Murphy’s Little Big Weekend @ Beamish & Crawford Brewery, Cork 25th & 26th August 2012
The Murphys Little Big Weekend is fast becoming a serious fixture down south in the Rebel County. It exists in a strange middle-ground between a food fair and a music festival, with cooking demos and restaurant stalls mixed in with the bands. Besides all the food, the line-up this year featured Peter Hook & The Light and Dead School on the Saturday, and Jape, O Emperor, Toby Kaar, Slow Motion Heroes, REID and a host of acoustic and electronic artists performing on Sunday.
Dead School, opening for Peter Hook for the second time this year, are still finding their feet after some dramatic line-up changes. They’re improving all the time, and we’ll see how they end up a few months from now as they round off a new release and UK tour.
Headlining Saturday, the legendary Peter Hook seemed genuinely moved by the passion of the crowd. It took him a while to warm up, and it took a while for the crowd to genuinely warm to him. But as the set progressed through Side B of Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’, striking particularly at She’s Lost Control and Shadowplay, the crowd raised its voice higher and higher causing Hook to step back, smile, and tell the crowd how “they’ve made an old man very happy.”
By comparison to the straightforward Saturday, the Murphy’s Sunday was far more frantic. Event-goers were forced to run to and fro between the main tent, acoustic tent and electronic space in order to catch artists that were sandwiched too close together and didn’t stick to the timetable. So there was a good deal of disappointment around, especially for those who tried to catch local boy Toby Kaar’s set only to be turned away from the stage 10 minutes before he was due to start.
On the main stage, The Would Bes began with a pleasant, inoffensive but quite boring set. Having reformed recently, it’s a wonder what has changed for them. By complete contrast, Slow Motion Heroes who followed were brimming with energy, enthusiasm, and sheer brilliance. They’re a band whose presence charms you, and whose music gets under your skin. O Emperor made their long awaited return to their adoptive home next and, while they have always been a fabulous band, their set has swelled with new material that can justifiably stand with the folk-rock majesty of their debut album. A new release will hopefully bear this out.
Sunday’s headliner was Jape, and there are few that would fail to appreciate Richie Egan’s music in Cork. Egan, as pied piper, led a fantastically engaged crowd, and it’s very hard not to be moved by his own enthusiasm and his poppy, electro groove.
Elsewhere, there were short Acoustic sets from Windings, Marc O’Reilly, West Cork natives The Hard Ground, and the eccentric, terribly odd and quietly cringeful John Spillane. Steve from Windings’ early set was the quietest the very small Acoustic Stage would be on Sunday as after that, it was almost impossible to squeeze in. Very nice for the people on the inside, not so much for those left out of what was essentially a small garden marquee. And with the acts squeezed so close together, it was hard for many to appreciate the tender sounds being produced within.
A little bit of a ‘less is more’ ethos would have been appreciated at the Murphys Little Big Weekend, and with artists like Jape, Dead School, and Slow Motion Heroes featuring at almost every Murphys event so far, there would definitely have been room for it. All in all, the weekend was lacking in a bit of imagination and a fair helping of logistical awareness. This was a shame, because South Main Street’s Brewery is a lovely space with a lovely atmosphere and the majority of the bands were so brilliant. If these faults could be corrected, this could be a fantastic event.