the Sunday to be anti-climatic, the general poorer line ups for the Sundays haven’t helped too. But this is year is looking like one of the best closing Sundays the Picnic’s had yet. I think last year was Primal Scream and year before was Sex Pistols headlining, which we happily passed on. This year its Flaming Lips or Basement Jaxx, way better choice! For 2 years straight it was over to the bodytonic tent for Laurent Garnier, great in 2005, not so good in 2006. Last year we had Deadmau5 before the heavy rains hit on Sunday night, who was ok. Thought the sound was far too low in that tent, we really hope they improve it for this year! A Bacardi tent highlight in 2007 was definitely Dj Mehdi at 6pm, anyone catch him that day, great craic!
So on to our choices for Day 3, at this stage many people could be at their whits end covered in mud, which is looking like it could be a possibility, but we haven’t given up hope yet. Come on sun where the fook are you!
SUNDAY HIGHLIGHTS
Again there is gonna be some more tough choices to make this year, with Royksopp and Flaming Lips finishing off in the Electric Arena or over to Zombie Nation and Erol Alkan in The Little Big Tent. There’s probably gonna be a lot of running back and forth between each tent we thinks (thank god they’re both beside each other!!) It’ll be the battle of the tents!
Electric Arena vs Little Big Tent!!??
Erol Alkan 10pm to 12:00 close @ Little Big Tent.
This’ll be Erol’s first visit to the Picnic… about time! Lets all give him a warm welcome, not that he won’t get it!. The guys a personal hero of ours, has always been right up there and still has one of if not the best taste in banging electro, and maybe only 2many dj’s can match him when on his day. We’ve seen him nearly a dozen times now from the college days @ the Trinity ball, and UCD bar, to the old TBMC and most recently at Andrews Lane Theatre, each time as memorable as the last. The chap never disappoints, and in one of his most recent sets he even opened with the intro of Oasis’ Rock n Roll star straight into his remix of Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Zero”. We can’t wait to see what he has planned for us. It’ll be something good either way. 2hrs… yes please!
Zombie Nation 8:30pm – 10-00 (Before Erol) @ Little Big Tent
Zombie Nation is a german techno and electro project of the Munich based DJ and producer Florian Senfter also known as “John Starlight”. Many probably know Zombie Nation for his now infamous track “Kernkraft 400″ which got released in 1999 and is now synonymous with any NBA, NFL or American hockey match you might attend or see on TV. Here are a couple of tracks favoured by us, “Paeng Paeng” actually got signed to Sven Vaths Cocoon label.
Simian Mobile Disco 4.15 – 5.30pm @ Electric Arena
If you want to leave the campsite early on Sunday and you’ve got itchy feet, then be sure not to miss Simian Mobile Disco @ 4.15pm in the Electric Arena. We’ve absolutely no idea why these guys are so low down the order of the day. they were third last on behind Marco carola in 2007 and were easily a festival highlight. Lets not forget their playing Live (not a Dj Set) and they’ll be bringing their own live show to go with it! Here is a vid of them playing out their collaboration with Beth Ditto “Cruel Intentions” @ this years Pukkelpop. Great Song, number one written all over it!
Straight after SMD, its Florence and the Machine, and if Oxegen is anything to go by then this is gonna be wedged. She seems to attract a massive following, and obviously strikes a chord with the indie kids. People were getting stretchered out of Oxegen after she played there! It’ll probably make the buzz during SMD pretty cool tho, before she gets onstage. After the “Florence” mania there’s Fleet Foxes who we honestly don’t know much about but have heard nothing but good things and will probably stay to catch a bit of.
Royksopp 8.15pm -10.15pm @ Electric Arena (Clash with Zombie Nation)
Röyksopp are the electronic music duo based in Bergen, Norway, and are famous for tracks from their hugely successfull first album “Melody Am”. Who doesn’t know “Poor Leno” or “Eple“.
Heres a nice bit of trivia. Did you know?: The song “Eple” was licensed by Apple for use as the welcome music to Mac OS X Panther operating system, playing the first time a user booted a new Mac!. I’d say that bagged them a tidy piny or two! Eple is the Norwegian word for Apple.
