New website

Hey, from December on, this blog is redundant. Go to http://ronancasey.ie for the new one.

You can't keep a good album down

Proof that you cannot keep a good thing down, Pink Floyd's landmark 1973 album "The Dark Side of the Moon" has re-entered the US Billboard Hot 200 charts. It's re-entry follows a revamp of qualification rules. This week, the album slotted back in at number 189. The last time the album was on the Billboard chart was October 8th, 1988, the week it dropped out of the charts having spent a couple of decades there. DSOTM's reappearance marks its 742nd week on the chart.

Here's the all-time top 5 stateside, as Kasey Kasem might say. Can't see Johnny Mathis catching up with the Floyd at this stage...

742 weeks: "Dark Side of the Moon," Pink Floyd (1973)
490 weeks: "Johnny's Greatest Hits," Johnny Mathis (1958)
480 weeks: "My Fair Lady," Original Cast (1956)
331 weeks: "Highlights From the Phantom of the Opera," Original Cast (1990)
302 weeks: "Tapestry," Carole King (1971)

new website

Cookieweb - http://www.cookieweb.ie/ - are nearly finished my website. This piece of crap is only a holding page (of sorts).

All for a good clause

Having wrestled with dozens of ridiculous hat-related puns a sub editor in The Sun would be proud of, my piece on the santa hat world record attempt in Mullingar on Sunday was given the 'All for a good clause' treatment by the Indo. I was fond of 'Hat's magic' and 'hat's the way to do it' myself, but sure what can you do...

Anyway, delighted with the coverage the day got. In the run-up, the good people on Will Leahy show on 2fm were brilliant, as were the regional stations I spoke to. I had pieces in a few other papers and James Flynn's pics popped up in a few more, but the Indo devoted nearly half a page to it was the icing on the cake. Much better than writing about hospital closures, car crashes and the grim reaper...

All for a good Claus... Santa and 700 helpers break world record

SANTA Claus and his pals were busy trying to break records over the weekend.

In Mullingar, a new world record was set for the most people gathered in one place wearing Santa hats.

Over 700 residents braved adverse weather conditions as they assembled in the town centre wearing the distinctive seasonal headgear.

At 3pm, as the music of the late Mullingar music icon Joe Dolan rang out across the streets of the Co Westmeath town, an adjudicator declared that the town was officially a record-breaker. The previous world record was set last year in the city of Brockton, Massachusetts where 507 people donned Santa hats. The attempt was part of a day-long seasonal celebration in the town.

Proceeds from the sale of the Santa hats went to the Lions Club Christmas food appeal.

Meanwhile, Santa roped in his entire extended family -- including the most distant relatives -- to drive more than 150 tractors through the border town of Belleek, Co Fermanagh on Saturday to get their attempt into the Guinness Book of Records.

The parade of Santa-driven tractors was held to coincide with the switching on of the Christmas lights in the town on Saturday. Organisers plan to send television footage of the parade along with signed documentation to the Guinness Book of Records.

Looking back at 2009

WHAT’S ANOTHER YEAR?
“Well, it’s about 3,000 words”
2009 in review

I used to do a full-page album of the year guide for the Westmeath Examiner group of newspapers and it was a tremendous amount of fun to put together and then see the results on a full broadsheet page every Christmas. The page used to be a nightmare for the production staff to make up, as invariably I would arrive in, a few hours before deadline, with 50 CD and album sleeves for them to scan. But when I got to look at the finished page, it was a marvel. Of the hundreds and thousands of articles I write every year, there are very few that I can look at and be hugely proud of. But year after year, this was one I was immensely proud of.

What pleased me most about annual round-up was going into my old favourite music haunt Heartbeat City and have Gary Baker or Peter Doran tell me from behind the counter that such-and-such an album or so-and-so was selling really well on account of the annual list. My head grew to obscene levels when they would tell me that people would come into the shop with the full page in their hand looking to buy albums off it. I was like the bloke from David Cronenberg’s ‘Scanners’ when a couple of the acts detailed in the festive fifty actually got in touch to pass on their thanks.

Sadly, the days of a newspaper group devoting a full broadsheet to a selection of albums chosen by me are long gone, and from what I hear, Heartbeat City (a much-loved chain of music stores with branches throughout the country) will be gone too. But if I can get my hands on a few PDF’s of years gone by I’ll put them up here.

In terms of what happened this year, Jim Carroll’s annual shitstorm on http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/ always gets the thinking juices flowing as to what was hot – and what was not – in the musical year.

