Peter Hook, James, Pillow Queens, Sister Sledge & Alabama 3 among Forest Fest highlights

Apr 28, 2024

Suede, The Riptide Movement and Bicurious also dazzle in Laois' Eco Village

The weather gods may have done their best/worst but nothing could stop Forest Fest 2 being a rip-snorting success. Indeed, the biggest compliment I can pay the Laois three-dayer is that it reminds me of the early Electric Picnics – small, super-friendly and determined to do things its own way.

Having checked into the glampsite – I’m going to sell my two up/two down and move into the Bedouin bell tent with real double bed and treasure chest permanently – it’s off to see Main Stage openers Ash who mightn’t be guaranteed real teenagers anymore but still make the most adolescent of punk rock rackets. Which, in case you’re wondering, is entirely a good thing. As wondrous as the likes of ‘Girl From Mars’, ‘Oh Yeah’, ‘Shining Light’ and killer new single ‘Race The Night' are, ‘Kung Fu’ was, is and will always be the trio’s finest 2mins 17secs with Tim Wheeler shredding his Flying V and Mark Hamilton throwing the most improbable of shapes as he similarly mistreats his bass. Not to be outdone in the savagery department, Rick McMurray punctuates ‘Orpheus’ with a drum solo of John Bonham-esque proportions.

Kicking things off in The Village tent are Vendetta Love, a scabrous Dublin three-piece whose new single, ‘Dark Of The Night’ sounds like a Nick Cave murder ballad on steroids.

With its low roof and tight stage, The Village has a bit of a Whelan’s vibe and is where Peter Hook & The Light later treat us to one of the sets of the weekend. While New Order’s delving into the Joy Division songbook fails to convince because of Bernard Sumner’s reedy vocals, Hooky’s guttural growl on the likes of ‘She’s Lost Control’, ‘Isolation’ and ‘Heart And Soul’ is eerily like Ian Curtis’. Returning to the ranks after a three-month secondment with Smashing Pumpkins is Hook’s son Jack who really is a chip off the old bass block.

Back on the Main Stage, The Proclaimers are guaranteeing that they’ll never get a knighthood with ‘In Recognition’, a venomous pop at “Every other clown who likes to put the crown/ Before or after their names.” As wonderfully rabble-rousing as ‘Letter From America’ and ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ are – you were probably able to hear the crowd bellowing the “Da da dum diddy dum diddy dum diddy da da da” part back at them in Dublin – it's the Reid twins’ darker, more political dissertations, another being ‘Dentures Out’ with its “Blame the Jocks and blame the Paddys” refrain, which really hit the target and rubbish the notion of them being a novelty band.

Armed with a neat line in self-deprecation – “Who wants to hear a no. 26 from 1985?”, “Here’s the song that skyrocketed me back to oblivion” etc. etc. – Nik Kershaw time-warps us back to the Smash Hits '80s with the triple-whammy of ‘The Riddle’/‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’/‘I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’. The hairline may have receded (he's not the only one) but Nik's still clearly having as much fun on stage as we are in front of it.

It's obvious from all the flower petal-adorned t-shirts that the bulk of tonight’s crowd are here to see James who mightn’t be the permanent top 10 residents they were back in the day, but have lost none of their live allure. Resplendent in a faux fur jacket, equally cosy-looking snood and voluminous Oxford bag trousers, Tim Booth doesn’t so much sing as inhabit songs like ‘Isabella’, ‘All The Colours Of You’ and the acoustic ‘She’s A Star’. If his band are bored of performing ‘Sit Down’ it doesn’t show, and the version of ‘Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)’ towards the end of their bumper seventeen-song set is beyond joyous.

Every festival yields a new musical crush and mine on Saturday afternoon in The Village is Bicurious, a self-confessed “confused, loud, energetic, experimental” Dublin duo who are reminiscent of Royal Blood, albeit minus the cringe “We’re so rock ‘n’ roll” pronouncements. While Gavin Purcell coaxes serrated riffs and squeals of feedback from his guitar, Taran Plouzané, originally from Brest in France, acts as both demented drummer and hype master. Beneath all the bluster lurk some serious funk grooves and pop hooks.

