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

All Collectively Now returns to the beautiful, hilly panorama of Curraghmore Property for its fourth chapter

From late adolescence via the earliest years of maturity, every of my calendar years was punctuated, in the primary, by my attendance at Eire’s premium pageant, Electrical Picnic. These three days and nights on the loss of life of summer season have been those by which I’d choose my expertise of the whole 12 months that surrounded it.

Electrical Picnic was in a state of fast growth because the 2010s performed out, and with that got here new audiences and broader bookings to appease them. Because the years wore on I started to really feel alienated from the pageant I had so passionately beloved and are available of age inside. It had as soon as been a pageant that I felt, rightly or wrongly, had genuinely been for individuals like me, and I missed it. The Irish summer season was missing now a Massive Occasion for the weirdos who wanted one, however, as it might prove, the look forward to a alternative wasn’t to pull on for too lengthy. In 2018 a brand new pageant known as All Collectively Now was inaugurated within the hills of Co. Waterford, and it crammed the void properly.

I’ve been to 2 of the three earlier editions of All Collectively Now, and whereas there have been teething issues alongside the way in which — the site visitors into the positioning that second 12 months was a torrid state of affairs — it’s a weekend that strikes a steadiness effectively. You get your huge headliners, however you additionally get the smaller, native acts you’ve by no means heard of. You get huge main-stage crowds and intimate gatherings. You get enjoyable artwork items and theatre with out an excessive amount of pretentiousness. Everybody there seems to be on broadly the identical buzz. It’s, in plain phrases, a pleasant time.

The inimitable Iggy Pop is much and away the largest act on the invoice this 12 months, with different headliners together with Jamie xx, Lorde, and Loyle Carner mentioning the rear. Dan Snaith is because of carry out underneath each his Caribou and Daphni aliases, whereas the weekend may also see Jessie Ware, Billy Bragg, Beak>, Todd Terje, James Murphy, Sugababes — which, as these pop-nostalgia kind of acts go, is a enjoyable one — Kelly Lee Owens, Daniel Avery, and plenty of extra take to one of many 18 phases over the course of the weekend.

The Irish contingent is fortunately as robust as ever, with performances from Villagers, Lankum, Lisa O’Neill, The Scratch, Shit Robotic, comic Tommy Tiernan, and a complete heap of others because of happen. The encircling hills of the positioning in all probability benefit a point out right here within the Irish paragraph, too, as they’re distinctly beautiful firm throughout a recent morning within the campsite, when the espresso is steaming away in your hand and also you’re making an attempt to take inventory of the earlier evening’s mischief. A deep breath, a sip of watery heat, and a glance out over these hills ought to set you proper once more for the day to come back.

We reside in a world with out a lot in the way in which of social cohesion. I’m not a church-goer nor a Love Island viewer. I’m an immigrant in London, albeit one who travelled solely from throughout the water. Moments of communion at giant scale are a uncommon sufficient expertise for me. It could be overstating issues to say {that a} lengthy weekend, ringed by the hills of Waterford, listening to good tunes with a number of mates, and 1000’s of strangers I really feel relaxed with, goes a way in direction of addressing that perceived lack of affiliation. However it definitely helps.

Tickets for All Collectively Now are on sale right here.

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Phrases by Tiernan Cannon