Having parked the majority of the rock and indie acts on the Saturday, day two of Forbidden Fruit had a much greater emphasis on dance and electronic acts - bringing with it a different audience to the Kilmainham festival. Upon arrival it was immediately evident that the numbers were higher than they had been on the previous day. Whereas there was just a handful of people holding witness to Cavan songwriter Lisa O'Neill's sparse set at the main stage on Saturday afternoon, the same timeslot on Sunday drew several times the audience to witness Austrian duo Klangkarussell's DJ set which suggests, to us at least, that your average festivalgoer is much more interested in a banging DJ set than a bespoke acoustic one.
Sunday's greater numbers were immediately apparent once you set foot inside the Undergrowth tent for Public Enemy's set. Such were the numbers inside that the performance could easily have filled the vast expanse in front of the Forbidden Fruit main stage, which was allocated to Little Dragon at the time. Public Enemy's Chuck D and Flavor Flav, both relatively new inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (and rightly so) have attained a mastery at working a crowd in the 30+ years that they have been performing together. Once considered to be among the most controversial acts in music owing to incredibly successful records like 'Fear of a Black Planet' and 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back', both of which terrified the conservative mainstream media in the late '80s and early '90s.
Nowadays, though, Public Enemy's social influence is slightly more watered down (see: MTV's Flavor of Love) but the appreciation their audience has for them at Forbidden Fruit is undeniable.
American indie rock act Warpaint were one of the few guitar bands on show on Sunday, elbowed into a dance-heavy main stage but they certainly didn't disappoint. The fourpiece's second (and self-titled) album is among this year's finest releases but one couldn't help to shake the notion that perhaps they would have made more sense the previous day when their likely would have been more friendly faces in the crowd for their performance. The excellent 'Undertow' was a clear highlight.
Next up was Sunday's main attraction on the main stage: 2manydjs. The Belgian duo - clear masters of their craft - couldn't have been any more different to the previous night's headliners The Flaming Lips. There was none of the ostentatious excess which came with Wayne Coyne's set, merely two excellent DJs standing behind their mixing desks and the crowd - the biggest of the weekend - couldn't have lapped it up any more excitedly.
This year's Forbidden Fruit will go down as a success. From an organisational point of view it was relatively flawless but the distribution of crowd numbers between the two days was interesting, suggesting that Ireland's live music market - traditionally a stronghold for guitar bands - are gravitating more and more towards electronic music.
Promoters, take note.
More: Forbidden Fruit Day One
See below for Saturday's photos.