The band consists of Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge. The group formed officially in 1998 and released their debut album Melody A.M. in 2001. The Norwegian word “Røyksopp” means puffball fungus (lit. “(a) smoke mushroom”).
One of us caught them playing the ambassador here a few years ago, and they didn’t disappoint. Their usuallyone of the first bands on peoples wish list’s to see at Ep and are always strongly rumoured. Well no more rumours, they’re here and should have Karin Dreijer with them on vocal duties (Royksopp – What else is There?)
Other Must sees that shouldn’t be missed are Duke Dumont and Aeroplane who go on before Zombie Nation in the Little Big Tent.
Here is a link to a mixtape by Aeroplane!
VA – Mixmag presents : Disco Balaerica mixed by Aeroplane here
The Duke is no stranger having played the Bacardi Tent last year on Sunday getting a great response, his productions are second to none and he’s not to shabby as a DJ either, we think he’ll be better suited to a bigger tent!
Well thats all our personal recommendations, its 2 more sleeps and we can’t wait. We hope you all enjoy and be sure to visit us next week as we plan on taking loads of HD videos to put up on our own youtube channel. All going to plan that is! We’re gonna do are best, nothing better than a good vid to jog the memory.
Interestingly this year they’ve decided to put the ever popular 2manydj’s last up on the main stage for the Saturday night. These guys are no strangers to the picnic, this being their fourth time back here, and we as a country are still a little obsessed with them as we still google them second in volume or hits on earth. Number one being their native homeland Belgium!!
This could be one of EP’s better recent decisions and lets hope the Dewaele brothers are on top form cuz when they get it right, there’s still no one better in the business at making people dance. Their new show incorporates new visuals where the audience gets a sneak preview of the upcoming track as a visual behind the lads on a big screen as seen below.
We really hope they play some new tracks as they have been notorious as of late for becoming a bit stagnant with their sets, either way we’ll be in amongst it!
Don’t forget, if you find 2manydj’s and their “Bastard Pop” music as they call it a little soft, then maybe Chris Cunningham could be more for you?, he’s headlining the Crawdaddy Stage at 1:00am. Check one of our previous posts where we’ve covered him already. Click here.
Klaxons – Electric Arena @ 8.45pm
Klaxonsare second last up in the Electric Arena @ 8:45pm, and we’ll be looking forward to hearing the guys debut some of their new material to an Irish audience for the first time. We threw on “Myths of the near Future” the other week forgetting just how good that album is, and can’t wait to hear the likes of “Atlantis to Interzone” and “Golden Skans” this weekend!
The Little Big Tent has all the potential of being an amazing night, thanks to 2hrs plus time that the LCD boys have been allocated to get us all in the groove with their disco set, but worringly The Proxy’s date has been taken off hismyspaceand we’re a bit concerned about the lack of confirmation on who’s taking the 11.00pm slot. We’re pretty sure this is The Hacker but why his names not there is beyond us. The Field will be soothing our ears with his ambient techno from 6:30 to 7:30 and the tent will be closed off by the much talked about collaboration between Modeselektor and Apparat’s – “Moderat”. Moderat’s sound would best be described as intelligent grown up techno with a bit of breaks thrown in.
The Field @ 6.30pm
The Field or Axel Willner is a Swedish Minimal Producer based in Cologne on Kompakt Records and known for his use of tiny loops of pop music history. Expect soothing if not romantic minimal sounds from the Little Big Tent at 6.30pm.
James Murphy, DFA founder, leader of LCD Soundsystem and godfather of dance-punk and worlwide disco revival, comes back joining forces and experience with Pat Mahoney (LCD’s drummer) to pay a tribute to disco music. A set which will represent a time travel under the same directions of the fantastic mix signed by both for the FabricLive series.
Electro Russian whizz kid “The Proxy”will be dropping some chainsaw crunching sounds, and it’ll be heavy! He’s got the sound that everyone wants right now, thanks to his massive remix of Tiga and his huge dancefloor anthems “The Raven” and “Dancing in the Dark”
The Hacker is a French electroclash and techno producer who has worked extensively with Miss Kittin. Michel Amato aka The Hacker is one of today’s most talented and innovative French artists. With influences from Electro (Kraftwerk) to New Wave music (The Cure and Depeche Mode) and familiarity with the French rave scene of the early 1990s his sound is well defined, yet original.
