Reviewed today is Witnness (Sunday) at Punchestown, Kildare
On Sunday's Main Stage at Witnness, size really does matter. Towering Limerick five-piece Woodstar may play a blinder, but at noon (the festival equivalent of 6 a.m. in the real world) the infectious, stadium- friendly riffs of Suicide Way and Dumb Punk Song don't meet a commensurate response; happy campers have yet to emerge from their zip-up shanty-towns. Take heart, Woodstar, for you are in grand company.
Last year's second-day opening act was one Polyphonic Spree. And whatever happened to them, eh? Transcendentally unimaginative sludge-rockers InMe have a better idea to rouse the sunstroke crowds: sheer volume. Their teeth-rattling energy jolts through myriad stages, cueing The Walls to jangle through banking theme-tune To the Bright and Shining Sun.
Nina Pearson's airy voice later trills out over Punchestown as The Cardigans perform under a canopy of chandeliers. If the decorous dressing doesn't quite suit the open-air atmosphere, neither do several songs. Good Horse and Communication pass by inconsequentially, while Erase and Rewind, For What it's Worth and Favourite Game remind us of the hot and bothered hooks that emerge from the cool musings of their Swede dreams.
"Cardigans love you all," Pearson would like to inform the crowd, with the glowing warmth of an Inuit ice-cream van.
Far hotter is disco-prankster Har Mar Superstar, whose musical enthusiasm is matched only by his obvious and inexplicable bodily pride.
"Give it up for me," he commands as he strips to his Y-fronts and lets it all hang out. "I'm fucking awesome."
The 1970s porn-star-lookalike considers his applause for a moment.
"You guys are fucking awesome too."
Aw, shucks . . . Mexicali rock textures from Calexico succeed the collective ethos of The Jimmy Cake at the Rising tent before electro-rock psychedelic all-stars Super Furry Animals recap the main concerns of this year's festival: good tunes, bizarre lyrics and a generous costume rack. Between Phantom Power, Juxtapozed With U and the dance-warped rock figures of The Man Don't Give a Fuck, the Welsh wonders still find time to patriotically shower the crowd with leeks and don super furry animal suits.
No less affected, moderately more detached, but far, far less fun are the achingly hip electro-popsters Ladytron. Such is their cold chic that when singer/ keyboardist Helen Marnie forgets herself and starts to tap her foot to the abrasive rhythms you expect someone to rush onstage and restrain her.
"Best act of the concert," an expressionless hipster informs me. Icily.
The contrast with the unfettered mutual appreciation between The Frames and their following couldn't be sharper. Before a soaring Revelate, Glen Hansard beams: "I'm so fucking proud to be Irish today." So, by the looks of it, is Dallas's Tim DeLaughter.
Worried that we may miss Polyphonic Spree's subtle tokens of national ingratiation (incongruous Danny Boy flute motifs and altered lyrics staggering through It's the Sun), DeLaughter has pinned a huge green shamrock to his trademark white robe. More of his time amid the 22-person euphoria orchestra is spent rescuing his tiny, be-robed son from mortal peril.
Imitating daddy, the tot continually attempts to charge over the monitors and into the crowd. Similarly endearing and heart-stopping, the Texan throng spread good cheer and chronic uplift via Reach for the Sun and a charging Soldier Girl.
If groups like Polyphonic Spree didn't exist, music festivals would have to invent them, or else clone The Flaming Lips. Smeared in (fake) blood, mottled with the innards of a pillow and raising his papier- mâché fists to the sky, Wayne Coyne is a logical substitute for Detroit rock.
"We're not the White Stripes," he informs anyone who may have confused his 17 animal-costumed dancers, and some of the finest songs yet written about the threat of human annihilation by evil-tempered robots, for the cancelled garage-rock duo.
During the Stripes tribute, Seven Nation Army, the Lips routinely dispense enormous balloons into the crowd. Surrounded by slowly bouncing globs, this is what it must feel like to be trapped in a lava lamp.
Ferociously upbeat, Coyne belts out Race for the Prize and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1 blissfully. If the Lips can fill such a vast space so effortlessly, it's a shame that stripped-back David Gray struggles through an over-generous headliner set.
A New Day at Midnight, This Year's Love and Sail Away are all quite lovely, but solo sections (in which the crowd are compelled to pelt things at the singer) and pallid cover- versions feel suspiciously like padding.
The Manic Street Preachers fare better in the closing moments of the festival, while eleventh-hour concert addition David Kitt basks in the adulation of what he reckons to be his "favourite gig ever". Packing out the smaller Rising stage with his pared-back acoustics, Kitt realises that size may not matter after all. Of course, he's big enough to admit it.
