Sea Sessions and Body & Soul both happening on the same weekend was a particularly cruel twist of fate. I couldn't choose between them, so I hit both. It would've been negligent not to.
Ballinlough on Friday night is always special. Wide eyed gawpers get to grips with the gallery of other-worldly wonders that populate the woods. The mainstage doesn’t kick off until Saturday, but this Friday night felt more like the full whack than previous years.
Donal Dineen is no stranger to this end of the soiree in Westmeath, and this year he was preceded by LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy. When Jimmy Murph kicked You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) into the mix, the crowd responded, the pissy weather was forgotten and it felt like the weekend had just kicked off. The crowd from Mother had a smaller stage but bigger atmosphere, the audience hoppin' and baying for beats.
It was difficult to tear myself away from Westmeath – the best was yet to come. But as The Angelus rang out from the expanded and improved Wonderlust stage at noon on Saturday, I took it as a sign. There was a session in Donegal and I could feel the call of the sea.
LIFE'S A BREEZE
There'd been rain in Westmeath on Friday, but the deluge that greeted me as I rolled slowly down the prom in Bundoran would have jumpy biblical types searching out the nearest gopher wood supplier. The spirit of Tom Crean is alive and well in anyone who pitches up for a weekend in an Irish Festival Field.
Donegal is a county where the hawthorn trees grow pointing away from the coastline at 45 degrees, so pitching a tent in this requires a special kind of dedicated lunacy. There was a point over the weekend when two of the stages had to be evacuated as they were in danger of blowing away. The atmosphere dropped considerably and I wondered if I should’ve stayed on for the prayers in Ballinlough.
But then wind dropped, Renegade Brass Band upped the funk and normal service was resumed. Phew! DJ Yoda proved himself a Heston Blumenthal of big beats and popular culture while The Hot Sprockets electrified the crowd with some honest-to-god rockin' out that was as refreshing as a midnight Donegal dip in the nip. This is how The Strypes would like to sound when they grow up, though the Cavan lads were pretty good too.
The Ballinlough gig is better designed and more hip than it’s cousin in Donegal, but the seaside sessioners are a much friendlier shower, and they have the art of feckless abandon down to a T. I was chatting to a couple of Cork girls who had travelled the length of the country to get their freak on.
"Do you find it an expensive weekend," I asked. "Not at all" one chirped. "I only spent a tenner yesterday." She then pulled down her top and exposed herself to me, revealing a soft, squeezable and ingenious method of alcohol smuggling. A pair of large Capri Sun containers filled with vodka and placed inside her büstenhalter saw this intoxicating girl enter the festival large-breasted and happy, only to leave much later, middle- breasted and even happier. I might be in love!
SOUL AND SEA
It's difficult to hit two festivals on the same weekend and not compare them, and I've been asked several times which was better. The wonderful truth is that Body & Soul and Sea Sessions are both fantastic, offering something very different to punters who pin their colours to either mast.
Sea Sessions unashamedly offers equal-opportunity hardcore partying on the beach for surfers and hedonists alike. Body & Soul has it’s share of pleasure seekers, but it’s balanced with food for thought and staged in a more family-friendly environment. Forced to pick one, I’d still recommend both.
Safe travels, don’t die.
