Words: John Balfe

See all the photos in Caught Out, (specifically here and here...)

Well, kudos Forbidden Fruit. Credit where it’s due. The teething problems that were apparent on the Saturday were well and truly exercised, the cracks were smoothed over and the creases were ironed out. We wrote yesterday (and no doubt you’ll have seen it plastered all over Twitter, if you’re the social media type) that there were some operational difficulties which marred the opening day of the first Forbidden Fruit festival – namely the excessive queuing times for the site’s amenities, such as toilets and bars.

Sunday’s festival was a marked improvement in this regard. The waiting time to get served at the bar was only five or so minutes, a drastic improvement from the previous day when we’d heard horror stories of some people having to wait upwards of an hour for a beer in a plastic cup. This led to a different atmosphere than had been present the previous day, as people were a lot more jovial without having anything substantial to gripe about.

However, the bar problems seemed like they might be eclipsed by a more traditional headache by Irish festival standards - the weather. Met.ie were forecasting a downpour and, for this reason, Entertainment.ie weren’t all that enthusiastic about trading a warm living room for a damp, muddy field and decided to forgo Dan Le Sac vs Scroobious Pip. Our sacrifice to the rain gods apparently worked, as when we showed up at around 5.30pm the clouds melted away and were replaced by an unfamiliar bright object in the sky. All this, just in time for Caribou.

Caribou, aka Daniel Victor Snaith, seized control of the main stage with his brand of indie-electronica and proved to be, for this reviewer at least, the standout performance of the festival. Snaith, along with his three colleagues, played a set comprised almost entirely from his most recent release Swim including the incredible Odessa and closed with, aptly, Sun.

Following a quick sojourn into the Undergrowth tent to watch a bit of Jamie xx, it was decided best not to waste the sun’s rays any further and it was back to the main stage to await New York’s Battles who, at the time, were sound-checking an elaborate cowbell. The three-piece have been afforded that most confusing of labels, math rock, and it’s a term that some have hesitated to use. But whatever you want to call it, Battles were great. They played a set heavy with tracks from their new album (released today) but that didn’t seem to bother anyone.

Lastly, around 9.15pm, it was the turn of Aphex Twin and the main stage and its surrounding hills were packed with expectant music fans. Richard David James is one of the electronic originals of the dance scene, going back to the early 90s. Lest we forget that he was born in Limerick too, so perhaps this was something of a homecoming for him. Everyone got what they wanted from this performance but it must be said that perhaps Aphex Twin, and Battles before, might have worked better in a tent where the sound wasn’t at the mercy of the wind.

All things considered, it has to be said the first Forbidden Fruit was a success. Even with the prohibitive queues of the first day, there was still some first rate music offered up and ultimately that’s what it should be judged on. We hear that Forbidden Fruit is set to become a yearly endeavour. Pencil it in to your diaries.