knockanstockan - James Hendicott

Music May 13, 2018

Six Great Festivals You Can Still Hit Up This Summer

Summer isn’t summer without spending at least one weekend in a field supping luke-warm beer and watching music, right? By the time the sun actually peaks in Ireland, however, many of your best festival options are already sold out. Electric Picnic broke new ground this year by selling out without announcing a single act. The more well-known UK events are long gone, too: the more desperate festival goer might even be considering security, or pulling pints, to get through the gate.

Fear not, for there are plenty of places offering great beats and even better buzz on our shores, or just a short flight away. Those at home have drawn in a huge array of international talent. Those a short flight away might well make you your plane ticket back on cheaper tickets, food and beer, so are well worth a glance. Here are our six best bets (you can still snap up tickets for) for 2018 summer shenanigans…

Knockanstockan (Blessington Lake, County Wicklow) This lakeside event a few kilometres from Blessington has a cult following, as one of those festivals it’s impossible to truly understand without going. Think effortless hippie cool, great chances to uncover new bands, an incredible atmosphere and top late-night action. If you’re willing to forget the big-name acts, you’ll probably have a better time here than almost anywhere else (tickets €150).

Featuring: Jinx Lennon, The Eskies, The Bonk, Elaine Mai and The Hot Sprockets.

Colours of Ostrava (Ostrava, Czech Republic) A hidden gem within a short drive of Katowice (Poland), the main draw of this four day July epic is the creaking steelworks it’s set in, the chance to sip wine in a hard hat, really, really cheap beer and a surprisingly stellar line up that runs late into the night. Visually stunning, with a strong dance showing and plenty of cultural appeal (€122).

Featuring: NERD, London Grammar, Josh Stone, George Ezra and Jessie J.

Sea Sessions (Bundoran, County Donegal) A west coast, beach-loving event that combines Bundoran’s ever-growing reputation for surfing with lively evenings of tunes. As well as the music and at least one afternoon of surfing (do it), you’ll be checking out BMX and skate jams, daytime beach sports, and another stunner of a location. Chilled. (from €109).

Featuring: Dizzee Rascal, Walking On Cars, Le Galaxie, Everything Everything and Delorentos.

Music April 30, 2015

State of the Nation: Aidan Cuffe (GoldenPlec)

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While the point of ‘State of the Nation’ has been to examine the ups and down of the Irish music scene at present, I could hardly leave out projects just because I’m part of them, could I? Aidan Cuffe has been running GoldenPlec as the most all encompassing of acts of love for the Irish music scene for 13 years. That’s expanded to include festival stages, links with the Irish Independent, some huge name interviews, and of course the very magazine that Stephen Byrne and I now head up. Unsurprisingly, the man has plenty to say about progress in Irish music, and his own role in it…

GoldenPlec is one of the biggest and certainly one of the most all-encompassing music sites in Ireland at this point. What were the key steps in getting there?

It’s not easy getting through as much stuff as we do, but getting from where we were 10-13 years ago when we started out to where we are now has been relentless hard work. For me personally it’s a daily sacrifice to keep the site up to date. Over the years we’ve built up some great relationships with bands, promoters, brands and PR and we couldn’t operate as we do without those relationships. We have a built up trust and in this industry, trust goes a big distance.

There’s a fine line between supporting a scene and the virtual version of standing around waving pom poms. How do you stay the right side of that?

Honesty is our only policy. I have no interest in telling a band they are great for the sake of it. Our writers are asked to purely write what they feel about the album, but to back it up with valid and constructive criticism or praise. If you can’t back up what you’re saying, don’t say it.

It’s actually a hard line to draw, everyone wants coverage and we’re one of the places where a lot of bands get a lot of coverage but album reviews are subjective, it might just be that the person reviewing it just didn’t like it. Sometimes I wish we were a blog and we only posted stuff we liked, because we would be able to be universally positive. It’s hard telling a band who have put blood and sweat into their work that the person who reviewed their material just didn’t like it, even the most constructive of criticism can be stinging and it’s hard seeing the dismay in their social posts or if you meet them in person.

What are the biggest good and bad sides of the Irish music scene right now?

Well Irish music probably couldn’t be in a better place. There is so much good stuff out there right now, the quality of releases Irish acts are producing is international quality and there is so many outlets for music in Ireland.

We’ve got great independent record stores, we have a thriving multi-genre scene with quality oozing out in all kinds of different types of music, where before there might have been a slight lean towards indie music we have everything from pop, rock, metal, folk and more all bursting through with great tracks.

Ham Sandwich hold the #1 spot right as I type. That to me isn’t just a great story, it’s a validation of the quality of their music that we’ve been banging on about for years. Sometimes you feel like a broken record talking about the same bands. We were supporting Kodaline when they were 21 Demands. They played a show in a local community centre in Swords way back when they were honing the sound that’s now pretty much a global phenomenon. 10 years ago Delorentos played a charity gig for us in the Sugar Club, we thought back then they were the business and now Ireland is properly taking notice.

I guess that’s the only bad side of Irish music. Sometimes we take a decade to realise as a nation we have world class music in our back garden. That’s why I love festival like Knockanstockan, Vantastival and BARE in the Woods and more. They have all the bands you’re going to be listening to in 5-10 years playing now, growing as artists and showing anyone who will listen why they deserve that place in your earbuds.

Music February 26, 2015

State of the Nation: Bettine McMahon (Knockanstockan)

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There’s something about Knockanstockan. I’m not sure if it’s the carefree atmosphere, the lake-side location, the air of discovery that comes with their eclectic line up, or that it’s just so rustically hippie dippy it practically seeps into your pores. It really reminds me of settling into a corner of Glastonbury and bedding in for the weekend, something I’ve always wanted to do in theory, but suffered from too much fear of missing out to go through with it (my rave review for State.ie from 2010 sums it up, really).

I’m not sure the organizers realise it (see Bettine’s answer to my first question!), but there’s also a growing mythology around the place. It comes out in the stories people come home with, in the talk of early days and in the way the festival seems to infuse the entire ethos of a certain section of Irish music culture. That, and they just seem so, so nice! A case in point: not only has Bettine given me a fantastic lowdown of what the festival is all about here, she’s thrown in an exclusive early band announcement, too. Read on!

I hear Knockanstockan has quite a back story (I may be totally wrong, but I heard a story of a squat community turning into gigs and then festivals). How did things start, how did they develop and when did it all become so real for you?

Ha-ha that is hilarious! You’re not too far wrong though. The festival started from the idea of a group of musicians who were gigging tirelessly and finding it hard to get slots at the bigger festivals. At the time, in 2007, there weren’t really any small festivals around that booked unsigned and independent Irish artists, so the idea was to build our own.

What started out small soon began to take momentum and every year, we all wanted to make a bigger impact for the musicians than the previous year. More people volunteer their time every year and we learn to grow with the imagination and skills of the community. “Blood, Sweat and Volunteers” as we say.

In 2010, a bunch of the crew did move in together into a large house which has space to rehearse, record, build stages, make music videos and much more. It’s not a’ squat’; it’s more a base for some very creative people!

It became very real when we realised we weren’t there to party, but to run a festival!

You can see the house in the Hot Sprockets video ‘Comin On’: