Q&A:JULIE FEENEY, singer and composer, soaking up the ambience at Glastonbury with EOIN BUTLER
How are you enjoying the festival? Wow, it's mad. There are all sorts here. Someone told me there are over 200,000 festivalgoers and 80,000 staff. The atmosphere is electric. Plus, the weather is fantastic – the first time in years there hasn't been mud.
Were you pleased with your performance last night?It was amazing. The tent was slow to fill but it was full by the time I came on stage and the crowd sang along to a couple of my songs. I really wasn't expecting that, because I'm not at all well known in the UK. Later I walked around the site and saw the acoustic tent from the outside. It was amazing to think I'd just performed there.
Have you had any disastrous live performances over the years? Oh yes. About four years ago, in the Half Moon in Cork, I was really tired and there was a guy at the bar who wouldn't stop clunking glasses. I was trying to sing a capella and, in the end, I stopped and said, "I'm really sorry but I'm going to have to start again". I should have risen above it. I hope I would if it happened again. When I think about it now, I think, "oh, you plonker".
Maybe you're being hard on yourself? No one blames stage actors if they break from a performance when a mobile phone goes off.Perhaps. But you know what? If I'd been in a better head space, I would have dealt with it with more grace. The best performances are the ones where the audience feels at one with the performer. There's a generosity about that, that I don't think I exhibited that night. Plus, I have a musician friend in Cork who was there that night and he hasn't come to see me since!
Most musicians, when trying to sound hip and cultured, talk about Charles Mingus or Olivier Messiaen. But you cite influences dating to the 12th century.Yes. Léonin, for example . . . He came at the point when people had begun putting plain chant into harmony. They had this amazing flow on a line. I always imagine carpets flying off in this beautiful way . . . with nothing but thread left in your hand.
A critic from this newspaper once wondered whether your eccentricities are for real or part of a performance. I wonder about that myself. You know, when you're uninhibited and in a comfortable place . . . For example, I love playing with children. You could ask whether I'm play-acting when I'm with that child or whether I'm actually loving what we're doing. Performing is a bit like that, insofar as, if I can get to a place where I'm comfortable behaving in a certain way, I really believe I'm genuinely being myself at that time.
Tell us what you'll be doing at the West Cork Literary Festival. I'm facilitating a week of workshops in song composition. At the end of the week, the group will perform a piece they have written. Anybody who's interested is welcome. If you don't have an instrument, you can sing. If you don't have a note in your head, you can write the words. I did something similar in Mountjoy. Within an hour they had created a musical piece of their own.
Was it intimidating to go into Mountjoy? Of course, particularly as a female. I stipulated that I didn't want to know what any of the prisoners were in for – some of them would have committed pretty serious crimes so that was a bit scary. But they were very nice to me, and so intelligent. We got into some amazing discussions. I did one exercise where I asked everybody to close their eyes and attempt to clap their hands simultaneously. That was definitely the best part.
The West Cork Literary Festival takes place in Bantry from July 4th to 10th
