Sunday's Forbidden Fruit was a mostly rain free affair but the effects of Saturday’s rain were still in full effect. Anyone travelling to Kilmainham today should be aware that the festival site now resembles one large mudbath, particularly around the food stalls, bars and toilets. Still, it’s not like we get to act surprised – this is an Irish festival, after all. On the plus side, today’s weather looks a whole lot more promising.
The first port of call on Sunday afternoon was to see Kilkenny sticksman Jeremy Hickey, or Rarely Seen Above Ground as he’s more commonly known, at the Lighthouse stage. Technical difficulties with Hickey’s projected backdrop meant that his set was delayed by 15 minutes so we only had time to see one of R.S.A.G.’s new tracks, ‘Out of Focus’, before taking the short walk to the Undergrowth stage to see one of 2012’s most talked about artists - Grimes.
Grimes has been hailed as one of the top new voices in the electro pop scene and the heaving audience waiting in anticipation to see her seemed to pay credence to that. Grimes’ set was comprised mainly of material from from her album of earlier this year Visions, and included top tracks ‘Genesis’, ‘Circumambient’ and the incredible ‘Oblivion’.
Check out more picture from Forbidden Fruit here
Quick detours to Atlas Sound and Little Green Cars followed before Death In Vegas, who were making their first Irish appearance since last year’s Electric Picnic. Cloud Nothings, who were playing simultaneously in the Lighthouse Stage, were also a welcome addition to the bill as their brand of incredibly tight garage rock was a welcome change from a mostly electro heavy couple of days so far.
Death Cab For Cutie apologised as soon as they took to the main stage for not playing an Irish show in upwards of four years and spoke of how nice it was to “spend some time in a muddy field with you people”. Death Cab’s set went down a storm with those in attendance but we found them to be a little too generic and instead opted to return to the Undergrowth stage to witness the highly-rated (and second Canadian electro act of the day after Grimes) Purity Ring play an absolute belter of a set. Corin Roddick and Megan James seemed genuinely impressed at the warm reception given to them by the Forbidden Fruit audience.
After a brief interlude at Com Truise, it was time for Sunday’s main event – New Order. The members of New Order are no strangers to an Irish stage but that wasn’t diminished the reception they received on Sunday night. Two songs in, the band apologised to the crowd because the cold weather (it was absolutely freezing) kept putting their guitars out of tune. As if anyone had noticed.
All the hits were played and the set was closed by an extended version of their classic hit ‘Blue Monday’, and then a special treat Joy Division’s timeless ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.
And there you have it for Sunday. Follow our updates from Monday’s festival all day on Twitter and further news, photos and opinion will be posted on our Summer Festivals page. Until tomorrow everyone, happy festivalling!