Well we’re coming into that crucial week before Electric Picnic 2009 where everyone looks to the sky and prays… go away nasty rain!! Early Reports aren’t looking the maye west, recently we’ve gotten used to the mild nights and indifferent weather for the month, but that seems to be changing for the worst if possible? The mild nights are gone and accuweather, met.ie and bbc.co.uk all seem to have one thing in common… expect rain with highs 0f 15-17 Celcius, wtf! its gonna be a wet one!
Even though we wish the EP organisers could have added a bit more techno to this years stellar line up we’re still overall feeling spoilt for choice in other areas. This year seems to be clash city more than any other year which just shows the choice of options you have. Its pick and choose, with some tough decisions to make! We’re still not sure what to do for the mother of all decisions on the Friday night… Orbital or Luciano’s “Aether”??? Don’t forget Phil Kieran will be playing in the woods straight after Orbital too!! Can’t wait for the forest rave!
Other than organising tent’s, etc, make sure to download the maps for the fest here and also print out the stage times here too. Also check www.2ne1.com for a cool little page that links the Myspace playlists of all the artists at this years festival. We’ve split the EP09 preview into a day by day breakdown so check out Friday’s preview below:
FRIDAY, August 30th 2009
Friday night at EP and the toughest decision before close of madness on the first day with the choice of either Orbital or Aether before the Forest Rave kicks into full swing. The Friday night offering is of top notch quality and caters for the needs of all electronic music lover’s tastes from Acid House to Minimal.
Orbital- Main Stage @ 10.30pm
After their break up in 2004, Orbital’s infamous liveset is back with a vengeance to EP. Phil and Paul Hartnoll were amongst the biggest names in acid house in the 90’s and the duo are widely known to be one of the top live dance acts in the last decade. In fact, one of their last gigs before the 2004 break up was a cracking set at Witness. After trawling through videos of their 2009 livesets on Youtube, we’re getting incredibly excited about seeing Halcyon, Lush, Chime, Satan and Little Fluffy Clouds belted out on the main stage til close on Friday night. These miner light donning lads are not to be missed folks! Check a recent video of them in Poland mixing Halcyon into their own version of Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven is a Place on Earth and Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name.
To put you in the frame of mind, download Orbital’s last gig in 2004 at Maida Vale Studios here and a recent 2009 mix and interview on Radio 6 from 3 weeks ago here (part 1) and here (part 2).
What a shame that AEther’s 12 man synchronisation of sound and colour are playing at roughly the same time as Orbital on Friday night. We recently blogged about Aether’s incredible live setup here and are looking forward to catching some this minimal set in between Orbital.
Boy 8 Bit – Little Big Tent @ 6.00pm
Boy8-Bit is a Cornish electronic Act featured in another one of our recent posts. He’ll be warming up the Dance Tent on Friday with some of his latest tracks 8 bit tracks inspired from producing on 8 bit computers from a young age. Baltic Pine is one to listen out for after Pete Tong recently raved about it on his BBC Radio 1 show.
What a crazy year for Major Lazer. A new album ‘Gun’s Dont Kill People Lazers Do’, an iPhone app, and a crazy tour schedule including headlining the Notting Hill Carnival have all proved to be a crazy success for Diplo and Switch’s Gorillaz styled Reggae Warrior Major Lazer. The Diplo/Switch/One-Armed Comic Raggae Warrior liveset combo is surely going to be one of the energetic highlights Electric Picnic this year and will feature a number of guest MC’s and a tonne of Big-Bootied dancers all under a flouroed comic ghetto-blaster backdrop. If you wanna give your own booty a workout, head to the Little Big Tent at 7.15. We did another blog on Major Lazer here too with videos and tracks from their tour so check it out.
Also download this Major Lazer liveset from BBC’s Essential Mix to get you in the mood.
Fake Blood is an alias used by DJ Touche who is also a member of British Electro-Pop group Black Ghosts. Widely known for his Mars and on stage after Major Lazer, expect Fake Blood to bang out an energetic electro set with tracks like ‘Mind Dimension’ in the video below.
