Words: John Balfe

The inaugural Forbidden Fruit festival kicked off yesterday in the idyllic surroundings of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham and, despite some teething problems, was a largely successful day in the Saturday sun. While no complaints can be levelled at the musical performances on the day, some punters were perturbed at the excessive queuing times for bars and toilets. It’s slightly disappointing to have to begin a review of the first day of the festival with a complaint aimed at a few of the operational difficulties on the site, but it was hard to ignore the long, winding queues for the bar with some people having to wait upwards of one hour to be served at the bar and at the toilets. The simple fact of the matter is that Irish festival punters like to have a few drinks at events like this and to ignore that fact in any appraisal of the festival would be difficult, especially when festival-goers often had to choose between seeing a band or queuing for a beer and that one-or-the-other choice detracted from the overall experience for some.

That said, the music was excellent and teetotallers would have zero complaints. The first act that Entertainment.ie witnessed was the excellent Jape who took to the stage at 3.10pm, five minutes before scheduled. Quickly dismissing some sound issues, Richie Egan and his band quickly eased everyone into the festival as the sun shone and spirits were high. Egan played several tracks from Jape’s forthcoming LP, including the excellent Hands of Fire, Too Many People and Please Don’t Turn the Record Off. But it was the stalwarts of Jape’s set, Strike Me Down and I Was A Man which again proved the highlight.

North London outfit Bombay Bicycle Club were up next. The band, highlighted by NME several years ago as ones to watch, look like they’re really hit their stride and have begun to deliver on the ‘next big thing’ label.

Wild Beasts, owners of one of the most highly regarded albums of the year so far, were next up on the main stage. Dual vocalists Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming traded vocal duties to great effect with Thorpe’s falsetto the perfect accompaniment to the moody, deliberate musicianship offered by his cohorts.

It was around this time when the bar debacle was beginning to take hold and a few glances at Twitter revealed exactly the frustration that attendees were in the midst of. The masses of bodies trying to gain access to the bar rivalled that of the main stage and a strange atmosphere began to take hold of the festival as Yo La Tengo performed on the main stage to a fraction of the crowd that might have been there had the bars been run a bit more smoothly.

Finally, on the main stage, it was time for the main attraction of the evening, The Flaming Lips. The Lips have – justifiably – a reputation as one of the most compelling live acts on the planet and this performance was testament to that. Bandleader Wayne Coyne has the wide-eyed ebullience of a child and seems earnestly concerned that everyone within earshot is having the time of their lives, frequently compelling the audience and the band to “enjoy our Saturday night together”.

Their set was full of the sort of gimmickry that any band not called The Flaming Lips just wouldn’t be able to get away with. Coyne began the set by crowd-surfing through a mass of heaving bodies inside an inflatable ball, was accompanied on stage by dancers dressed as cast-members from The Wizard of Oz...even Dorothy was there too. Lips favourites The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, She Don’t Use Jelly, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and Do You Realise? were all received gleefully.
It was a perfect ending to the first day of the festival which, despite the few obvious problems, was largely a successful event.