WE LAUGHED long, loud and miserably at the pre-weekend ads for Forbidden Fruit, Dublin’s nifty boutique music festival: “sunshine 23-degrees forecasted”! The bored faces on the people manning the ice cream vans and sunglasses stalls told a different story.
The vibes and music might have been on the money, but the weather on Saturday– the event’s opening day – fell far short of what we would have liked on a midsummer bank holiday weekend.
And yet the durable enthusiasm of the Irish festival-goer continued to amaze and amuse.
As people strolled into the Royal Hospital grounds, past modern art sculptures (Gary Hume’s Back of Snowman held a particular resonance for the day that was in it), the drizzling rain had just started.
Inside the compound it was like a micro hybrid of Oxegen and Electric Picnic. There were food outlets (including Pieminister, Eddie Rockets and Saba), a funfair (big queues for the chair-o-planes) and two sizeable tents (aka Undergrowth and Lighthouse): from here the likes of Irish acts Toby Kaar, Republic of Loose and Le Galaxie – the latter particularly brilliant – kept the soaked crowds entertained.
There was also the Chuckle Berry Lounge tent, where comedians – very good (John Colleary), highly promising (Carol Tobin), woeful (Michael Downey) and hilariously crude (Late Night Gimp Fight) – performed in front of customers drying out on church pews.
As the day wore on, the drizzle turned to drenching rain and temperatures dropped even further, yet still people walked around in T-shirts with potentially appropriate slogans (“Take Me to the Hospital”), sported sunglasses with no irony whatsoever and began to slip on the slope leading down to the main stage.
Weather aside, Forbidden Fruit has the shape and scope of a most agreeable annual music event. With not a hint of Oxegen’s teen-drunk boorishness or Electric Picnic’s sense of superiority, a focused line-up across the three days that’s just the right side of achingly hip, and a very fine location easily accessed by city types and dwellers on the threshold, what’s not to admire?
Forbidden Fruit recommences at 2pm today with performances from Autumn Owls, Julia Holter, Chairlift and Field Music.
The event concludes tonight with performances from Mazzy Star, Beirut, James Vincent McMorrow and Wilco.
Visit forbiddenfruit.iefor details
