All Collectively Now
Curraghmore Property, County Waterford, Eire
4th-Sixth August 2023

Issues received deliciously bizarre at instances, because the folks of Eire descended upon Curraghmore Property for the fourth All Collectively Now pageant.

It turned clear issues have been going to be unusual when an armchair, seemingly of its personal accord, glided over in my course, stared me down for a second, after which went off on its merry option to pester someone else, like an attention-deprived, yappy canine. This was at perhaps two o’clock within the afternoon on the Friday, so the tone for the weekend was set early on arrival.

All Collectively Now 2023 was weirder than up to now, and this can be a good factor. I’d attended the primary two years, which have been far smaller affairs, and although they have been beautiful, they have been nonetheless, in some ways, events that have been discovering their ft. Now the pageant has matured, which counterintuitively means it has turn into extra infantile. Its sense of play has developed. This one was a yr for the freaks.

Except for the roaming armchair — which was remote-controlled and never sentient, as I quickly found following the preliminary shock of seeing the factor — the sense of the unusual got here largely from an space known as The Final Metropolis. I had a buddy working there making costumes, and months in the past she’d feverishly advised me about what her duties would entail: “We’re going to make mad, post-apocalyptic warrior costumes out of waste!” An eccentric kind, I didn’t for a second query this expensive buddy’s declare.

I convey this as much as illustrate that, whereas I had a sure sense of what The Final Metropolis was going to be — a post-apocalyptic, steampunk imaginative and prescient of a future world destroyed by local weather change, or “The Scorch,” the place new, unusual societies have risen from the ashes of the outdated to outlive in no matter methods they’ll — my expectations of the world fell wholly wanting the mark. There was a excessive idea at play right here, however I underestimated the diploma to which that idea would infect our precise, lived behaviour. We actually did turn into the survivors of The Scorch.

After I first arrived in The Final Metropolis, early within the day, a rave was going down as a gaggle of knights with huge swords did battle. Their chief, The Final Warlord, descended from an incredible top and started knighting festival-goers as protectors of the town. He implored folks to kneel within the grime, earlier than laying his sword upon their shoulders. A parade was known as for, and earlier than lengthy we have been advancing by way of the broader pageant website, led by a marching band and acrobats. Packs of scavengers, with soiled faces and wearing rags, ran across the campsite and stole cans of lager from bewildered folks’s palms, presumably as a result of they valued the tin. Keep in mind, lots of their victims had simply arrived to the pageant and certain had no thought The Final Metropolis existed, so that they wouldn’t have had a notion who these freaks yelling gibberish at them and stealing their cans have been.

If all that is troublesome to observe, relaxation assured it was extra so in particular person. Attempting to impose logic upon The Final Metropolis was a idiot’s errand. At instances I discovered myself attempting to characterise what I used to be seeing there — oh, I’m at a rave; oh, I’m watching a bit of efficiency artwork; oh, I’m at a type of comedy efficiency — however nothing might seize the totality of the expertise. This was malleable, plastic weirdness always. At night time, the hedonism might attain frenzied pitches. Shaman-DJs span unusual, tribal tech-house tunes, topless dancers added spice, and mud-covered, sweaty festival-goers moved with out inhibition as residents of The Final Metropolis.

Past the boundaries of this peculiar enclave, a extra standard music pageant was going down. After the afternoon parade on the Friday, I went to see Irish people artist Andy Irvine of Planxty, who, except for being an attractive musician of some 81 years, can also be a person of integrity. When he had a crowd of individuals generations youthful than himself singing All You Fascists Sure To Lose, it struck a observe of political optimism that one isn’t liable to listen to fairly often today.

For a legend of Irish people music like Andy Irvine to be among the many first acts I noticed on the pageant was becoming, because the weekend was affected by artists that descend from folks like him. Later that night time, when Lankum performed the location’s huge tent, they did in order spearheads of a brand new people wave beloved by youthful Irish individuals who have been worn down by the deteriorated nation they’ve inherited. It ought to come as no shock that songs of sorrow and disillusionment and resistance ought to turn into fashionable as soon as once more in Eire at this second in time.

