Party season got underway last month, kicked off by the annual Life Festival where the country’s hoofers got their groove on to some of the leading lights in dance music.
A line-up featuring Laurent Garnier, Modselector, Booka Shade and Leftfield proved pretty tough to top.
But the third year of Dublin’s Forbidden Fruit festival satisfied those with a more musically diverse palate, with a line up worth being expelled from the Garden of Eden for a bite of.
Featuring headline performances from Primal Scream and Chic on the Sunday and indie darlings NEON NEON and James Blake on the Saturday, when the lights went down over Kilmainham Hospital the Bulmers-sponsored event took over the centre of Temple Bar with a string of after parties on the Sunday night. Transvestite rapper Mykki Blanco and Canadian electro hipsters Austra proved to be an unusual choice for Meeting House Square, while Four Tet and Caribou played one-on, one-off in The Button Factory.
Unlike last year’s headliners New Order – who delivered their 80s hits with the passion of an over-the-hill wedding band, Chic brought the sun out in our hearts, if not in the sky, with a one and a half hour set of anthematic disco. Their feel good delivery of their own songs – Le Freak, Everybody Dance and Forbidden Lover were accompanied by a side order of Bowie, Diana Ross and Duran Duran.
“We’re not a cover band. I wrote all these tunes,” said Rogers after a medley that included Like A Virgin, I’m Coming Out and Notorious – pausing for dramatic effect, “and they were all number one!”
You had to pity Primal Scream who followed them. Their performance flew in the face of previous live outings in the country, with most of the crowd trickling off to see the end of Frank B or Woodkid who were both sensational.
Less so were sponsors, Bulmers, who ran out of booze at nine o’clock, leading to a mass exodus of parched revellers. A clever ruse to get people down to their after-party? Or an administrative cock up? We’ll have to wait till next year to see what the ticketholders decide.
By Karen Keegan
Photo by Tara Thomas
