Electric Picnic is about to return to Stradbally Hall, in Co Laois. Here’s our selection of essential acts to see and places to visit at the music and arts festival this August 16th-18th.
Kylie Minogue
The princess of pop – one of the most influential women in the world, according to Time magazine – has had so many hits that her shows are all killer, no filler. She’s back to perform in Ireland after almost six years, hot on the tails of her sold-out six-month Las Vegas residency at the Venetian. With her back catalogue crammed with irresistible pop rhythms, there’s little doubt that the main arena at Electric Picnic will be thronged for Kylie’s performance on the festival’s final night. All you need to be concerned about is whether there’ll be enough room to move, let alone throw some shapes.
CMAT
A lot has happened in the Dunboyne singer’s life since CMAT last performed at Electric Picnic, on the compact Rankin’s Wood Stage. That was in 2022, the year she released her debut album, If My Wife New I’d Be Dead. Her second album, Crazymad, for Me, which arrived last October, put her on the global radar, leading to everything from a New York Times profile and an Ivor Novello nomination to her recent nod for this year’s Mercury Prize for the best album of 2024. Expect her to be on a far bigger Electric Picnic stage this time around, especially since her sold-out open-air show at Fairview Park in Dublin two months ago.
Kneecap
My colleague Una Mullally got it right late last year when she asked: “Is there a more buzzed about Irish group right now?” She was reviewing the Northern Irish trio’s gig at the 3Olympia Theatre, in Dublin, some six months before they released their debut album and biopic, yet even then there was much anticipation about what they would deliver. We’re guessing that sales of Buckfast and Tricolour balaclavas will be brisk here as Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Provaí take to the stage to deliver their joyous, politically charged blend of hip hop, punk and rave. At their Galway International Arts Festival gig last month, they proved worthy of festival greats as everyone in the audience dove into the chorus of Cearta – “Is cuma liom sa foc faoi aon gharda, dúidín lasta, tá mise ró-ghasta, ní fheicfidh tú mise i mo sheasamh ró-fhada” – as if they were born to sing it.
Robert Sheehan and Dylan Moran
There have been many memorable conversations in many tents at Electric Picnic, but this year’s pairing of Robert Sheehan and Dylan Moran, who’ll be in conversation on the Manifesto stage, looks set to be one of the best. Sheehan is a maverick when it comes to his celebrated performances on stage and screen, and is the only member of the cast of Love/Hate who has written a book about finding inner peace (his recently published Playing Dead: How Meditation Brought Me Back to Life). Moran is a maverick comedian with a preference for circuitous conversation. They will each have microphones and will be looking at each other. Beyond that, who knows what could happen. At least you can say you were there.
Mary Coughlan
You have to hand it to Mary Coughlan: after a roller-coaster ride of a life in music, the singer still has skin in the game. More than 40 years after she first began to perform, Coughlan brings a wealth of experience and insight not only into her songs but also into her performance. If you’re after some sultry, swaggering torch songs as dusk settles, make your way over to the Croí zone and watch, listen and learn as Coughlan delivers gems such as Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long, Seduced, Leaf from a Tree and (the lullaby for singletons) I Get Along Without You Very Well.
Three Castles Burning
Electric Picnic features many live podcast offerings, but we’re making a beeline for Three Castles Burning, hosted by the historian Donal Fallon, who’ll be talking to Brian Warfield of the Irish folk group the Wolfe Tones. Last year, you may recall, Warfield’s group sucker-punched many far younger bands by packing the festival’s Electric Arena tent. (This year the Wolfe Tones play the main stage.) The conversation between Fallon and Warfield on the Ah, Hear! stage will touch on the 1960s folk-ballad boom, recent on-air arguments with Joe Duffy of RTÉ and their divisive song Celtic Symphony, among other topics.
Peter McGann
Just over a year ago, the under-the-radar comedy writer, performer and director Peter McGann posted a short clip on X of a guy sending a voice note to a radio show. It began as a joke and ended poignantly, its funny-sad context causing a viral sensation and picking up plaudits from the likes of Chris O’Dowd. McGann ended last year telling The Irish Times that he was effectively unemployed – “I’ve got nothing. Absolutely nothing” – but is now, thankfully, regarded as one of Ireland’s brightest comedic hopes. The Comedy Stage features other Irish comedians whom we also know and laugh with (including Deirdre O’Kane, Ardal O’Hanlon, Katherine Ryan) as well as the UK rib ticklers Russell Howard, Maisie Adam and Iain Stirling, but we’re putting our Revolut passcode on McGann.
Mik Pyro
Anyone who stays put in their tents or camper vans, is a fool, according to the organisers of the Salty Dog area – and with a performer as powerful as Mik Pyro, one can only agree. The former Republic of Loose frontman is one of life’s mavericks, an uncompromising individual who breathes blues, soul and rock. If we’re lucky he’ll perform tracks from last year’s debut solo album, Exit Pyro, which oozes the pain of digging deep into the psyche and coming up with the pleasure of self-healing – all to the soundtrack of scorching, sinewy songs you’ll be glad you left your tents and camper vans for.
Theatre of Food
All hail the McKenna dynasty! Theatre of Food is produced and curated by Samuel McKenna of the events company Foodhaus Productions, his food-influencer parents, John and Sally McKenna, and the food writer Aoife Carrigy. What this means, in essence, is a weekend of top chefs (including JP McMahon, Aishling Moore, Kevin Thornton and Kwanghi Chan), podcasts (including The Long and Short of It, and Beer Ladies), a cocktails-versus-wine food-pairing challenge (corks away with Kinara Kitchen and Whelehans Wines), and all you need to know about pints and crisps (Ali Dunworth).
Emmet Kirwan
The writer and actor Emmet Kirwan is a master of the monologue: you only have to listen to his Just Saying and Heartbreak video shorts, each directed by Dave Tynan, to know this. Kirwan has been rehearsing for a rerun of his play Dublin Old School (which is at the 3Olympia Theatre in Dublin on September 4th and 5th), so we could well see excerpts from that, along with work-in-progress pieces. Whatever – your presence is required at the Manifesto stage.
Fangclub
Who among us doesn’t like to have their ears pulverised into submission by pinpoint-perfect rock/metal music? A couple of months go, after a spell rethinking and recalibrating, the Co Dublin band Fangclub released All Good, their comeback five-track EP. Just as their brace of albums – Fangclub, from 2017, and Vulture Culture, from 2019 – ushered in an Irish rock band that could beat the big boys at their own game, the new songs highlight what a vibrant mix of guitar riffs and insistent melodies can achieve. Rocket science? No. Brain surgery? No. Just a cracking band with dynamic songs. They’ll be performing the festival’s Fish Town zone.
ArtLot
Electric Picnic’s visual arts/performance space is curated and produced by the Dublin-based collective Glow Depot, who celebrate their 10th year at the festival with work by the Dublin mural artist Kevin Bohan (whose tribal/psychedelic works have gained international attention), new sculptures by the Drogheda-based artist Rosaleen Dunne, Clondalkin’s Carl Hickey (whose figure-populated works documenting his surroundings are usually transcribed from smartphone videos) and the Limerick textile artist Rachel Maloney (whose aerial jellyfish installations will feature). After dark, music gets a look-in, with numerous DJs, Fancy Dan (“a busker with notions”, he says), the pop-rock singer Kellie Lewis and the emo/hard-core band Bees & Sawdust. After-after dark, there’ll be UV painting parties, to which we can only say: you have been warned.
Stage times for each act have yet to be announced, and line-ups may change between now and the festival, which runs Friday-Sunday, August 16th-18th