For me, a good few months of my listening year was lost to loads of old classic rock (and much of it Deep Purple related) for a project I’m working on, and then there was an extended (and unexpected) cruise in the krautrock ocean as well as a canoe up the drone canal to contend with; but there was still plenty of ‘new’ music with which to float my boat. The best albums of the year for me were:

SOPHIA – ‘There Are No Goodbyes’ and DAVID KITT – ‘The Nightsaver’
“There are No Goodbyes” is another in a long line of stirring and moving albums from ex-God Machine man Robin Proper-Sheppard. Never one to hide his emotions, his often fraught lyrics are backed on the new LP by some of the most joyous music he and his collective has ever created. The killer title track is one of many almighty pleasures on this superb album. Funnily enough it’s the second Sophia album to top my list in a few years. The brilliant “People Are Like Seasons” from 2004 topped an Examiner poll that year. They really are a fantastic band, worthy of a wider audience. It was nice to see “There Are No Goodbyes” reviewed in this month’s UNCUT (and a four star review at that). Hopefully it’ll help spread the word. http://www.sophiamusic.net/

Meanwhile, Kittser’s excellent electronic foray on ‘The Nightsaver’ is as majestic as any of his previous releases. "A Real Fire" could be the soundtrack that never was to the 1980 Olympics, whilst "Move It On", "Beat a Retreat", "Don't Wake Me Up" are dreamy, delicious pop from a true master and still, half a dozen albums in, one of the most under-rated talents this country has ever produced. Fingers crossed he bags the Choice Award this time around.
Aside from those, I was fond of:

MASTERS OF REALITY – Pine/Cross Dover
Another quality piece of work from the genius that is Chris Goss. A sort of double album, it just rocks from start to finish, but leaves plenty of room for some typically sweet slowies that Goss gives us on each album.

FUCK BUTTONS – Tarot Sport
I wasn’t convinced on their last album that there was anything to them other than white noise, but ‘Tarot Sport’ just blew me away. The Mogwai link is no bad thing, but this sounds unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Can’t wait to see them live later this month.

ENGINEERS - Three Fact Fader
The belated second album from the English trio was well worth the wait. To lump them in with the showgazing scene/tag is to do them a great disservice. This is dreamy guitar pop, with vocal harmonies to die for. Everyone raved about Animal Collective’s ability to sing together, but this beats those American posers hands down.

SOULSAVERS – Broken
Anything, and I mean ANYTHING, with Mark Lanegan on it is gonna be good, and the second album from Soulsavers is no exception to that rule. With some stellar vocal support (Mike Patton, Jason Pierce, The London Community Gospel Choir, Will Oldham, Richard Hawley and Doves' Jimi Goodwin) Lanegan soars to even new heights with this spiritually sound album.

WHITE RAINBOW – New Clouds
A chance discovery, but certainly the best new band I’ve heard all year. It was during a drone period that I stumbled upon this one man band, and I was surprised I didn’t hear them/him sooner. Rich swathes of sound are layered upon each other with the most subtle of percussion helping them reach for the sky where they form something else entirely. New clouds indeed.

SUPER FURRY ANIMALS - Dark Days/Light Years
After the minor stumble that was ‘Hey Venus!’ the Furries returned with one of their all-time best albums. There’s a glam rock stomp permeating throughout this grower of an album, which was unfairly lashed in my favourite magazine, The Word. There simply isn’t a duff track here - “Mountain”, “Inconvenience”, “Inaugural Trams”, “White Socks/Flip Flops” and “Cardiff in the Sun” are just a few of the highlights. Live, they were on fire although I only got to see them at the Indiependence Festival in Cork where they showed every other band how it should be done. Such a shame they didn’t come back to Ireland after that. They would have made the Electric Picnic had they played.

DUCKWORTH LEWIS METHOD – s/t
After an eternity waiting in the wings, with critical plaudits and zero sales, the gentle giant that is Thomas Walsh finally got his chance of the big time with this stunning concept album about cricket. That it reached such a wide audience was in no small part thanks to the presence of Neil Hannon, but even without the Divine Comedy man, you can hear traces of Walshes Pugwash all over this record. I don’t think I’ve heard as good a song as “Sweet Spot” all year, and there are loads more on this album to make you smile. It’s such a good album that you actually forget it’s all about cricket. Surely another Choice Music Award contender.

THE CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA - The Crimson Wing
A soundtrack from a band made to score. As majestic and as soaring as the birds in the film, this album – the first fully instrumental one from TCO – retains their trademark jazz groove, but still manages to find new ground. No doubt it’ll be the first of many soundtracks from them.

TINARIWEN –Imidiwan:Companions
You don’t need to have a clue what they are singing about to like this. It’s just a masterclass in desert blues from start to finish.