Lankum, of all of the artists working inside this basic people idiom, contact on grief and a way of alienation greater than most, however so, too, have they got the power to awaken. To listen to them lead a refrain of hundreds singing The Rocky Highway To Dublin was a second that can keep on with me. They devoted their final music, Go Dig My Grave, to Sinéad O’Connor, which, too, was profoundly transferring. Having spent the final week or so listening to numerous “tributes” from lecherous ghouls within the media trying to disingenuously align themselves with a girl of such honest precept, it was highly effective to know I used to be amongst so many who actually did recognize Sinéad O’Connor.

Because the weekend wore on, it turned clear that Sinéad’s presence was in all places all through this pageant. Strolling round, you’ll so typically hear her songs being carried out on distant levels elsewhere on the location. Of the tributes I personally witnessed, Lisa O’Neill’s rendition of Black Boys on Mopeds and Villagers’ efficiency of Nothing Compares 2 U stand out as highlights. When, in the course of the latter gig, it turned clear what frontman Conor O’Brien was about to carry out, one might really feel the group virtually brace itself. We’d been right here earlier than with Conor — the person is aware of find out how to induce tears. Having personally held out till this level, I lastly broke down. My buddy and I, having by no means cried in entrance of each other earlier than, stood there with tears streaming down our cheeks, fascinated by Sinéad and marvelling at what number of hundreds of our compatriots have been, too. We owe her loads.

Sinéad O’Connor had been billed to play this identical pageant in 2022, however her efficiency by no means got here. The next yr, the pageant could be outlined by our collective grief for her. However what higher option to grieve someone like that than to rejoice, collectively, the music she left us with? She mattered to so many people, and to be house in Eire and to actually really feel that was particular.

The rowdiest gig of the weekend was unquestionably The Scratch, a band who merge Irish trad with steel. If you happen to’ve by no means heard the band, you’d be stunned to be taught simply how a lot you actually did want to listen to these two genres meet. Their gig was genuinely wild. Circle pits have been generated. Our bodies have been battered. Voices have been strained. Pints have been spilled.

My remaining day started with Irish rapper Kojaque and his buddy and collaborator Kean Kavanagh, which befell at a time when the climate was vulnerable to quick cycles of intense sunshine and heavy rain. Regardless of the unease within the sky, the 2 males on stage exhibited scrumptious poise over their efficiency. They introduced on Biig Piig for a tune, who herself performed splendidly on the Major Stage later within the day.

Sunday’s headliner was Iggy Pop, who I used to be seeing carry out for the second time in 5 years. I’ve seen a couple of real legends play of their older years, however no one has surpassed Iggy. The facility of his anthems has not within the least diminished. His voice stays intact. His physique, although aged and weathered, nonetheless strikes as a core a part of his efficiency. By the top, he appeared twisted and exhausted. He should really feel real ache for his work now, but nonetheless he retains an aura of immortality. The reality, after all, is that in the future we received’t have Iggy Pop, however the reality we nonetheless do is price treasuring.

The deep nights of the pageant have been spent dancing: Todd Terje sending an enormous tent into rapture by dropping ABBA and his personal basic Inspector Norse. Daniel Avery overwhelming the senses and feelings with intricate sounds I’ve no technique of describing. The ordained minister Robert Hood banging arduous techno into the night time as a part of his mission to induce soul-searching in his devotees. Smaller DJs with names I’ll by no means know soundtracking experiences of maximum depth and bliss. The bottom was tender and slippery and so terribly muddy in all places you went, however there was dancing in each nook of Curraghmore Property.

All Collectively Now was stunning this yr. It was inventive and bizarre. It was poignant. At instances, it known as for grief. At others, it known as for nothing however motion. It was moist and windy and sunny and muddy, and it was totally what so many people wanted it to be.

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All phrases by Tiernan Cannon

Images by Glen Bollard, Aron Cahill and Aiesha Wong.