Jim Carrollon music
Dun Laoghaire gets ready to welcome world
Festival of World Cultures (FWC) director Jody Ackland's memories of the event's first outing in 2001 are still clear. "What I remember most are the hundred people or so down at the Harbour Plaza dancing to a local Nigerian group."
Seven years on, the Dún Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures is a much bigger affair. From Friday, August 24th to Sunday, August 26th, more than 220,000 people will saunter through the south Co Dublin town to enjoy some 800 artists at 40 different venues, with free admission to 70 per cent of events.
"Yes, the festival has grown and we now can get 20,000 people to our events on Newtownsmith Green," says Ackland. "But DúLaoghaire has the ability to take on a festival like this because we use the entire town."
The FWC would simply not work without the involvement of the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council. "They have backed and nurtured this from the get-go," says Ackland. "As the infrastructure and production have grown, they have been supportive all the way."
She's also stresses the goodwill from Dún Laoghaire residents. "It's crucial that this festival reflects the needs and wishes of the people in the town. We're very careful about noise pollution and litter and we strive to maintain a good relationship with the local community. I think people are proud to be hosting the festival and we get tons of volunteers."
This year will feature headlining shows from Portuguese fado star Mariza, veteran rabble-rouser Rachid Taha, Middle-Eastern singer Natacha Atlas and Malian stars Super Rail Band.
There are also dozens of other acts, workshops, DJs, fairs and sideshows in the festival's 64-page programme. "The tone and message of the festival is about integration, the exchange of understanding, maturity and global wisdom," says Ackland.
She is looking forward to the visit of the Rhythms of Uzbekistan ("vivid and extraordinary music and dance"), the Dún Laoghaire Mela ("a celebration of South-Eastern Asian arts which reaches out and touches base with the local community") and Balkan funk from Fanfare Ciocarlia.
"It was never our intention to just run a small festival in DúLaoghaire," says Ackland. "We always wanted to grow".
[ www.festivalofworldcultures.comOpens in new window ]
Winter gig wonderland
Those who wonder how Irish music fans can afford all those summer shows will have some more pondering to do when they see the extent of the autumn/winter event calendar.
Leaving aside what will be happening in tents at Imma and the Phoenix Park, and other big hitters visiting town, there are some potentially fascinating shows on the cards.
Ones to watch for include the fantastic Modeselektor (right) with The Field on November 1st, LCD Soundsystem, Wilco, Devendra Banhart, Animal Collective, Iron & Wine, The Decemberists, Underworld, The National (one of the word-of-mouth hits from Oxegen), Feist and Miss Kittin and The Hacker (playing their first ever live Irish show on December 1st).
Unlike many of the summer's big muddy outings, none of these shows should end up dominating the shouting and whinging on RTÉ Radio One's Liveline for an hour.
Ticket gig of The week
Glenn Branca's 13th symphony, Hallucination City, gathered almost 100 guitars on stage for a blistering performance as part of the excellent Analog festival in Dublin's revamped docklands area. An unrelenting beast of a work, which sounds like an aircraft tearing into the earth (and, eerily, was first performed at the World Trade Centre in June 2001), this was a thrilling, ambitious and slightly terrifying concert that was billed as unsuitable for children. They weren't wrong. Melody was scant, with Branca using swelling tides of dissonance and furiously-strummed guitars to construct music of epic, industrial proportions. Words: Laurence Mackin
Costing the earth
Live Earth organisers in Germany admitted this week that their event lost nearly €1 million.
The financial woes occurred because just 29,000 tickets for the 45,000 capacity venue were put on sale, with 2,500 going to sponsors and VIPs. The rest, bizarrely, were unused.
It seems that the promoters, Hamburg Marketing GmbH, didn't do the math and had not taken into account the €750,000 fee which they had to pay to Live Earth Inc.
The losers in this instance are the citizens of Hamburg, who get to pick up the €950,000 shortfall.
