Usual suspects on festival circuit

There are a host of arts festivals taking place over the summer, but many of the music acts on the line-ups are all too familiar, writes Tony Clayton-Lea.

We all know the daddy of the Irish arts festivals is Galway, and the mammy is Kilkenny, but there are a number of smaller ones tugging at their coat-tails crying "me, me, me".

We're sure it isn't easy filling these mini-festivals with all manner of goodies and treats, and in certain areas they excel. Continued study of the music strands over several years, however, highlights, in the main, a lack of adventure. Not all the arts festivals on this and next week - Clonmel Junction, Earagail Arts, Kinsale Arts, even the week after with the start of the Galway Arts event and further on with Kilkenny - suffer from inclement music elements. And not all are victims of competency in their own right, suffering from a severe dose of the usual suspects. But we'd hazard an informed opinion that the music strands, in particular, aren't always programmed by a person who knows the area inside out.

From Frank and Walters (Kinsale Arts), Jack L (Clonmel Junction), The Blizzards (Kinsale Arts, today) and Royseven (Clonmel Junction, Thursday ) to The Dubliners (Clonmel Junction), Eleanor McEvoy (Clonmel Junction, Thursday) and Niwel Tsumbu (Earagail Arts, Thursday), there isn't a music act that hasn't been either on the circuit in the past nine months or isn't in danger of being perceived as having temporarily outstayed their welcome.

The festivals mentioned seem to have other areas of the arts covered very well, yet a mini wow factor in the music area, let alone a surprise, doesn't seem to be on the agenda. Why is that? Is it budget alone that dictates the direction of music programming, or is it that the programmers are playing safe with very much established yet, in their own right, decent and good music acts?

"When you're working for a smaller festival a lot of it is about luck, timing and tenacity," says David Teevan, festival director of Clonmel's Junction Festival. "In terms of programming popular music, rock or mainstream, it's a very competitive market and with the huge growth in festivals throughout the summer it means that it's a sellers' market. There's a window around the March/April period when I would book the bands for Junction. We've done well, I think, in getting big names in music over the years. We can't book them in the autumn of the previous year because the artists are waiting to see what is lining up for them, so we're in there at the same time as Galway, Oxegen, Earagail and all the others."

But isn't there the danger that sometimes a festival will end up being peppered with the usual suspects? "To some extent that's true. The function of Junction Festival is to provide a cultural diet, albeit one that comes in a feast for nine days, and I'm quite happy to programme some of the usual suspects because they haven't played in Clonmel all year. I'm also always looking out for a mix with the unusual and the exotic. It's a question of being imaginative as well as booking the usual suspects. The exciting part for me is during that March/April period where you set out with the idea of what you want to do. It is nerve-racking, however, because you could end up with nothing, and become desperate. That's when you make mistakes."

Gerry Godley, music programmer of (among others) the forthcoming Kilkenny Arts Festival, realises that some festivals are restricted by financial resources but admits that necessity can often be the mother of invention and innovation.

"I like the challenge of going out there and working with what there is, finding something within that's a fit for a festival. I would look at what Galway is doing this year, and look on in envy because I'm aware of the fee scale that's involved."

The big issue, he points out, is one of confidence on the part of the programmer, and that this invariably comes with experience. "I've been programming for about 10 years now, and as I reflect on how it's evolved with me, I see that I've become a bit braver in my choices. If you get it right, it's great, but if you get it wrong, it isn't the end of the world. Ultimately, programming is a bit like wine - the longer you're at it the more it becomes instinctive. You become better at recognising what the primary principles of a great artist are, irrespective of the idiom in which they're working."

Which is all well and good, but here's a plea to mini and major festival music programmers (who may or may not know the difference between The Blizzards and Snow Patrol): don't, as so often seems to be the case, go for the easy options. There is always someone far less familiar and possibly far more interesting to ask.