Indiependence 2013 - Friday | Review

Indiependence Festival on August 2nd – 4th 2013

Words by Ros Madigan & Frank Hughes

Every year sees the ultimate battle of the cheese towns as Mitchellstown and Charleville lock horns in what is always one of the strongest weekends for live-music on the Irish gig calendar. This bank holiday date has always held the key to this battle with neither festival choosing to reschedule. Even Oxegen is jumping on this weekend bandwagon, but Oxegen serves no competition as punters of these festivals seek real ‘live’ music.

In recent years, Indiependence has jumped its castle friend in a move for a more commercial and mainstream line-up while still holding on to its independent name-tag and championing unsigned Irish music. Upon entering the festival, the change to the site layout is quite stark with the move of the main stage and relocation of the third stage to the farm barn out the back. The site layout and stage locations were of little concern on the first night as the smiley crowd dipped, dodged and got caught up in the bank holiday traffic; leading to an empty earlier part of the day and a constant trickle through the front gate, all ready to camp up shop.

Bouts

Ever since the release of Turn Away, Bouts have been generating more hype than a Gareth Bale transfer saga in anticipation of the release of their debut album. Bold and brash Dinosaur Jr style guitar riffs coupled with melodic singing is the staple ingredients for a Bouts song. Their song, We Tried, is delivered with aplomb but at times it feels like Bouts are stuck in second gear as the atmosphere remained flat. Perhaps this was because the crowd in the Bier Halle were just more interested in their craft beers, than engaging with the band. The feeling was inescapable that Bouts could have been better off on one of the other stages with a more focused crowd. (FH)

Bosnian Rainbows

The Big Top stage on Friday was full of crowd surfing, falling over crowd barriers and generally wild behaviour. And that just from the Bosnian Rainbows lead singer Teri Gender Bender. Though, Omar Rodríguez-López, is the most recognisable member of this set up and it doesn’t take long to find out why this band is so electrifying live. Gyrating with the microphone, mock Egyptian dances, crawling along on the stage, all while delivering a terrific vocal performance. Only Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeah’s would have been able to hold the audience in thrall to this degree. In a set with so many highlights, it seems bizarre to single any single song, but Dig Right In Me and I Cry For You bring the most fireworks from the band in an exhilarating set. (FH)

And So I Watch You From Afar

ASIWYFA are like Ronseal. You know exactly what you are getting. Their set is delivered with the fury and energy that we come to expect. ASIWYFA light the blue touch-paper for AMBULANCE and take the crowd along for the ride. Yet, something is amiss in the band’s sound in the Big Top stage. The guitars just don’t sound right and lack that extra bit of bite. As a consequence, the normally earth shattering Set Guitars To Kill now sounds like it could have been called Set Guitars To Muffle. Being the pro’s that they are, this isn’t going to stop ASIWYFA from playing like their lives depended on it. Despite the sound issues 7 Billion People All Alive At Once still generates that crowd response that we know they are worthy of. (FH)

De La Soul

For the final act of the day one, the stage was set as throngs of people descended to the main stage to gobble up their fill of old-school rap. As many people waited beyond the stage time, it became ever so clear that the stage was not in fact set as engineers and stage hands clamored over wires and plugs behind the turntables. Despite being a huge asset to the De La Soul set, the trio simply popped in some CDJ’s and turned up the sound to a raucous level. As Posdnuos, Dave and Maseo came to the front, their energy could be felt booming through, even from that puking girl at the back. It was around halfway into set when things seemed to settle down and the crowd seemed to join De La Soul in unison as they chanted “It ain’t all good and that’s the truth. Thangs ain’t goin’ like you think they should, it’s all on you.” from All Good. As the crowd made a decent effort to deputise for Chaka Khan, the on stage gimmicks were beginning to grate a tad. You know, the whole “everybody on this side, I can’t hear you, now everybody over here” and the inevitable “heyyyyy, hoooooo, heyyyy, hoooooo.” Luckily, the introduction of Me, Myself and I would bring about the end of this and bring the set up another notch. This is where we see the excellence in delivery as the trio skip and glide off syllables as easy as speaking “1,2,3”. The set is then topped off with highlight of the night in the form of Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey). Considering that these guys were pioneers of sampling in the early days, we cannot really bemoan the existence of the recent Little Mix sampling of this. The original on the night just goes to prove that it’s near impossible to take a classic and outdo the original. Every year, there becomes a campsite chorus favourite and this year without any doubt, this was it. Maseo then takes to the mic and apologises for the lack of turntables and screams abuse at the festival before declaring that he’ll be back to “rock this shit” once more. Feel Good Inc., De La Soul’s collab with Gorrillaz, which earned them a Grammy was played out as compensation as the masses sang, danced, jived, rapped and smiled right on through to the last note of day one. (RM)