EMERALDS – Emeralds
Similar to the discovery of White Rainbow, Emeralds appeared on a blog one day – thanks http://shockmountain.com/ - and that was that – they were on the stereo non-stop until I needed to hear some words. An instrumental outfit it was the following quote which drew me in: “Prepare for hypnotic and surreal drone music made by one of the best up and coming bands in the scene” and was I glad when I heard them. The Guardian has since raved about them, and all the praise is worthy. Containing just four tracks, it’s an album which reveals new subtleties on each listen. The cover art is cool too. On honeymoon in San Diego earlier this year, an American told me of the famous “green glow” that only a few fishermen ever get to see underneath a breaking wave and here it was, on an album cover. Like the glow, this album is a rare pleasure. Their other album this year – “What Happened” – is equally glorious, but this is the one where they truly found their sound.

RICHARD HAWLEY – Truelove’s Gutter
Even though it’s his fifth album, the best thing to ever come out of Sheffield is as unhurried as ever. His languid style is ever-so gently augmented by a few new bells and whistles on this, but it’s still all about his voice and his heart. Like Robin Proper-Sheppard, he wears it on his sleeve, and the listener is all the better for it. I still haven’t got a bottle of his sauce though...

BILL CALLAHAN – Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
Bill has one of the finest voices in modern music and his increasing presence in my iTunes library and on my shelves was thanks to Shane Meadows, who stuck a Smog track onto the ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’ soundtrack. “...Eagle” is another winner of an album from a man most associate with losing.

DECEMBERISTS – Hazards of Love
A overblown fucking mess of a concept album that reminds me of the glory days of prog, even though it’s about as prog as Bon Jovi.

BEAK> - Beak>
A Neu!-style krautrock album from Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, who resurrected Can in the guise of The Horrors on the “Primary Colours” track ‘Sea Within A Sea’. This time he and two chums went into a studio and laid down 12 impressive improvised work-outs. Some of the tracks are a bit meh, but the majority of it is sublime.

HEAVEN & HELL – The Devil You Know
Accept no substitutes. The all-time greatest vocalist in rock is Ronnie James Dio. Responsible for some truly landmark albums, and some of the greatest moments in the long saga that is Black Sabbath, Ronnie is to hard rock what Sinatra is to crooning, only better. On this unexpected gem he is reunited with the glorious Sabbath nucleus that is Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler on what is a Sabbath album in all but name. Drummer Vinnie Appice joins in to fully reunite the ‘Mob Rules’, ‘Dehumanizer’ and ‘Live Evil’ Sabbath and together they have produced the finest hard rock and metal album of the past few years, never mind 2009. It’s a pity they couldn’t call themselves Black Sabbath as this is more like Sabbath than anything Ozzy has done as a solo artist or Iommi did as Sabbath in the ‘wilderness years’ (i.e. most of the 1990’s). “Bible Black” is a fine single, and although Appice lets the side down with some almost-too-steady drumming, the album is a real grower. Here’s hoping Ronnie gets over his recent stomach cancer scare to record a follow up. Dream groups like this get together too rarely and a world with Dio is quite simply unthinkable.

MASTODON – Crack the Skyee
Old school metal played by loons. A bonkers album, but a fierce and mesmerising one at that.

THE ORB – Baghdad Batteries
IT would be easy to say ‘return to form’ for this, but the truth is The Orb have been releasing some very nice albums over the past few years and this is another one of those.

UNDERWORLD vs THE MISTERONS – Athens
An excellent compilation album, with a long-awaited Underworld/Brian Eno hook up yielding an unexpected beast of a track and not an ambient affair that such a team-up would suggest.

SUN O))) – Monoliths and Dimensions
Like Mastodon this is another out-there album, but in a drone style as opposed to an all-out prog-metal attack.

MOUNTAINS – Choral
Gloomy, but once the clouds clear it’s another stunning album from another well-kept American secret. What pains me about albums like this and great bands like Mountains is how come we never hear of the Irish equivalent of them? Are there any out there? And if there is can you make yourself heard please?

ESPERS – III
A complete shift in direction for Espers on this, their third album. Their first two albums were dark and mysterious pleasures, which occasionally brought you to bright plains, but this is pure log cabin stuff. Smoky and less mysterious maybe, but still excellent.

THE SWELL SEASON – Strict Joy
It was always going to be interesting to see what Glen Hansard would do next after winning the Oscar. Would he bank on the success of the Swell Season (who are packing them in all around the world) and make another album with Marketa Irglova, or would he shift the focus back to The Frames? Well, naturally enough he went for the former, but there are enough touches of the latter running through ‘Strict Joy’ to please everyone who has an interest in either. In fact, there are times when the second Swell Season album proper sounds exactly like The Frames, but these are fleeting glimpses , just enough to keep the acts separate, despite them both sharing the same backing players. All the Frames (with Graham Hopkins on drums this time around) play on this fabulously moving album, and having spent the best part of their lives playing with Hansard and the last few years with Swell Season they are operating in a realm that few acts ever reach. Their playing is simply sublime, and having the boys around him makes Hansard soar to new heights. To put it mildly, he’s not afraid to let go, or let rip. Speaking as a long-standing Frames fan, I have never heard him pour as much into an album as he does to this. With the back story of his break-up with Marketa and the death of his father to draw on, it’s no surprise that he goes deep. For her part, Marketa sounds every bit like a woman looking for something (or someone) new, and her sometimes distant vocals are what truly moves this album into the realm of all-time great Irish albums. If this is a break-up album, I can’t wait to hear where they go with their next one.

