Irish Timeswriters take a look at the world of arts
Electric Picnic (Sunday) Stradbally Estate, Co Laois
Even the rain, when it comes, is quite polite towards Electric Picnic. A gentle mist that cools the grounds and plays with the light, or short downpours that feel like a cleansing relief (have you seen the queues for the showers?), the weather decides to spare Stradbally.
That should put a spring in every reveller's step, but the festival organisers know that on the last day of a lost weekend energy levels run low.
So why not begin with an energising Sunday tradition: Mass.
There are a few subtle, but distinct, differences between the liturgy as we know it and the celebration on the Crawdaddy Stage.
For a start the tent has not been properly consecrated. For everything else, it is said by a giant fly, a goat, and assorted members of Warlords of Pez, who are almost endearing in their fervent commitment to sacrilege. Like their communion wine - Buckfast - the Warlords are an acquired taste that is difficult to acquire.
Still, they get things off to a ribald start, even though they are clearly going to hell.
A gentler introduction to morning worship comes with the harmonised uplift of the Dublin Gospel Choir, a much-needed spiritual boost that continues through to Latin Jazz ensemble Luisito
Quintero, easing another congregation into another celebration: blessed are the picnic-makers, for they shall inherit the groove.
Securing the reputation of their city, the Beastie Boys get all New York on Electric Picnic; so good they played it twice. The Beasties offer a shot in the arm for the last lap of the festival, which, for all the jewels in its line-up never quite seems sure how to end the party.
The crowd has already begun to haemorrhage some of its young professionals to Monday morning commitments - those presentations aren't going to deliver themselves - and attendances begin to thin for the Fall, Clap your Hands Say Yeah and even the goofily fun pairing of Mixmaster Mike and Rahzel.
In fact it's hard to find an act that will unite the crowd.
Sonic Youth, those staples of alternative rock who best understand the luxury of noise, have a largely male appeal which doesn't necessarily hang around long. Rilo Kiley, on the other hand, are a transfixingly racy outfit with unambiguously suggestive songs, which singer Jenny Lewis has chosen to play down by slinking around the stage in black hotpants. The guys hang around.
But for all the dependably brawny wild-eyed action of Iggy and the Stooges - "We're so f**ing happy to be here!" - it's the bands who look less enticing on paper that become the most surprisingly cohesive forces of the festival. The bouncing joy of the Go! Team and the funky rock postures of Primal Scream close the hamper for another year and encapsulate the continuing success of Electric Picnic: Always leave them wanting more. Peter Crawley
Anna Livia Dublin International Opera Festival/Decker, Gaiety Theatre, Dublin
Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor
With a love-affair that transgresses the boundary between warring families, and a forced marriage that triggers a murder, drives one person mad and another to suicide, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermooris the stuff of romantic opera.
However it's no straightforward task to release both the pathos and fire of the music, and the performance history of the work encompasses periods when Donizetti's achievement was perceived primarily in the opportunities for coloratura display he conjured up for his heroine.
The new Anna Livia Dublin International Opera Festival production, which opened at the newly-refurbished Gaiety Theatre on Sunday, offers a minimalist approach to the work.
The director Roberto Oswald, who is also responsible for set and lighting design, uses a kind of imagery that is like a blown-up version of old black-and-white prints. The stage is mostly bare, bar a suggestive prop or two, and Anibal Lapiz's period costumes stay within a carefully-monitored colour range.
Conductor Franz-Paul Decker takes a low-key approach, aiming for neatness and good taste in a way that sidesteps most of the drama and tenderness that are latent in the music.
It seems a pity that so much of the evening should be so wan in effect, as the Lucia of Angela Gilbert is vocally sure, tonally sweet, and easy in the command of the high notes the role demands. There are not, however, many suggestions as to what she might be feeling, or even that she might genuinely be reeling or unhinged in her mad scene.
The Edgardo of Scott Ramsay is a different matter. His default setting above a certain pitch and volume level is to be blustery and emotional.
He's engaged, he's wound up, he fearlessly sends its voice on its difficult missions, but his agitation of spirit is often too hyper to be entirely persuasive.
The Enrico of Quentin Hayes commands attention in an altogether more focused way, and the Raimondo of Geoffrey Moses is sadly unforgettable for the extreme vagaries of his intonation.
The evening's problems of ensemble sounded as if they're the sort of thing that can be expected to sort themselves out during the run of the production. The dramatic slackness, the feeling that nothing gets quite out of first gear is another problem entirely.
The Anna Livia Dublin International Opera Festival runs until Sunday Michael Dervan
David Adams (organ), St Michael's, Dún Laoghaire
Anon - Modo de Batalha com suas tréguas. Buxtehude - Herr Christ, der einig Gottes Sohn BuxWV191. Fuga in C BuxWV174. Groocock - Trio Sonata in C. Heiller - Tanz-Toccata. Buxtehude - Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder BuxWV178. Wir danken dir, Herr Jesu Christ BuxWV224. Alain - Deux danses à Agni Yavishta. Buxtehude - Praeludium in D minor BuxWV140. Fergus Johnston - Bulgarian Dances
This year's series of organ recitals at St Michael's Church, Dún Laoghaire, ended with a recital by David Adams that was exemplary in its ways of meeting several challenges. The programme of mainly short works was imaginatively organised and effective. The range of compositional styles was a neat conspectus of contrasted ways of writing for the instrument; and the playing was convincing and technically impressive.
Any critical issues that arose were high-level. For example, in the Praeludium in D minor, the emphasis on Buxtehude's imaginative contrasts between short sections sometimes disrupted drive across the sections; and in chorale preludes such as Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder, the strong articulation of detail tended to fragment a line that, in essence, is an aria. But these are matters of style, of musical doctrine that inevitably provoke dispute.
This fine programme included two works with a personal connection. David Adams gave a clear-and-lucid account of the contrapuntal virtuosity shown in the Trio Sonata in C by his former teacher at TCD, the late Joseph Groocock. He ended the recital with the first performance of the Bulgarian Dances, written for him by his former TCD class-mate, Fergus Johnston.
Perhaps because Johnston is not an organist, his approach to scoring is unconventional; and it is all the more effective for that. Like the 17th-century Portuguese battle-piece that opened the programme, two of the three dances cleverly draw on the organ's strength at rapid, chordal textures. I suspect these pieces, which show flair in exploiting the asymmetrical rhythms that their title implies, and a strong control of harmonic drive, will be readily taken up by other players. Martin Adams
