Electric Picnic 2012

Another great weekend had at a music festival. First time we dragged Anto and Graeme along too. Weather was pretty savage all weekend so inevitably I got roasted.

FRIDAY
Sigur Ros (top two weren't great headlining main stage, would have been better in the day imo)
The XX
The Vaccines (rocking)
Metronomy (never listened to these but were brilliant live)
Alabama Shakes (cool band)

Metronomy

SATURDAY
Orbital (banging)
The Roots (brilliant live, wanna see again asap)
The Cure (don't really know there stuff so didn't appreciate)
Crystal Castles
SBTRKT (very good)

SUNDAY
The Killers (another savage performance and had the crowd rocking more than anyone over the weekend)
Elbow (very good and good banter with the crowd)
Bombay Bicycle Club
Abandoman (great comedy-rap act first saw at Edinburgh)
Of Monsters And Men (another surprise highlight, should have had a bigger tent)
Lee Skratch Perry

The Killers

Finished each night in Body and Soul for a bit of a rave. Spent some time in the fairground too on the Sat night. Then off to stuff our faces some more. Ate a lot of tasty food over the weekend. Much better quality that Oxegen but not exactly healthy.

Tips for next year:
Get down early on Fri for smaller queues in. Pre book your beer slabs down there, you can buy more down there too and they're cold and not much more expensive. Bring hip flasks. WEAR SUNSCREEN.

Black Keys & Ruby Works

Busy week going to Black Keys on Wednesday, they were excellent and then up to Donegal for the weekend. Returned to Dublin on Sun morning to go see Cork v Donegal in Croke Park in the Football semi-final with the parents. Doesn't matter who won :(

The Black Keys

Cork v Donegal

After that we went to see the 10 year anniversary gig for Ruby Works music label in the Olympia. The 3 acts playing were Wallis Bird, Ryan Sheridan and Rodrigo Y Gabriela. First time seeing the first two and they both were very enjoyable, Wallis Bird seems to be especially good craic. Third time seing Rodrigo Y Gabriela, and they never get tiring, they do an amazing live show. The parents enjoyed themselves but were deafened. I think the highlight of the night was probably the lady sitting in front of us for the night, knitting.

Ryan Sheridan

Rodrigo Y Gabriela

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Finally got over to visit Kelly, five years after we left Canada. At least I couldn't have picked a better weekend to visit. The weather was amazing and Kelly had recently moved into a lovely flat, a 15 min walk from Edinburgh town centre.

We were there for two jam packed nights of comedy and dancing. We got in early on Fri and Kelly brought us around town for a look at all the craziness. We wandered down the Royal Mile where all the madness is. That night we went to a sketch comedy outfit, Late Night Gimp Fight. The sketches were fairly hit and miss but the were so short that and poor ones were quickly forgotten. Overall they put on a good show.

Cricket in the sun

After that we went to Late and Live which ran from about midnight to 5am. Jarred Christmas was the host and he was brilliant.Most of the acts were good except for an asian dude who thought he was too good for the audience. I especially liked an Irish keyboardist and rapper called Abandoman. The rapper improvised his whole set and was amazingly quick at rapping about things that were going on around him in the audience and on stage. The also had a classic wrestler on stage, Mick Foley, which was all a bit surreal. After the comedy ended an Irish band, Dead Cat Bounce, played classic party tunes for a few hours as we danced the night away. We left that place at 5am to bright sunshine outside.

Dead Cat Bounce

Next day we were feeling a bit rough to start with but got back into shape after a giant fry up. Soaked in some more of the atmosphere around the city and went back to Kelly's to prepare for a party in hers. About 12 of us drank in hers until 11 and then went to a club night called Hot Dub Time Machine. Genius idea for a dance night. The dj played a classic song from every year from 1954 to 2012 with the help of a video assistant that taught us some of the dance routines. We all danced for 3 hours straight. I have never sweat so much in my life.

Hot Dub Time Machine

Long time since I've had a glow stick

All in all, a brilliant weekend. Will try get back again next year.

Home again

The Boss

Boss gig last night was something special. The sun came out and stayed until the gig was over when the heavens opened again. He played for 3hours 20 min non-stop with a mix of all his career. He opened with Twist and Shout which was the song they were singing in London when they pulled the plug. He also brought a big switch on stage and said in Ireland there would be no curfew. Towards the end of the gig a guy in a London bobby outfit ran on stage and was chasing him around and pinned him down. Great craic. It was a great crowd and RDS was a really nice venue with loads of room.

