Line-up fails to lift the gloom at Lovebox

RAIN HAS been the story of this Irish summer and the Lovebox music festival at Marlay Park struggled to lift the gloom, though it showered only intermittently for long stretches of Saturday afternoon and evening.

The straw scattered at strategic points around the concert site went a long way towards preventing a Glastonbury-style mudfest developing. But the dark skies and blustery breeze made the carnival atmosphere such events thrive on difficult to conjure up.

London reggae outfit The Trojan Soundsystem seemed to sum up the general mood when they kicked off their mid-afternoon set with the words “Alright Dublin, it’s pretty cold. So let’s just get started, yeah?”

Later they promised, in thick Jamaican patois, that “The more you dance, the more the sun come out.” A dozen or so teenagers in luminous nu-rave gear took them at their word. But, sadly, the effort backfired as the heavens promptly opened up again.

A lacklustre line-up didn’t help matters much. At last year’s Lovebox at Malahide Castle, there was something for most ages in a bill that included The Rapture, Super Furry Animals and Toots and the Maytals.

This year’s event, headlined by indie also-rans Maximo Park, compared badly, although the inclusion of both Plain White Ts and Paulo Nutini on the main stage did attract a contingent of hysterical teenage girls.

Still, a festival is a festival and most threw themselves into the spirit. Festival convention was by and large observed. Three tipsy girls in hot pants and fake tan posed for photographs with a bemused member of an Garda Síochána. Two lads in boiler suits wandered the site and there was an abundance of multicoloured wellington boots on view.

The “Rock-o-Plane” Ferris wheel in front of the main stage was, bizarrely, set up facing the opposite direction, toward the queue outside the beer tent. Nonetheless, there was no shortage of takers. Emily Murphy (18), from Stillorgan, said she had come to see uber-producer Pharrell Williams’s group N*E*R*D, but that didn’t prevent her joining the mini-stampede to the front when Plain White Ts unleashed their drippy monster hit Hey There, Delilah.

Sadly, for gig goers grown accustomed to the more enlightened security measures taken at events such as the Electric Picnic, or the Tom Waits gig at the Phoenix Park earlier this month, the approach here was an unfortunate blast from the past.

This writer’s umbrella was snatched at the entrance on the grounds that it could be used as a weapon. In fairness to the organisers, this regulation had been flagged (about 1,100 words into the 1,200 word notice on the MCD website). But that hardly justified the gruff manner in which it was taken.

Matters didn’t improve some hours later when your correspondent had a €2.50 lidless bottle of mineral water confiscated.

Meanwhile, an onsite farmers’ market was selling melons, grapefruit, orange and bananas, none of which seemed to be in much demand from the teenage ravers.