PEARL JAM – Backspacer
Solid, unpretentious, fulfilling album from a band it’s hard to call veterans. They’re beginning to turn into Tom Petty (as are the Foo Fighters) but thankfully they’re doing so with all the class of Petty himself, if that makes any sense.

TONY ALLEN – Secret Agent
A groovy grower that makes up for hearing so little of this master sticksman on Damon Albarn’s ‘The Good, The Bad and The Queen’ album.

ARCHIVE – Controlling Crowds
One of the many mysteries surrounding Archive is why so little is known about them here and in the UK. They became critics favourites many years ago as a sort of hybrid drum ‘n’ bass act it was ok to like, but after they recruited ex-Power of Dreams frontman Craig Walker and started chartering a Pink Floyd-style course through out-there genres they sort of disappeared but became huge in France. They have released a couple of great albums to no acclaim here, and this is another one of them. They lost Walker a few years ago, but didn’t lose the menace he brought to the band and this is a brilliantly broody piece of work.

DANGERMOUSE and SPARKLEHORSE (& David Lynch)– Dark Night of the Soul
A mixed bag this, and every now and again you can see why the record company (allegedly) refused to release it, but when you don’t take it as a whole, there are some supremely skilful songs in there. You could buy the beautiful packaging if you liked, and if you are a fan of Lynch it is an essential purchase, but I, like everyone else, relied on the illegal download to get us through this very dark night of the soul.

ADAM FRANKLIN – Spent Bullets
The ex-Swervedriver man has been quietly releasing some wonderful albums over the years, and even a recent enough Swervedriver reunion didn’t get in the way of his singular vision and his focus on crafting intelligent albums that the listener returns to again and again.

ISIS – Wavering Radiant
With Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky on the road, it was left to Isis to produce the post-rock album of the year. As heavy as it gets and then some, you’ll either love this album or hate it. There’s little, if any, middle ground.

THERAPY? – Crooked Timber
They’re still with us! And after a couple of dodgy albums they have found the form that made so many of us kick the shit out of each other in Fibbers all those years ago. A cracking return that will hopefully be backed up by an Irish tour of some sort.

THE JUAN MACLEAN – The Future Will Come
Second, stylish album from the DFA alumni, and just as good as “Less Than Human”. Whilst there was little new ground broken, there was still plenty to get excited about.

NEIL YOUNG - Fork in the Road
Another cranky but thoroughly enjoyable NY album. His shows were great this summer too, and his Glastonbury appearance was one of the best things on the telly in years. Long may he reign, although he could do with reducing the price of his Archives set(s).

*Biggest disappointments of the year

THEM CROOKED VULTURES – S/T.
As if the last pair of QOTSA albums weren’t bad enough; Josh Homme has delivered his third turd in a row. You would have imagined that with such talent in the studio some magic would have been produced. But no, all we got was an imitation QOTSA B-sides album; and a really poor, uninspired one at that. Homme really needs to reform Kyuss...

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE – Merriweather Post Pavillion
This shower of harmony-loving Beach Boys fans became the darlings of practically every indie journalist this year and I still, for the life of me, cannot fathom why. Despite the really cool cover art, this is a complete and utter pile of unlistenable wank. A big load of tuneless dirges sang by a load of chancers in thrall to Brian Wilson.

*COMPILATION CORNER
A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind Volumes 1 and 2 from Amorphous Androgynous are both huge big WOWs! Both of them are incredible, all-over-the-shop trips that are well worth taking. They were great in the Body & Soul area at Electric Picnic this year too. Hopefully the much-mooted Noel G hook-up will materialise as their 22-minute Oasis “remix” is ace

Also liked “Beyond The Wizards Sleeve - Re-Animations, Vol. 1” and “Dirty Edits Volumes 1 and 2” though all three of those are probably years old.

And for some reason this year, quite a few of the free CD's on WORD, UNCUT and MOJO have were astonishingly good, especially a couple of label samplers.

*GIGS OF THE YEAR

The Gutter Twins (Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli) in Dublin and Galway were both brilliant nights of music. The Dublin show was a bit tricky as both of them were in a bad mood, so the Galway show shading it in terms of, er, artist participation. I must review it in full some day, it was a funny night. AC/DC at the o2 was just a dream come true. As metal as it gets. You just can’t beat a metal crowd, and this gig was further proof of my theory.

