Orbital, Madness and Flaming Lips among headliners at Electric Picnic

ELECTRONIC ACT Orbital and ska legends Madness have been confirmed as among the headliners for this summer’s Electric Picnic festival.

Oklahoma-based psychedelic indie band the Flaming Lips and Brooklyn duo MGMT were also announced as main acts at the festival, which takes place as usual in Stradbally, Co Laois, and runs over three days from September 4th – 6th.

Forty-seven music acts were confirmed yesterday in the first tranche of names to be announced.

Declan Forde, artist booker with Pod promotions, which organises the Electric Picnic, said the rights deal with concert promoters Festival Republic, announced last month, would have no impact on the event’s format.

The deal, which involved a buyout of the share held by Aiken Promotions, gave rise to speculation that Pod’s festival rival, MCD, would take a hand in organising the Electric Picnic. MCD co-owns Festival Republic with international promoters Live Nation.

“No, that deal only went through six weeks ago and most of the festival was already organised,” said Mr Forde. “The fact is Festival Republic is involved because we always sell out weeks in advance, it’s a festival people love, and Festival Republic’s attitude is don’t break something that works.”

In addition to the main headline acts, Seattle quintet Fleet Foxes, one of the big new names of the past year, will bring their “baroque harmonic pop jams” to Stradbally, along with Mercury prize-winning Klaxons.

Other acts include Mexican guitarists Rodrigo Y Gabriela; 1970s disco and RB legends Chic, best known for their hits Freak Out and Everybody Dance; blues guitarist Seasick Steve; Alabama 3; Basement Jaxx; Swedish indie girl Lykke Li; Bat for Lashes; Echo the Bunnymen; and 1980s post-punk band Magazine. Among the Irish acts will be Choice award-winning Jape and Liberties rockabilly belle Imelda May, as well as Damien Dempsey, Lisa Hannigan and Bell X1.

Mr Forde stressed that, as with all Picnics, this year’s festival would be about much more than the music. The heart of the site will comprise an expanded Body and Soul village featuring holistic treatments, reiki, yoga, massage and general “chilling out” facilities. This will be built around a natural amphitheatre area with a chill stage featuring DJs and alternative music continuing into the small hours each night.

Acts for the theatre and spoken word area, in addition to a slew of further music acts, will be announced between now and September, with performers for the comedy stage announced in the next few weeks.

Geoff Fitzpatrick of the Be Your Environment organisation said he hoped this September’s festival would be “even greener” than last year, when organisers reduced the amount of waste going to landfill by 40 per cent compared to 2007.

Tickets go on sale at 9am on Friday priced at €240 for the weekend including camping and €480 for a family camping ticket.

For more details, see www.electricpicnic.ie