The very first day in the life of Forbidden Fruit. As much as I was looking forward to seeing the plethora of great bands playing, I was almost more intrigued and excited to see the layout of the festival’s three stages as well as facilities and the general organisation of the festival. Is a festival mere minutes from Dublin’s city centre possible to pull off?
As I was walking through the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the sound of Colourmusic could be heard coming from the main stage. As I was fairly early, there was pretty much no queue to get in. I walked straight to the ‘Core Bar’ to get a drink and had a quick walk around the many food stalls. The main stage was located at the bottom of a hill, which created an amphitheatre where the majority of people were sitting on the grass in the sun. the Undergrowth Stage was beside the main stage with The Lighthouse Stage in the other corner of the field.
Jape was the second act to play on the main stage and he rifled through as many songs as possible, including crowd favourites ‘Floating’ and ‘I Was A Man’. Despite some sound issues, it was a great set enjoyed by a growing audience.
Next up were Bombay Bicycle Club. The sound for them was a bit better, I was sitting on the hill a good bit from the stage though so maybe some of the sound was getting lost. Time to get used to open-air concerts again it seems!
Before heading to the Undergrowth Stage I decided to go for another refreshing drink. When I reached the bar the queue was unbelievable. Despite having a number of ‘Fruit Bars’ dotted around selling Bulmers Pear and Berry, the ‘Core Bar’ was the only place selling pints of Becks and Original Bulmers. To queue up would have taken at least an hour so I left it.
Beardyman was next up in the Undergrowth Stage. The tent was packed for the YouTube sensation, who started with a rendition of ‘My Lovely Horse’ then beatboxed his way through a number of tracks that I didn’t know. It was still impressive how one man can make all those noises with his mouth though.
Towards the end of his set I ran over to the Lighthouse Stage to check out local duo Kid Karate. This tent was slightly smaller than the Undergrowth Stage. Kid Karate put on a great show, which ended in guitarist/vocalist Kevin Breen sellotaping the microphone to his face and jumping into the crowd with his guitar. Top marks for originality.
Next it was time to sit down to get some nutrition and energy for the final stretch. By this time, I overheard someone saying they had queued 2 hours for a beer. This upset me for two reasons, firstly it showed poor organisation by POD to only have one main bar in operation for the amount of people attending but also it disappointed me that somebody would bother to queue for 2 hours at a music festival just to get alcohol. I like a pint as much as the next man, but how can you pay €50 in to a music festival and waste most of your day queuing for a drink instead of going to see some great bands? The mind boggles.
Yo La Tengo were the second to last band on the Main (or ‘Original’, to keep the sponsors happy) Stage. I was told by my brother to check this band out because they have been going for a long long time and are really good and he wasn’t wrong. In between songs, they tell the crowd they have been playing together for 27 years. Any band who have been playing for 6 years longer than I have been alive deserve all sorts of credit, especially considering their limited mainstream success.
As they were playing their last song I walked back to the Lighthouse Stage to see Ham Sandwich. I was glad I got their before they started because by the time they started playing the tent was packed. It was great to see an Irish band pull such a huge crowd and the band were full of appreciation to everyone for coming out to see them. Again, the sound wasn’t amazing for them but the crowd didn’t seem to mind, dancing and clapping along to every song as well as joining Podge in his random singalongs as well as getting half the crowd to pretend to be Cowboys and the other half Indians in order to make a dream of his reality. They also had a violinist on stage for every song which added a new dimension to their songs and is something I’d love to see live again in a more intimate setting.
It was time for the headline act, Flaming Lips are well known for their live show and tonight was no exception. During the first song, front-man Wayne Coyne was inside a large plastic ball, a multitude of balloons were thrown into the crowd and confetti was literally blasted from cannons into the crowd. The music wasn’t bad either with ‘She Don’t Use Jelly’, ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots’ and of course ‘Do You Realise?’ all played.
With the luas stop a matter of a 5 minute walk away, I was home and in bed before midnight to prepare myself for another day of music. Everything didn’t run perfectly for Forbidden Fruit festival on its first ever day, with some sound issues and the queues for the bars, but the majority of the crowd seemed to go home happy after a long day of sunshine and great music.