The Specials were tremendous at the Olympia despite being in the cheap seats and being less-than-excited about them at Oxegen. Faith No More were also fantastic at the Olympia and James at the Academy was just so, so good. I cried during “Sound” and to this day I have never heard such a sing-along for an encore as the whole venue singing a bit of “Sometimes.” The biggest surprise of that intimate July show was that the material from “Hey Ma” sounded excellent. It’s not the easiest of James albums to warm to, but it blazed at The Academy. Mogwai also rocked at the same venue, although I could only afford to go to one of their three shows there. Still, I was lucky enough to go to the one where they played “My Father The King” in full. Nice.

Sadly, there were very few Irish bands to get excited about. As ever I watched dozens of them at The Stables in Mullingar but can only remember (or recommend) a handful. R.S.A.G. was great as was Mick Flannery. I went to him dreading it, but he was quite good it has to be said, and speaking to him afterwards it transpires that he is a total gent.

At the festivals, the double whammy of Nine Inch Nails and Janes Addiction at an otherwise miserable Oxegen took some beating. Blur were worth the wait on the Friday and their dedication to Jo Dolan was very moving and was a lovely touch. Nothing was worth the rain on the Saturday, not even Doves and Nick Cave. Deirdre and I left during Elbow in the late afternoon. No matter how old you are or what your levels of inebriation are, there is nothing worse than standing in the pisses of rain at a festival.

Chic, David Kitt (x2), Explosions in the Sky, Duckworth Lewis Method, Jape and the Tulla Ceili Band (of all people) were some of the few things worth remembering from EP. Truth be told, I enjoyed the Mindfield area more than anything on offer elsewhere. Without question, it was the worst EP yet, with a terrible line-up, plenty of acts on the wrong stages (none more so than Lisa Hannigan on the Main Stage and Flaming Lips in the Electric Arena tent), and a general “if you stage it they will come” mentality that did it, and the punters, a total disservice. It’s a tremendous festival but it really needs a good kick up the hole next year.

It lashed rain at Indiependence in Cork, where The Aftermath and The Blizzards played solid sets. Both bands surprised me on the day in fact. Also playing was a mountain of third-rate Irish bands, most of whom I watched through gritted teeth. Delorentos were good, but the rest of them can forget about it. Despite arriving on stage an hour late, headliners Super Furry Animals at were a class apart. Such a shame they didn’t play elsewhere in Ireland this year as “Dark Days/Light Years” is one of their finest albums.

Hay! It's a new festival 'for the mind'

One of the best things about the Electric Picnic festival has always been the so-called spoken word area, which was rechristened ‘Mindfield’ last year. A self-contained village away from the main musical stages, it was really a festival within a festival, and now it seems it is to become a festival all of its own, independent of the Electric Picnic, but not of the EP promoters.

The grounds of Kilmainham are set to be the venue for the maiden ‘Mindfield’ Festival, which will take place on the May Bank Holiday between April 30 and May 1st. A large and varied selection of “the world's finest minds” are promised, and they “will convene over one weekend to argue, provoke, discuss and debate everything from football to architecture; global economics to climate change; politics to cartoons; photography to media; technology to graphic design; and history to fashion.”

The festival is firmly taking its cues from the Hay Festival in Wales which has risen in world prominence since Sky Arts became involved. POD Concerts are the main crew behind it, though there will be several others involved.

It’s proposed that Mind Field at Kilmainham will feature six ‘main’ performance stages housing the official line-up and dozens of smaller tents/concessions, no doubt housing a load of mad men. It will retain its Electric Picnic charm, where the village feel is central to its independence from the rest of the festival, and it will be laid out in a similar fashion to the Carlsberg Comedy Festival and Taste of Dublin showcase. So, we can expect a ring of elegant marquees with a central area for folk to mingle, complain about the coffee and wonder why they can’t get into the big tent to hear Jon Snow interview someone about the War on Iraq.

Stage-wise it will be a bigger version of its Picnic incarnation, with a better line-up to match. Dozens of international names in the fields of fashion, food, theatre, literature, broadcasting, poetry, music, comedy, photography and much more are already as good as confirmed. Jon Snow is returning after his success at the Picnic this year (see below), and it’s hope he’ll be conducting public interviews with central figures in the peace process up north including John Major and (pending his appearance at the public enquiry into the Iraq War) Tony Blair.

The popular Leviathan Political Caberet will have a stage/marquee to call its own, and it will be the true heart of the festival with talks, debates, interviews and much more taking place. There will be ‘The Arts Stage’, featuring talks and demonstrations with artists, painters, photographers, designers, architects, musicians and many more. There’s talk of some serious names for this, with Herb Ritts, David La Chapelle, Damien Hirst, Sir Norman Foster, Brian Eno, and more allegedly booking flights to Dublin that weekend.

