ELECTRIC PICNIC 2012: THE REVIEWS

Originally published in The Irish Times, September 3rd 2012.

FRIDAY

GRANDADDY
Electric Arena
4/5

Where do you start after a six-year absence? If you’re Grandaddy, you start with the hits. The Californian indie-rock quintet have made Electric Picnic one of the stops on their month-long reunion lap, but rather than forcing new material on an expectant audience, this was a complete exercise in crowd-pleasing.

Opening with El Camino’s in the West, Jason Lytle and Co may not say a whole lot to the crowd, but with tunes like a Now It’s On, AM 180 and The Crystal Lake in your canon, why waste time with niceties?

Aaron Burtch amusingly puffs away on a cigarette hands-free as he drums, and Lytle swigs from a bottle of wine between songs; they’re having fun and it’s like they’ve never been away. How about you stick around a little longer, guys?

ELECTRIC PICNIC 2011: THE REVIEWS

Unfortunately, many of my reviews on IrishTimes.com and in Monday’s newspaper were published under the wrong name, so here are the ones that I wrote over the course of last weekend.

My highlight was a gorgeous set by John Grant and the delicious chickpea and spinach stew I had from the tiny Dux & Co. stand. It was ALMOST worth the 20-minute-long queue.