Tuesday 7th July 2009
Junction Festival, Clonmel
The Junction Festival is the annual Arts and World Music Festival in my home town of Clonmel. Next year will mark its 10th Anniversary and two years ago I was asked to join the festival Board of Directors. Living in Dublin makes it nigh on impossible to make all the board meetings, and I think to date I’ve only made two or three, which I feel guilty about. However, I stay in regular contact with the artistic director and essentially my specific remit is simply to advise and book contemporary/alternative acts (which make up just a small percentage of the festival schedule).
Last year I wasn’t on site for most of it sadly, so this year I made more of an effort to ensure I was free. I’d had numerous young bands contact me about support slots but unfortunately we didn’t have enough contemporary acts to cater for the supports requested. As an alternative, I suggested and started arranging a rising bands night featuring acts of local origin or at least bands with a strong local connection. Tonight, six bands took to the biggest stage the festival has to offer in an all-ages display of home grown talent. Clonmel has always been a musical town and when I was in my first band there, we were one of about five or six pretty good original acts. The scene back then was vibrant and competitive and, unknown to us, for those who maintained a musical career path; this competition gave us an early insight into the true rigors of the music industry.
Tonight Bill Minus, Paddy O’Mahony, The Producers, Romanovs Goodbye, Blanca Transfer and Mind at risk all played their hearts out in front of the assembled mix of adults and teenagers. In arranging tonight’s “showcase” my intention was to motivate the existing bands and nudge the potential young talent in the crowd to pick up their guitars and hopefully catch the performance bug. It frightens me to remember that after the early era of bands, several of which I was in, the scene died and there were no original artists at all in town. I was MC’ing tonight’s proceedings and I finished up by reminding the young punters that we’d have another rising bands night at next years festival so if they were thinking of getting a band together or if they already had one, this was for them and they too can be up onstage in twelve months time. I hope some of them take the bait.
Wednesday 8th July 2009
Fight, Fight, Fight
When you’re booking acts for a local festival, there are numerous political fences that one must straddle carefully. On one hand, you want to invite and book acts that have creative prestige and will reflect well on the credibility of the festival for years to come. On the other, you have to keep venue owners happy and do your best to make sure that the tills keep ringing and the drink is flowing all night long. This can be a tough task as you might imagine.
One of my earliest recommendations for the festival was “Fight Like Apes”. Not only do they represent a new era of Irish band (far from the Whelans clique of the early noughties) but they’re making suitable waves overseas which adds credibility to the creative level of the festival.
The band arrived and put on an amazing show, very well thought out, very tight and technically impressive. Apparently it could be heard from outside the town and numerous calls were received by the venue owner from local residents who couldn’t settle their babies down to sleep because of the bass end drive of their electro sound. Rock n Roll, that’s what I say!
My primary reason for mentioning this band is as follows; although their onstage personas are rough and ready, a nicer bunch of people you couldn’t possibly meet. After their gig they spent several hours meeting fans, posing for photos, signing autographs etc. They weren’t asked or prompted to do any of this and in fact, they stayed in the venue pressing the flesh until long after I’d left. It’s been a criticism of several other acts that’ve graced the festival schedule in the past that they’ve played, taken the money and left town without even shaking hands with a local. So, it was refreshing and uplifting to watch this band interact with groups of young people like they were old friends reunited.
I recall Louis Walsh telling me that one of the most important lessons he can teach his acts is to respect their fans and appreciate the time, money and emotional energy they invest in their “idols” by giving them as much post-gig attention as possible. Undoubtedly it’s hard to do when you’re pumped up on adrenalin and sticking to your clothes with sweat, but that’s the job!!
Other bands- take note.
Friday 10th July 2009
Stop Screaming, Start Dreaming
Tonight, the Stunning play the main stage at Devanes and although I didn’t book them for the festival, I arranged for the Dirty 9s to support them. I’d been working at this venue all week. Long, long days had taken their toll and I was truly knackered. However, Ailish had arranged for the Dirty 9s to perform on Tipp Fm as a promo for tonight’s gig and the guys were arriving into town quite early.
Cian, Fergal and Keith arrived in the “Vale of Honey” and we grabbed some coffee before heading up to the radio station where they performed an acoustic track and had a quick chat to Fran, the show’s host.
Unfortunately, The Stunning had an extended sound check and due to mass at the Church beside the venue, my boys didn’t get a sound check. This meant that from a sonic perspective their show wasn’t as good as it should have been. The guys were tight, they all played well and there were no errors, it was simply the injustice of poor sound that scuppered them and we were all disappointed. Despite this, the audience feedback was positive and we sold several CDs at the merchandise counter.
Their next show is Sunday, a warm up for the Knockanstockan festival in Eamonn Dorans. I’m glad that they’ll get to jump back on the horse again, figuratively speaking.
- PAUL WALSH - ROYSEVEN
