Cork performers ready to light up Electric Picnic

While the history of Irish rock and pop festivals has long been loaded with the presence of centrepiece weekenders, from Macroom’s Mountain Dew to now-legendary excursions like Féile, Witnness and Oxegen, two things differentiate Stradbally, Co Laois’ Electric Picnic from its predecessors.

One is its longevity: while Electric Picnic began life as one of a smattering of boutique affairs differentiating itself from larger events, it quickly grew to become one of the largest attractions on an Irish festival circuit that was feeling the pinch from the economic crash of the late 2000s, assuming centre-stage in its early September slot as the natural conclusion of the summer. In that process, it has long outlasted the previously-assumed life cycle of an Irish festival of its size, and become the country’s signature contemporary music festival.

Hand-in-hand with that, then, is the sheer bloody scale of the whole thing. While the Picnic had long been an ambitious project in many ways, director Melvin Benn’s expansion of the festival in recent years has seen it reach a capacity of 70,000 revellers, out to see hundreds of artists, DJs and other performers across dozens of stages and performance areas. And it’s against that backdrop that, among those hundreds of artists, two young Leeside music heads venture up to make their mark.

“It's my first time performing properly at a festival under "my own" name,” says Luke Aston, aka Arthur Valentine, a bedroom-pop-adjacent singer and songwriter who forms part of Cork’s HAUSU collective. “I did a show last year with 1000 Beasts at Body & Soul, but this is the first time I'll be performing as Arthur Valentine. So, super, super-excited about that. I'll be performing with two of the HAUSU lads, Actualacid and Automatic Blue. To be honest, I'm super excited to get on the stage and be in that proper festival environment. What I've seen from attending, anyway, it's a different vibe altogether and just seems like such excellent energy to be part of when you're performing, so very much looking forward to that.

“In terms of who I'm looking forward to seeing, I think out of the headliners. I'm very very excited for [US pop-star] Billie Eilish and [UK singer] Paolo Nutini, and [US singer and songwriter] Steve Lacy is one that I'm very much looking forward to. I haven't seen any of the timetables, so fingers crossed I'm not clashing with anybody. Just being there, being amongst everything and fingers crossed, the weather's good. It's always a good weekend.”

“A lot of people are going to be surprised that I am low-key, a bit of a fan of Billie Eilish”, adds Leeside rapper, singer and microbiologist Kestine, one of the city’s Outsider Ent crew. “I'm really interested in just seeing how she demonstrates her ability of crowd control. Y'know, though my music is a little bit different, being into rap and all that, I'm still very intrigued and taking down those notes. Niall Horan is going to be there, the only reason why I'd like to go see him is because I know his cousin, so I'd like to see how he does his thing on stage as well. The Script are a very big band, so definitely interested just to see how, again, they demonstrate that mastery of crowd control and just evoking those feelings on stage.”

They’ll be at the sold-out festival this weekend, performing as part of the line-up for the Three Charged stage throughout. The stage’s sponsors put their marketing muscle behind City Stages, a search for emerging talent in urban areas around the country, taking in various in-store and outdoor gigs featuring over fifty artists, before settling on eight performers and their collaborators for the weekend - including three Leesiders in Kestine, Arthur, and emerging rapper/producer Salamay.

"I got asked to come up to Galway to perform, they checked out my music,” says Kestine. “They said they loved my stuff, I said 'alright, grand, here's another opportunity'. I didn't know that it was going to lead to the Electric Picnic stage. Went up to Galway, I did my thing, and a couple of weeks later, they got back onto me, saying that they loved my performance, and they had some curators in the Irish music scene select eight of us."

“The first I had seen of it was Salamay's performance. I think he was in Dublin, and it pops up on my Instagram feed. I was watching the whole thing and not really knowing what the context was, but just seeing that it was a really cool performance. sitting down in the middle of this little stage, people walking past, and it was just a cool performance. That contrast between himself sitting there performing, and the transient beings floating around, going about their day was pretty cool.

“About a week after that, I got an email asking if I'd be available to do the show in Galway, and I'd never performed in Galway, so I jumped at the opportunity, did the show in Eyre Square, and I literally moved to London about two days later. Did the show, said my thanks, and didn't really expect much to come after - then I finally got the call that became that video that's circling on Instagram of me finding out that I'm playing.”

While the artists will be performing solo sets at the Three Charged area over the course of the festival, there’ll also be some once-off collaborations, including a big set featuring each of the artists selected to play, putting their own spins on songs that have influenced them personally.

Wrangling musicians together is a case of herding cats at the best of times - especially in terms of time, availability and such - and bringing together a diverse cast of songwriters and performers, from different musical and social backgrounds was always going to be a challenge.

“The three of us (Kestine, Arthur and Salamay) will be on stage together doing a little something-something. It was madness, but the musical director that they had just spoke to us individually, carefully looked at what we were interested in and what musical influences impacted us growing up. From that, y'know, we were able to create the show that we're going to perform for you this coming Saturday. Were there some bumps? Of course there were some bumps, because you've got different people, coming in from Ireland and the UK as well. We're going to execute an amazing show, represent Cork, and show that versatility that each of us have."

Electric Picnic happens this weekend at Stradbally Castle, Co Laois; tickets are sold out. Catch Kestine, Arthur Valentine and Salamay as part of the Three Charged lineup throughout the weekend - see three.ie for more information.