Highlight was when Bruce brought a 6 year old girl from the crowd on stage and she sang the chorus of one of his songs while everyone quietened down. One of the coolest things I've ever seen at a gig.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A30J2dq23d0

&

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2w7Cm-mq08

Lowlight was when I found out this morning that Spielberg was there with Daniel Day Lewis and they walked in with everyone else and sat with the public. Was my perfect opportunity to stalk him :(

Stone Roses - Glengarry - Paintball

Thurs night went to see Stone Roses return gig in Phoenix Park. Very poorly run but a great gig all the same. First time seeing them live and don't expect them to stay together too long so wanted to see them before they split up again.

Fri night we went to see Glengarry Glen Ross in the Gate Theatre. I wasn't mad about it. I saw the movie years ago but don't remember it. I thought the play covered too small a story. The first half covered the introductions but nothing really happened. The second half was better and had some good performances but it never really grabbed me.
We did go to a nice Korean restaurant nearby afterwards.

On the Sat we went paintballing in a place called Skirmish in Wicklow. Great fun. Just 9 of us playing as 2 teams. Really is quite sore when you get hit and had a few bruises afterwards.

Rarely Seen Above Ground

Out of the blue decided to go see R.S.A.G. in the Grand Social (Pravda). Saw him a few years back at an Oxegen and was very impressed. I love his energy and he seems like a real nice modest dude who is very appreciative of people that go see him. Only €10 too which helps.

Phoenix Park cycle

New fastest kilometre for me: 1:36

Wexford May Bank Holiday

Myself , Louise, Anto and JP rented a beautiful house for the May Bank Holiday weekend in Wexford (Ballygarrett, Blackstairs Mountains, County Wexford), 10miles from Gorey. Lisa, Susan, Phil, Mickey Nixon and his wife Helen also joined us.What the pictures don't show is all the charades, Jenga and garden bowls. Shit got crazy.

House was a beauty

 McPoland on BBQ duty

 Trampolines are fun, who knew?

Pyjama party

 Hit the local beach to throw around the ol pig skin

 Lisa keeping guard of the house

Bray Cycle

First proper cycle of the year was to Bray and back from Camden Street. First time using the iPhone to track my progress using Endomondo. Fastest kilometre was 1:50. Should be easily beatable. Approx 2 hours in total for 44k.

Endomondo stats

Reward at Bray, should have taken the picture before mauling the ice cream

Scarr Mountain hike

First hike of the year was up Scarr Mountain in the Wicklow mountains. Just by Glenmacnass. First time taking the dslr too.

 

 

Val Thorens

Skiing trip 2012.

Went to Val Thorens in France which is part of The Three Valleys which is the largest ski resort in the world. Went with UCPA for the second time. They do a great price which includes board, food, ski rentals, ski pass and ski lessons for the week. I think the UCPA this year was not as nice as last year in Serre Chevalier but overall Val Thorens was better as the town was much more lively and there were a lot more slopes and more investigating to be done.

I found the ski lessons to be a lot slower than last year and I probably should have went to the class above as recommended by the teacher last year but I wanted to stay with our gang. In the end I did 3 days of classes and then myself and Louise skipped the last two days and went across the The Valleys with Adam, Toner and Graham. These two days were the highlight for me and I really enjoyed being able to ski pretty much non stop for those two days and not spend so much time waiting.

During those two days we tried mostly red slopes and a couple of blacks which were tricky but manageable. We did the ski park on both days too which involves trying to do very small jumps. It was great fun but fell more than half the time I reckon. I also tried a massive jump into an inflatable cushion. That was great fun but I'm not good enough yet to take full advantage of. The skiing highlight of the week was when I did the snowboard cross track. I had no idea what it would be like and didn't expect it to be so fast. I flew through the course not really in much control but just about managed to get around it without crashing. I reckon if I had tried another 10 times I would have crashed every time. Just happened to fluke it first time around. My adrenalin was pumping and I just started laughing at one stage I was enjoying it so much but knew I had little control.

Party wise we had a good laugh any time we went drinking in La Folie Douce and the ski home afterwards was always good fun trying to avoid all the crashes. Our last night out on the town was a mental one too. We had planned to go home around midnight but ended up staying in a club until 5 because we were having such a laugh dancing around like lunatics. Unfortunately we had to be up at 8.30 the following morning to get our taxi to the airport.

All in all, I think I would go back to Val Thorens again but would like to stay in private accommodation.