THIS weekend in Scotland, 35,000 rock fans are going to have a bonnie good time in a big field watching some of the world's top acts performing on four different stages.
Tonight, they'll be entertained in the great outdoors by the likes of Radiohead, Alanis Morissette, The Prodigy, Foo Fighters and The Bluetones, and then tomorrow, if they've any energy left after a wild and crazy Saturday night, they can give it up again for Pulp, Black Grape, Cast, Manic Street Preachers, Teenage Fanclub and Goldie.
The In The Park Festival in Strathclyde County Park in Lanarkshire features more than 80 rock, pop and dance acts over two days, and facilities include campsite, fairground, movies, buskers, circus acts, food and drink. Everything is in place for a real highland fling all they need is the weather.
Back in Dublin this same weekend, some 8,000 rock fans will get to spend the weekend indoors, sheltered from the rain, the sun, the mud and the beer, with only 19 different acts to keep them entertained. There'll be no second stage, no peripheral entertainment, no place to pitch your tent, no snogging in the grass and no rolling around in the mud.
Feile `96, the seventh annual rock event run by MCD Promoters, has gone minimalist, offering a stripped down version of a regular rock festival, unburdened by those annoying little extras which some consider essential to the enjoyment of such things.
There'll be nothing to distract the teenage attention away from such bands as Pulp, Cast, Alanis Morissette and Frank Black, apart possibly from the hot dog stand in the foyer. At best, Feile `96 will be just a good gig at worst it'll be a tedious pop music marathon with little to offer in the way of good vibes. Me thinks Strathclyde got the better deal.
It's a far cry from when Feile was being trumpeted as "Europe's biggest music festival", and a long way from Tipperary, where the festival began in 1990. Back then, the idea of an outdoor rock festival in Ireland seemed like a musty old myth, and Lisdoonvarna and Macroom were distant memories in the minds of ageing beardy weirdos.
The first Trip To Tipp was a lacklustre affair by any standards, but there was a feeling that this might be the beginning of something good. Meat Loaf headlined the first night, as did Hothouse Flowers, and the buachailli in the band looked all shiny and bright as they cried "Don't Go!" under the Semple Stadium lights.
Here we were in our home country, listening to our home band, and all was well with the world. The kids had their own rock festival and, although it wasn't anywhere ii ear as grand as Glastonbury, at least it was somewhere to go.
As Feile took a foothold in Thurles, it quickly grew to become the Irish rock event of the year. The crowds swelled, the quality of the acts improved and, presumably, the revenue to the townspeople got an annual boost.
During Feile's five years in Thurles, gardai reported relatively little trouble besides soft drug use and petty larceny, the most serious incidents being sexual assault. One year, a young person decided to climb to the roof of the stands, then promptly fell off. Thankfully, the foolhardy youth survived.
Feile was where the temperature of Irish rock was regularly taken. You could tell the prevailing obsessions of Irish teens just by looking onto the stage at Semple Stadium. One year it was "the glory of her ass", as The Saw Doctors sang irreverently about rural lust another year it was the whereabouts of a certain item of woolly clothing, as The Sultans Of Ping asked the perennial question, "Where's Me Jumper?"
And, before their staggering success in America and the rest of the world, The Cranberries demonstrated their world class calibre with an electrifying performance in the Hot Press tent. By the next year's Feile, the band had moved up to headlining the main stage, but this time their performance was a foreboding of the blandness to come.
THAT was the last time Thurles would play host to Feile, and MCD announced that the Trip to Tipp would be replaced by the move to Mondello. Alas, local residents, worried about the possible knock on effect on their flower beds, managed to find a loophole in the planning laws, and Feile `95 was killed in Kildare.
A last minute relocation to Cork's Pairc Ui Chaoimh offered a lifeline to the beleaguered festival, but there were still hassles with local residents regarding campsites and crowd control.
However, Feile `95 in Cork turned out to be a superb event, and cool British acts like The Stone Roses, Blur, The Prodigy, Black Grape, Orbital and Tricky proved a winning formula and, glory hallelujah, the sun beamed down on Pairc Ui Chaoimh for the three days, making previous events in Thurles seem like just so many wet weekends.
That this weekend's event in Dublin's Point should be given the glorious name of Feile seems to belittle a festival which galvanised young Irish people's musical tastes and brought them together on common ground.
With the news that the Slane festival must now apply for planning permission, it seems the days of the Irish outdoor festival are coming to an end. MCD no longer seems to think it's worth all the legal and logistical hassle and county councils and residents' associations around the country are blindly blocking attempts to stage them. It's ironic, as Alanis Morissette might say.
It's the same old story the kids wanna rock, they wanna roll, they wanna get loaded and have a food time. Parents want to protect their kids from sex, drugs and satanic rock `n' roll. Surely, some compromise can be reached and young Irish people can once again enjoy a wild, crazy and relatively danger free weekend of outdoor rock `n' dance music.
After all, isn't fresh air good for your kids' health?