Diplo is playing twice on Friday as expect and there’s also rumours of Switch playing in the Bacardi Bar so keep your eyes out for that. The Philidelphia based DJ will probably belt out another high-paced electro set similar to his lowlands performance in the liveset below and the video of him at Dour this year.
Japanese Popstars DJ Set – Little Big Tent @ 1.00am
Derry ensemble The Japanese Popstars AKA Declan McLaughlin, Gary Curran, and Gareth Donoghue are closing the EP dance stage on Friday night with more of a commercial house twist. The Popstars have had a successful year to date, winning a number of awards for their live performances and playing to a rammed Oxegen Dance tent this year. Their 2008 album ‘We Just Are’ features a tonne of energetic house tracks like ‘Face Melter’ and ‘Sample Whore’.
Hailfairy is glad the boys are playing a DJ set this time around as the guys are pretty talented DJs in their own right. However with so much choice at this time on Friday, its gonna be a tough choice to leave Aether or Orbital to go see the Popstars having already seen them this year. Check them out playing their own edit of Justice Phantom live in February this year.
After the first one was announced as unofficial yesterday, check out the first official Electric Picnic 2009 Timetable courtesy of www.heinekenmusic.ie
Check back over the next few days for our day by day Electric Picnic 2009 Previews
Electric Picnic Stage Times
FRIDAY
MAIN STAGE
4.00 Smash Hits
5.50 Michael Nyman Orchestra
7.15 Zero 7
8.45 MGMT
10.30 Orbital
ELECTRIC ARENA
4.00 8Ball
5.45 David Kitt
7.30 Magazine
9.15 Seasick Steve
11.00 Rodrigo Y Gabriela
CRAWDADDY STAGE
4.30 Peter Broderick
5.30 The Temper Trap
6.45 Lykke Li
8.00 ABC
9.30 Duckworth Lewis Method
11.00 Luciano Presents Aether
LITTLE BIG TENT
4.00 Tu-Ki
6.00 Boy 8 Bit
7.15 Major Lazer
8.15 Fake Blood
9.30 Buraka Som Sistema
10.30 Diplo
12.00 Potbelleez
1.00 Japanese Popstars DJ Set
POPTOPIA
19:30 Dark Room Notes
20:50 The Big Bang with Neosupervital, Bitches With Wolves & Veda Beaux Reves
22:30 Heidi Konnt
23:00 DySec Industries
00:00 Midnight Burlectro
01:00 Jerry Bouthier
BODY AND SOUL
16:00 Colin Devlin
17:00 Funzo
18:10 Villagers
19:20 Kate Kim
20:30 Blindfold
22:00 DJ Kormac’s Big Band
23:30 Donal Dineen
SATURDAY
MAIN STAGE
12.30 Stee Downes
1.30 Tunng
3.00 Baaba Maal
4.45 Kid Creole And The Coconuts
6.30 Lisa Hannigan
8.15 Brian Wilson
10.30 Madness
12.20 2 Many DJs
ELECTRIC ARENA
12.30 Cap Pas Cap
2.45 The XX
4.00 Roots Manuva
5.15 Jape
7.00 Bat For Lashes
8.45 Klaxons
10.30 Chic
CRAWDADDY STAGE
12.30 One Day International
1.30 Dave Geraghty
2.30 Just Jack
4.00 Flock Of Seagulls
5.30 Billy Btagg
7.00 Mundy
8.30 Imelda May
10.15 Explosions In The Sky
11.45 Four Tet
1.00 Chris Cunningham
COSBY STAGE
1.00 Lost Brothers
2.00 Julie Feeney
3.00 Low Anthem
4.00 Marina And The Diamonds
5.15 Magnolia Electric Co.
6.30 The Walkmen
7.45 Whitest Boy Alive
9.15 ESG
11.00 Neko Case
LITTLE BIG TENT
12.30 Transmission DJs
1.30 LRB And Conor G
2.30 Jon Averill
3.30 Noze
5.00 Jazzanova
6.30 The Field