The Arts Council Literary Stage is also going to be housed under the drapes of a crisp marquee. The usual suspects like Seamus Heaney, John Banville, etc will be here, but expect curveball additions like JK Rowling, and Salman Rushdie and editors of some of the world’s finest mags like Rolling Stone, Vogue. Hopefully they’ll have a slot for populist authors such as Bertie's daughter and whoever else is setting the chick-lit world alight as it would be nice to learn how to write a hit. Poetry in all its guises will be under the roof of The Word Stage. Appearances from the likes of Patti Smith, Henry Rollins, Saul Williams and Linton Kwezi Johnson are already being talked about. The Theatre Stage is set to expand its remit from the Picnic, where the emphasis was on home-grown, mainly independent theatre. Depending on what the budget is, a pile of professional luvvies from Ireland and the UK will descent on Kilmainham to take over this cultural corner.

There will also be a Salon du Chat, Cookery Stages, Irish language stages and hopefully they’ll get Chaos Thaoghaire involved too. There’s also scope for a cinema tent, which will come complete with talks about cult movies.

So, basically, a transportation of the Electric Picnic Mindfield to Kilmainham with a few more bells and whistles added.

Last year was probably the best year yet for the Mindfield area at the Picnic, with a cool line-up and a bewildering amount of stages. Officially there were seven central stages, but at any one time there always seemed to be more events happening than that amount of stages could accommodate. As well as all the ‘action’, there was also the nice addition of a few more food concessions, a book shop, a gallery or two, a wine bar and more besides. New EP investor Melvyn Benn couldn’t help but be impressed by the area, what with its white picket fences, sculpture, deck chairs and wordy content and hopefully he’ll green light its retention for the new, improved 2010 staging of the festival. The only thing really missing in 2009 was people. This could easily be solved for 2010 if they decide to end the continued exile of the Comedy Tent, which really needs to be incorporated into this area to generate more footfall and/or interest.

Looking back at September from the comfort of November, the Leviathan Political Cabaret was probably the star attraction for most of the punters in there, with its gala line up of thinkers, journalists, writers, musicians, philosophers, Government ministers, star-turns and David McWilliams. The elegant Jon Snow from Channel 4 cut quite the dash as he took to that stage and the literary stage on several occasions over the weekend. Surrounded by adoring fans no matter where he went, it was quite amusing to see a newsreader get more attention than a member of The Clash who passed out in front of the Theatre Stage a year earlier. No one seemed to notice who anyone else was, and many great writers and other big figures Snow would interview over the weekend walked around unhassled.

The Word Stage, hosted by slam poetry kingpin Marty Mulligan, was another great success, mixing a fine blend of poetry, spoken word, slam, prose, rap, readings, literature, comedy and music. Here, the Book Club Boutique, Selena Godden, Olaf Tyaransen, Marty himself and many others really impressed. There were numerous guest appearances here all weekend, and yours truly put in a performance (see elsewhere on this site) which attracted a decent crowd and a mention in the official Picnic paper The Ticket.

There was also the Salon du Chat, the Science Gallery, the Theatre Stage (moved back indoors after an outdoor outing in 2008), the Hot Press signing tent where a Sunday newspaper hack recorded Tommy Tiernan’s unfortunate comments on a certain race, transcribed them and probably ruined TT’s Stateside career in doing so. The Literary Stage was also great, and was certainly the plushest, showing all the signs of its Arts Council investment. The Irish Language Stage programmed by Kíla and Des O’Bishop was also a hit, with ‘How to Swear in Irish’ particularly memorable for some.
Appearing on them all was thousands of performers, with much praise emerging for Ryan Tubridy (on the weekend of his Late Late Show debut), BP Fallon, The Aftermath, The Camembert Quartet, Jinx Lennon, Brian Keenan, Irvine Welsh, John Banville and loads more names that were originally written on my now lost EP notebook.

So, how will it work as its own festival? I think it’ll work just fine. The mainstream media is full of miserablism and recession talk, and as the recent success of books like The Builders, The Bankers and the latest from McWilliams and Hobbs has proved, people love it. With plenty of that promised, and some serious star names in the fields of politics, poetry, literature, design, fashion etc lined up, Mind Field could well grow too big for the Electric Picnic.

It probably would work better if it was within walking distance of the City Centre. Whilst there’s no denying that Kilmainham is only a stroll away and is a very pleasant environment for such a festival, Merrion Square or Iveagh Gardens would also have been good choices. Still, with IMMA next door, that can only lead to the involvement of more figures from the art world, and that can only be a good thing.

No word yet on tickets, or even if it has got planning, but all that will follow soon. Remember where you read about it first.

