John Dolan: 30 years on... Féile was surely Cork’s best ever music festival

I don’t normally do regrets. Life’s too short for all that looking back and wringing of hands.

But if I could live my life over, I would ensure that when 1995 came around, I bagged a ticket to see two of the best musical acts ever - REM and Oasis - when they played the same Slane stage in July of that year.

The 30th anniversary of that heralded Irish gig recently took place - how time flies!

I recall pondering as a 20-something at the time whether I should go to the gig. REM were already a mega-band while Oasis were on their way to superstardom and about to release their magnus opus, What’s The Story (Morning Glory).

I was living in England so the logistics were tricky, given the price of flights in those days.

I do remember writing to an Irish friend (how quaint!) and enquiring about tickets, but she ended up attended the Slane concert near her Kildare home with another friend, and I gave it a miss. Grounds for divorce in retrospect, since that lady is now my wife!

What I didn’t realise was that just a few days later in that glorious summer of 1995, from August 4-6, surely the best musical festival ever to take place in Cork went ahead.

If I were living my life over, I would make sure I hot-footed it from Slane to Páirc Uí Chaoimh for the three-day Féile Festival!

Oh man, just cast your eye over that line-up 30 years ago this week: a veritable who’s who of the greatest acts of the 1990s - itself the finest decade music has ever given us.

Headlining the Páirc over those three memorable days in 1995 (did I mention the weather was fab too?) were The Stone Roses, The Prodigy, Blur, The Beautiful South, Paul Weller, Ash, Moby, Orbital, the Chemical Brothers, The Verve, M People, Massive Attack, and Kylie Minogue.

Anyone who dislikes all of those is dead inside - or at least dead to me...

Underlining the fact the ’90s were an enlightened decade in pop music - particularly dance music - the Féile Festival included three fine female-led bands in Elastica, Sleeper, and Lush, as well as Shaun Ryder’s post-Happy Mondays outfit, Black Grape.

What a time to be alive and in Cork that must have been.

We’ve had some great one-off gigs in Cork down the decades - Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, and Bob Dylan come to mind - and some fine festivals too, such as the Mountain Dew event in Macroom, attracting the likes of peak era Rory Gallagher.

But I suggest the Féile Festival 30 years ago stands alone for the bill of fare presented to Corkonians.

And all of that for the not so princely sum of £45 for the three days, plus a £1.50 booking fee.

However, the famous festival almost never arrived in Cork at all.

The Féile had been running in Thurles since 1990, and attracting huge names for what became known among fans as ‘The Trip To Tipp’.

In 1995, promoters MCD decided to move it to Mondello Park in Dublin, but when the High Court ruled just weeks before the Féile was due to go ahead that it would require planning permission, there was a mad scramble to find a new venue.

Much to the relief of MCD boss Denis Desmond, the Páirc in his home town of Cork fitted the bill, and Leesiders were thrilled to see the line-up of acts on their doorstep.

There were teething problems - the campsite for revellers was a distance away in Mahon, while there were fears surrounding alcohol intake and drugs which proved unfounded. There was also controversy over the issuing of free condoms to concert-goers.

Now the stage was set, Cork was determined to party like it was 1995.

There were so many buzz acts among the 50-plus performers that it was impossible it would be anything but a hit - a memorable occasion for all those who attended.

The one sour note was the fact headline draw The Stone Roses were coming towards the end of their days together - influential drummer Reni had departed the band three months earlier - and produced something of a damp squib show by most accounts.

Among those hyping up the band beforehand had been 20-year-old journalist Caitlin Moran, who wrote in The Times in the UK: “I have seen Take That, and the hysterics of their audience was nothing like the Roses fever at Féile.”

But with so many great acts at the top of their game, the 1995 Féile Festival deserves its place at the top of the pantheon of Cork musical experiences.

Kylie - in the midst of reinventing herself from soapy popster to disco diva - was joined on the main stage by Nick Cave, a duet many of the crowd missed as they were watching Massive Attack in the dance tent outside the stadium at the same time.

Many cited The Prodigy as the stand-out attraction of the festival, despite the fact their act was interrupted by two power outages.

On stage, Damon Albarn referenced his band Blur’s ongoing chart battle with Oasis, declaring “We’re having this little competition back in the UK”, before launching into the single Country House that had kept the Gallaghers off No.1 a few weeks earlier.

Albarn’s then girlfriend Justine Frischmann sang with Elastica, but the band was burned out from constant touring and the bassist quit on the way back to Cork Airport.

To Corkonians that summer, it must have felt like the pop world had finally arrived on their doorstep. No longer did they have to catch a boat or train to see hot live acts - it was all happening under their noses.

As Ed Simons of The Chemical Brothers said in an interview a few years ago: “Whoever put that bill together - they should be the booking agent for the world. It was quite something.”

Now, has anyone got access to a time machine?