Rolling back the years on the Main Stage are In Tua Nua whose own ability to beguile has diminished not one jot over the course of their stop-start 40-year career. ‘Seven Into The Sea’ and ‘Somebody To Love’ are respective reminders of how close they came to cracking it in the 1980s, and Leslie Dowdall deserving to be mentioned in the same breath as the Grace Slicks and Chrissie Hyndes of this world.

It’s testament to The Undertones' pop punk genius that nobody makes a run for it when the heavens mockingly open just after they’ve belted out ‘Here Comes The Summer’ on The Main Stage. Along with the prerequisite greatest hits – ‘Jimmy Jimmy’ and 'My Perfect Cousin' sound especially magnificent today – we’re treated to near misses like the Motown-y ‘The Love Parade’, which is the cue for Paul McLoone to indulge in some serious bottom-wiggling and pelvis-thrusting.

The mid-afternoon highlights keep on coming with Apollo Junction treating us to ‘Light Up The Sky’ and other Kasabian-esque bangers in The Village; The Frank & Walters getting one of the biggest cheers of the weekend when they segue from ‘Fashion Crisis Hits New York’ into ‘After All’; local-ish heroes 49th & Main seriously getting their summer groove on with the sax-y ‘Human Condition’; and Buíoch a breath of fresh Trad air – check out debut single ‘Heart Of The Band’ – in the Fleadh tent.

With three of the best Irish singles of the past decade, ‘All Works Out’ ‘Something Special’ and ‘Fall A Little More In Love’, in their armoury – I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise – The Riptide Movement have zero difficulty wowing the Main Stage and afterwards tell us over a pint of Wicklow Wolf that, festival duties completed, they’re starting work on a new album.

A glass – whiskey, naturally – is also raised to the late, extremely great Stuart Adamson before we check out the current incarnation of Big Country whose best moment is the Springsteen-y ‘Wonderland’. Shorn of their leader, 'Fields Of Fire' and the other bagpipe guitar anthems which follow sound like tribute band version of themselves.

Having yet to acquire Padre Pio-like powers of bilocation, I only to get to hear Bell X1’s opening ‘Haint Blue’/‘Velcro’/‘Space Walk’ salvo on the Main Stage before sprinting to The Village for Pillow Queens who reward my athleticism with an absolute humdinger of a set. There are celestial close harmonies (‘Be By Your Side’); folky forays redolent of The Roches (‘No Good Woman’); Joplin-esque yowling from Pamela Connolly (‘Hearts & Minds); and call and response tomfoolery (‘Rats’). They get extra marks for Sarah Corcoran’s shout out to a bride-to-be and her rock and rolling hen party: “Are you marrying a man? Are you sure? You still have time...”

As seductively soulful as Sister Sledge are on The Main Stage – ‘Everybody Dance’, ‘All American Girls’ and ‘Frankie’ sound ace from even 500 metres away and are followed by twenty lucky punters being invited up on to stage to gyrate with them – I remain glued to The Village crash barrier for sweet pretty muthafuckin’ country acid house merchants Alabama 3 who from glam stomping start (‘Whacked’) to evangelising finish (‘Hypo Full Of Love’) are devastatingly brilliant. With Zoe Devlin and Larry Love going the full 15 rounds in their trading of vocal punches; Nick Reynolds blowing up a storm on harp; and Orlando Harrison being the coolest keys player on the planet, the Brixton collective are, to use a South London colloquialism, different gravy.

Sadly, journalistic demands elsewhere mean that, sob, I have to say goodbye to Forest Fest on the Sunday but the reports I've received of Paul Brady, Suzanne Vega, Gabrielle and Suede are all of the rave variety. Gazing wistfully at Peter O'Hanlon's ace photo below, I'm wondering what sort of pact Brett Anderson has made with the Devil to look younger than the last time I caught him and his mob in the Olympia.

So there you have it, a wild weekend in the country that will linger long in the memory...