REVIEW - Charley Pride in Concert

Charley Pride in concert at the Mullingar Park Hotel, November 11, 2009

For as long as I can remember I’ve been passing posters or flipping the page on ads announcing a Charley Pride concert or twelve. One of the grand old men of American country music, he never seems to spend a year without touring Ireland. But his most recent tour caught my eye as it was with some gusto that its co-promoters, Aiken Promotions and Showtours, announced that this would be Charley’s 20th and FINAL Irish tour.

‘Right so,’ says I, ‘time to go and check out Charley.'

The first (and practically only) black country and western star, Pride is one of the Top 20 best-selling country artists of all-time with over 70 million albums sold, 31 gold and four platinum albums - including one quadruple platinum. He has been responsible for an astonishing 36 number one hit singles. On RCA Records, his home for 30-odd years until they parted company in the 1990’s, Charley Pride is second in sales only to Elvis Presley.

Even as a casual observer of country music, I was more than familiar with many of his chart toppers but it seems there is part of Pride in every corner of Ireland as most of this tour was sold out. I chose to see him in the Mullingar Park Hotel, purely because it was down the road. Locally, the gig hadn’t been advertised much, but there was still over 900 people who had forked out close to €50 each to see the man himself, and most of those were in their seats within seconds of the doors opening. In fact, most of them were there an hour beforehand.

Family pride is a big thing for Charley and has been over his last couple of Irish tours apparently, so the supporting acts were his younger brother Steven and his son Dion, whom Charley has been trying to ‘launch’ in Ireland for some time - with mixed results it has to be said. As both men went through the motions with Charley’s own band – a bunch of country and western old-timers with one token young fella out front on violin - the man himself stood at the back of the hall out of view to all but a few over-excited roly-poly pensioners who nearly throttled him with hugs and incomprehensible midlands gibberish. One has to hope that Charley himself didn’t understand (or hear) the comments of other, more casual audience members who, upon entering the function room and noting there was a black man on stage in the distance, shouted to each other “he’s on!” and raced up towards the front.

It was purely by accident that I ended up standing beside him, but he was warm and engaging company, and it was he who struck up the conversation. When his brother Steven sang a rather affectionate take on George Jones’ majestic “He Stopped Loving Her Today” Charley asked me if I liked Jones. Well, what could you say? Jones is the King of Country as far as my family is concerned. My father is a passionate Jones fan, and practically all of my youth has been sound-tracked at some point by the music of ‘The Possum’ – be it in the car, in the house, or indeed in the house as the car pulled up. Often, when he was coming home after a night’s work, Dad would have Jones turned up so loud in his car that we would hear him coming a mile up the road. I told Charley of my appreciation for Jones, the owner of perhaps the greatest voice in country music, and the old crooner smiled. “Yep, he sure had a good voice.” Like Charley, Jones is still touring. Unlike Charley, Jones is showing the signs of his age, something those who saw him on his Irish tour last August confirmed.

Meanwhile, up on stage in the distance, Stephen carried on, singing a few standards and a few songs of his own in a gentle manner befitting the older profile of the audience. As he finished up to a volley of kind applause from those who had figured out he wasn’t, in fact, his more famous brother, Charley motioned that his son would get the audience going. He was clearly appreciative and encouraging towards Dion, whom had started out singing and dancing to Michael Jackson and James Brown. Perhaps he should have stayed singing pop and funk as, despite his best efforts and his obviously decent voice, he’s just not country. After about four songs, Dion told an audience already thinking of their bed-time that he likes to rock it up a bit, and so he introduced “a toetapper” called Girl something-or-other. He finally struck gold with the seated army when he told a story behind a song about “supporting your own”. The audience nodded in appreciation thinking he was on about home towns and local businesses. The fact that Dion was trying to tell them the story of setting up an independent record label didn’t matter. Anyway, in the handing-over-the-baton stakes, it was Stephen Pride one expects to be seeing more of on the country scene.

After a short interval (and after the bars closed), it was time for Charley’s under-stretched band to return to the stage and usher on the great man himself. After a speed wobble, the sprightly 72 year-old appeared to applause as wild as one gets with a crowd whose average age is over 55. His first song was something about happiness, a toe-tapper as his son might say, though the tapping toes of the Mullingar Park Hotel would barely dent the carpet. A totally harmless cover of “I Don’t Know Why I Love You (But I Do)” followed by country standard “Do What You Do Do Well” brought a sense of comfortable familiarity to the night. These are songs that Irish country singers are still knocking out night after night, and Charley’s audience lapped them up as if they were new. Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” was a complete and utter curveball to hear in such gentle surroundings and it ushered in the drummers first use of his cymbals. Wow! Then, the gentlemanly side of Charley one has read about for years came to the fore. Noticing someone trying to take a photo from the second row, he hopped off the stage, got the camera off them and then got back up and took a photo of himself with it. He then found out who the person was and dedicated the next song to them. Cue the sound of melting hearts and cooing “aww’s”. Later he answered several notes handed up to the stage with requests and shout-outs. It was all very tender.