7.30 James Murphy And Pat LCD
9.45 The Proxy
11.00 TBC
12.45 Moderat
POPTOPIA
14:00 The Heidi Konnt Suicide Pact Lunch with Anúna, Ophelia & Anne Bushnell
16:30 Electro Bingo
18:15 Transmission Panti
20:00 Trannymal Farm
21:30 Dark Room Notes
22:30 The Big Bang with Neosupervital, Bitches With Wolves & Veda Beaux Reves
00:00 Midnight Burlectro
01:30 DySec Industries
02:00 Very Special Guest
BODY AND SOUL
11.50 Chequerboard Live
12.50 Kill Krinkle Club
14:00 Ohbijou
15:10 Island Line
16:10 Tulla Ceili Band
17:20 Tiny Vipers
18:30 Niwel Tsumbu
19:40 Wiggle
21:00 3epkano
22:45 Lamb
00:45 Tuung
02.15 Four Tet
03.30 Tulla Ceili Band
SUNDAY
MAIN STAGE
12.30 Dublin Gospel Choir
1.45 DJ Shadow Tribute
3.00 Quantic And His Combo Barbaro
4.45 The Wailers
6.30 Alabama 3
8.30 Bell X1
10.30 Basement Jaxx
ELECTRIC ARENA
12.30 Two Door Cinema Club
1.30 The Sugarhill Gang
2.45 Nightmares On Wax Soundsystem
4.15 Simian Mobile Disco
5.30 Florence And The MAchine
6.45 Fleet Foxes
8.30 Royksopp
10.15 Flaming Lips
CRAWDADDY STAGE
12.15 Halfset
1.15 Villagers
2.15 Mick Flannery
3.15 Okkervil River
4.30 Laura Izibor
5.45 Echo And The Bunnymen
7.15 Fionn Regan
9.00 Amadou And Miriam
10.45 Damien Dempsey
COSBY STAGE
12.30 Our Fold
1.30 Blitzen Trapper
2.30 Micachu
3.30 The Acorn
4.45 The Big Pink
6.15 Bell Orchestre
7.45 Dan Deacon Ensemble
9.00 TBC
10.45 Skream And Benga
LITTLE BIG TENT
12.30 Barry Redsetta
1.30 Arveene And Misk
2.30 Ebony Bones
3.30 Hypnotic Bras Ensemble
4.30 TBC
5.30 Aeroplane
7.00 Duke Dumont
8.30 Zombie Nation
10.00 Erol Alkan
POPTOPIA
14:00 The Heidi Konnt Suicide Pact Lunch with Anúna, Ophelia & Anne Bushnell
16:30 Electro Bingo
18:15 Transmission Panti
20:00 Trannymal Farm
21:30 Ebony Bones
22:45 Le Gateau Chocolat & Marawa, direct from La Clique
00:00 DJ Martin McCann
BODY AND SOUL
11.00 DJ set from Chequerboard
12.00 Baah Band
13:00 First Aid Kit
14:00 J. Tillman
15:10 Roots Union
16:10 Charlie Parr
17:30 Wiggle (TBC)
19:00 Golden Animals (TBC)
20:45 (solo show) (TBC)
22:25 The Sound Carriers
23:45 Amorphous Androgynous
01.15 Beach House
02.30 Estas Tonne with Ise plus Lucent Dossier Fire dancer
What a belter! The vid above proves that this track has to be heard out to be really appreciated! We first set our ears on this at Exit Festival this year thanks to Richie and Ali and we hope to be hearing it again soon when one of us is heading over to Brixton Academy London for a Special Contakt reunion, its on Sat 26th September, and is going to be 7 hrs of techno bliss. Tickets are still on sale here for €30www.02academybrixton.co.uk with flights over and back being €60!! Why wouldn’t you go, it could be the last contakt show for a while or possibly ever!!?
There’s been divided opinions on the quality of this years Electric Picnic line up. Personally we think its one of the best yet, especially if you like electronic music. It’ll be a year for the visuals too, with SMD bringing back their live show after its success in 2007 and new acts like Luciano’s “Aether” and Chris Cunningham (who needs no introduction) also bringing stunning visuals.
