You couldn't have picked a better day to begin the Irish summer festival season if you tried. The weather did its absolute best impression of the summer yesterday, as the sun's rays baked the glorious Kilmainham scenery for the first day of the Forbidden Fruit festival. 

Sun starved festival-goers were decked out in their finest summerwear too, with all manner of ridiculous clothing, obnoxious sunglasses and face paint plucked from their temporary hibernation and displayed proudly for all to see (check out the photos below, you'll see what we mean!)

enterainment.ie began our Forbidden Fruit experience by catching the tail-end of Cavan native Lisa O'Neill's set on the main stage. We're big fans of the Choice Music Prize nominee's brand of idiosyncratic songwriting but we couldn't escape the notion that the vast expanse of Forbidden Fruit's largest stage swallowed up both her sound and her no frills stage show. Perhaps she would have been better suited to performing on a smaller stage where her acoustic sound would resonate a little more but it's difficult to complain when you get to lie back on the grass on a sunny Saturday afternoon with one of Ireland's most original songwriters as your soundtrack.

After a quick detour to Nils Frahm (meh), it was back over the main stage to witness the force of nature better known as And So I Watch You From Afar. Regular readers of these pages will attest to the fact that we're big fans of the Belfast fourpiece in entertainment.ie. This was ASIWYFA's first Dublin show in many a moon, after spending an exhaustive amount of time touring oversea and it was treated as something of a special occasion by both band and fans alike. Forbidden Fruit veterans will recall the moment that the sun peeked out from behind the clouds during Caribou's performance of 'Sun' a few years ago and ASIWYFA had a very similar moment during 'Big Thinks Do Remarkable', as the sun perfectly timed its appearance to the chorus of "the sun is in our eyes." Perfect.

Next on our list was a jaunt over the Lighthouse Stage to see Kid Karate's first hometown show in a year. Newly furbished with a bass player, the now threepiece produced a furious set of rock and roll, showing just how much they've added to their repertoire in their time away from home supporting the likes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Breton in Europe and the United States. Expect to hear much more from these guys.

After quick visits to Thundercat (not our cup of tea) and Girls Names (excellent), it was time to head back to the main stage to witness Saturday night's main event - The Flaming Lips.

As one might expect from a Flaming Lips show, Wayne Coyne laid on all the bells and whistles you could possibly imagine. Giant inflatable aliens, glitter, outrageous costumes, levitating stages but, even being faced with such an overwhelming visual accompaniment, it's hard to ignore the fact that there really isn't any great deal of substance to The Flaming Lips' music. 

That last sentence might infuriate any Wayne Coyne fan reading this. We're fully aware that his band's fans are almost reverential in their appreciation for the Oklahoman front man. There's little denying that he's an ultra-charismatic frontman but, once you peel away the layers, you're confronted by the fact that they really haven't pieced together a tremendously good setlist, even after thirty years together.

Instead you're confronted with a middle-aged man getting paid outrageous money to dance around on stage with inflatable toys.

Hey, it's nice work if you can get it.