In recent years, music fans have become all-too-familiar with the so-simple-it’s-genius concept of an act playing one its classic albums from start-to-finish. Well, with no true classic album to his name (despite selling over 70 million of them) Charley Pride instead leads his band on a run through of one of his Greatest Hits albums, but instead of hearing the full tracks we are “treated” to the choruses of dozens of them. It’s a bit of a swizz really, as songs like “The Snakes Crawl at Night”, “Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger”, “All I Have to Offer You Is Me” and the classic “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” are template country tracks which, by virtue of being the first number ones recorded by a black country artist, broke down insurmountable barriers in the notoriously conservative world of country music. So, it’s a shame that Charley is only paying them scant attention by including them in hackneyed medleys. A lot of older artists, from Joe Dolan to Johnny Cash to Status Quo, have fallen into this trap, and it’s a mystery why. Are they ashamed of their early hits?

After he wheeled out “Crystal Chandelier” the show then took a nosedive from which it never recovered, despite a re-appearance of “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” later on. An engaging man with the microphone, Charley then went off on a ten minute sales pitch for his latest selection of CD’s and DV’s which just happened to be on sale at the back of the hall. He then spoke about his gospel albums which, conveniently, were on sale at the back of the hall. He then talked about a set of wonderful photographs, also on sale at the back of the hall. His book? Well, you know where to go if you want to buy iy. And if all that wasn’t enough, after the concert, Charlie, his son and his brother would also be down at the back of the hall signing produce which, quelle surprise, can only be bought at the back of the hall.

It took some time for him to recover and the rest of the hall only came alive when Charley began to name-drop people he’d worked it during another lengthy speech. The very mention of the words “Dolly” and “Parton” drew out what can only be described as a sort of male rural Irish “phoarrr!” When he mentioned Jim Reeves it resulted in wild applause echoing around the hall – possibly the loudest cheer of the night - but when Willie Nelson was mentioned there was pin-drop silence. Charley then played a selection of songs he did with this lot, the titles of which I can’t remember, sullied as my brain was by the sales pitch and Ireland’s apathy towards the great Willie Nelson.

Strangely enough his sales pitch was beginning to take effect and as he gently eased his way through his back catalogue I went back to investigate the back of the hall along with several other bored audience members. I could hear my sneakers squeak such was the silence at the back of the hall. During the support acts, as I stood at the back of the hall with the man himself, it wasn’t that noticeable, but if I had forked out 50 quid to sit at the back of the hall beside the merch and a mile away from the stage with little - if any - view I’d be talking to Joe the following afternoon. It was, well, odd. Not in a Row Z sense, but worse than that.

The Mullingar Park Hotel is one weird place for a gig. Boasting a capacity of well over a thousand this massive hotel function room is shaped into an unusually formed ‘L’ to accommodate its own foyer/reception and a variety of ‘wings’ which, depending on the client, can be made into one huge whole, or sectioned off. That huge carpeted whole is then filled with row after row of seats. All on a flat floor. Naturally enough this configuration is going to throw up all kinds of sound issues, and concerts have been few and far between here, despite it being the biggest ‘hall’ in the midlands. Daniel O’Donnell did well here, as did Christy Moore and the resurrected Big Tom. But ‘younger’ acts have been less fortunate. Despite the alcohol-fuelled excitement of a near-capacity crowd The Saw Doctors played a stinker here, as did The Blizzards whose state-of-the-art PA and Oxegen-friendly pop sound was lost in a haze of carpet and echoes. It was similar for Charley. From the middle of the room, everything is fine and dandy. But if you’re down at the back of the hall, then good luck.

Over the years the ‘hall’ has been more accustomed to hosting everything from political party AGMs to nursing organisation think tanks, home exhibitions to leather jacket expos, and GAA dinners to major conferences, most of which come with a great big feed. It’s also a popular wedding destination - indeed I have DJ’d several here over the years - but no matter what event I have attended here I’ve never truly forgotten what I was in – a soulless, practically windowless, multi-purpose function room. So, it was a kind of sad night then. One I’ll remember as much for the back of the hall rather than what was actually happening up on stage at the front. It’s not as if there was anything wrong with the show, it’s just that it lacked anything remotely resembling an atmosphere. The band barely made an effort, and although he was warm and friendly up there on stage and he has over 30 years of hits to choose from, Charley was simply going through the motions as only a country veteran can – with ease and efficiency. Sure, most of the 900 fans left with smiles on their faces and a gospel album or a signed photo in their arms, but if the truth be known, what they had experienced was more akin to what normally happens in soul-less multi-purpose function rooms – they were fed. And it was fodder they dined on, not the a la carte promise they had probably hoped for.

Charley Pride’s Irish tour continues all this week.