Chris even though like we said needs no introduction we’re still gonna blog about him! Famed for creating abstract, disturbing and hauntingly moody images for artsists like Madonna (“Frozen“), Portishead (“Only You“), Aphex Twin (Windowlicker”,”Come To Daddy“), Squarepusher (“Come On My Selector”), Bjork (Lesbian Robots of “All Is Full of Love“) and Autechre (“Second Bad Vilbel“) has been touring as of late and we’re delighted to see him bringing his performance to our shores. We’ve told they’re mental so we suppose its best go see. Seeing is believing! We’re gonna go just to see this alone, Star Wars techno!
The audio is awful in this next vid but you get an idea about what the performance is about, we’re not overly excited about the music but it looks definitely worth seeing. Beware not for the faint hearted!
Can anyone spot the problem with the above email blast from MCD that came to our inbox this morning? It seems that the promoters of Boys Noize themselves can’t even spell his name correctly. You would expect this if he hadn’t played in Dublin with MCD before but this is about the 8th time! Come on lads! MCD’s new strategy seems to be lining up all the popular acts from Oxegen such as Calvin Harris and Little Boots for Winter gigs in Dublin.
Spelling aside, its good new that Alex Ridha is coming to Dublin to launch the album. Recent pics of his Berlin studio Hailfairy expects a similar mosh to the last gig in the Academy this year when Ridha dropped most of the tracks from Power already. Check one of the vids from his last Academy Gig below.
Electricity Present: MATTHEW DEAR aka AUDION (M-NUS / Spectral Sound, USA)
Most of theBodytoniccrowd will be away this weekend at their little shindig in Croatia called Airbound, but that doesn’t mean the Twisted Pepper’s closing down for the bank holiday weekend! Electricity, fair play to them have brought overMatthew Dearwho’ll be performing as his warped trippy alter egoAudion. Hail Fairy are long time fans of the great man, having finally seen him last year @ I Love Techno. Famed for his production, anyone into techno knows of his summer smash in 2006 “Mouth to Mouth” which sounds as fresh as ever and we’re still not sick of it! Equally as impressive is his lesser known work under his actual name and his brilliant debut Album Asa Breed. We can’t recommend checking this out enough! We’re still hoping someone gets him over with his band to perform at some point while he’s still promoting his album. Anyone who can compose a track as big and powerful as “Mouth to Mouth” and as soft and gentle as “Deserter” is a Genius in our eyes. Tickets for this are €12 and onsaleHere. Roll on this Bank holiday weekend!
Here’s a video of Audion playing @ Loveparade Germany 2008, its a great set , short and sweet and packs a punch. Its worth a watch if you can overlook a lot of close up shots of wet looking demented Germans!
Æther, the six piece Cadenza collective headed up by Luciano have just been confirmed by Resident Advisor to play Electric Picnic this year! They have them down to play Fri September 4th. Excerpt fromResident Advisor:
“Billed as, “the synchronisation of sound and colour,” AEther is in fact a twelve person outfit when both audio and visuals are taken into consideration. The basic premise of the show is a live laptop jam session, conducted by Luciano, using a colour coded convention. Five musicians from the Cadenza stable—namely Reboot, Lee Van Dowski, Mirko LokoandDigitalinealong with percussionist Omri Hason—play instruments via Ableton Live with selected colours of the light spectrum assigned to each instrument. Luciano will drive the performance through a touch screen interface used to trigger colours as he sees fit, with Todd Graft and Loki from Micro Chunk group pitching with the visual accompaniment. It’s no wonder the project has been four years in the making. “
Very nice, more techno for the Picnic, albeit ambient techno me thinks, Hailfairy is not complaining. It looks fantastic judging by some of these videos we’ve seen of them at Monegros Festival, last week in the deserts of Spain.
All music posted on this blog is for review and promotional purposes only. If you like any of the music in this blog we advise you to buy the record or to support the artist in any way you can. If you find your music here and would like it removed, please send an email to hello@haifairy.com and we will gladly remove it.
Will there be another next year who knows? We’re certainly thinking of doing a couple more abroad and maybe supplementing something else in instead of EP. It is Glastonbury’s 40th Anniversary after all!
Body & Soul til we were kicked out and then it was day 1 done.
