Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Electric Picnic I hardly knew ye!

Reasons for my being over-the-top excited and almost fanatically foaming at the mouth at the prospect of Electric Picnic. Be warned, it's a REALLY long tribute...

Music:
Friday I will enjoy; Damien Rice, PJ Harvey, Mogwai, Stereotonic DJ's, The Rumours. Saturday; Groove Armada, New Order, The Frames, Bloc Party, Belle & Sebastian, Super Furry Animals, DJ Shadow, Graham Coxon, 2 Many DJ's, Messiah J & The Expert. Sunday; Pet Shop Boys (for the laugh), Basement Jaxx, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Gnarls Barkley, Rufus Wainwright…and much more!

Comedy:
Joy in the Hood TV peeps, Eric Lawlor and Willa White, Doktor Cocacolamcdonalds (fresh from glowing reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Naked Camera's PJ Gallagher and Maeve Higgins, Jason Byrne, Neil Delamere (not hilarious, but alright), Karl Spain, Gerry Mallon, Des Bishop.

Food:
“The Electric Picnic is very proud to be able to provide a hugely diverse variety of high quality healthy food options – organic where possible, to suit all palettes and many vegetarian & vegan choices. Thai curries, Japanese noodles, Mexican burritos, French crepes, smoked fish tapas, hot bread, organic vegan snacks, fresh Irish chowder, bagels, maple & pecan or organic Green & Blacks chocolate porridge, Fair Trade coffee, freshly squeezed juice bars, herbal teas & chai lattes plus organic ice-creams are just a small taster from the overall Picnic menu.”

Market:
“The Market Area features an eclectic and exotic assortment of handmade clothes, jewellery and artefacts from Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Africa, Thailand, Russia, Peru, Tibet, Bali and Indian plus lots of other little treats and trinkets. Watch out for the gorgeous lantern stall, plus the wacky Bubble Inc & Fairylove stalls, all of which add a little sprinkle of magic to the weekend!”

Body & Soul 2006:
“70 of Ireland's finest holistic therapists offering sessions ranging from Swedish Massage to Deep Tissue Massage, Shiatsu to Thai Massage, and Tarot Card Reading to Palmistry. There will be experiential workshops in Indian Head Massage, Belly Dancing, African Drumming, Overtone Singing, Dance, Meditation and Yoga. The small but beautiful Chill Stage is nestled in a natural amphitheatre for musicians and performers whose music aims to soothe the soul and subtly wiggle the hips and you can enjoy acoustic music and story telling by the fireside at various tipis.
Nourish your belly with organic food, sushi, Fair Trade and holistic goodies.

There's the ambient lounge with beanbags, thought provoking documentaries, performance and installation art and chai..........and just you wait until night time when it all comes alive! Committing random acts of kindness is our only request (and some litter picking too, so that even nature can have a rest!) Come along and find what you find and take some of it back home!”

Creative Collectives:
“Catalyst are a team of creative individuals who encourage unrestricted creative freedom and interaction. They will be transforming a space and in the process create a highly decorative, comfortable, sociable and beautiful space using an eclectic range of ideas and talents. They aim to feature creativity in all aspects. From the geodesic dome complete with soothing lighting effects, hammocks, cushions & projections, to the three 'flower seats' with flora & fauna décor, the space-hopper seating for bouncing, chilling or inevitably sleeping!
There are sculptures designed out of scrap metal and a 8ft tall motorized drumming robot!
They will have an amazing cartoonist and foam sculptor on site who will be knocking up painted sculptures.

There will also be workshops and performances throughout the day from the good natured ridiculousness of the crew, silly costume and spontaneous spinning and juggling.”

Silent Disco:
In the Silent Disco everybody who joins in gets given a wireless headphone. The sound is superb, as is the spectacle (apparantly). A radio deejay show gives a tour through very varied music styles.

Misc:
Artists, sculptors, street performers, jugglers, stilt-walkers, magicians

Supershot Paintball:
The most advanced Base Camp in Irish Paintball will be open to Electric Picnic festival goers

CINEMA:
Joy of joys!!! Dressed with dramatic velvet draping, giant beanbags and popcorn on hand. Running 24 hours - around the clock all weekend - a wide selection of cult classic and music films chosen by you the festival goers will be shown including:

The Big Lebowski
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
Kill Bill
Zoolander
Team America: World Police
The Royal Tenenbaums

and many many more (tbc).

The Ireland qualifier football match will be shown on Saturday
The All Ireland Hurling will be shown on Sunday

Big Tree:
A non-profit, eco-awareness area of the festival serving organic, Fair Trade food. “Big Tree was set up partly to give artists another outlet, outside of their 'official' performance at Electric Picnic, and also as a setting for impromptu performances & possible collaborations for artists performing elsewhere at the festival, where music continues into the night after the other stages at the festival close down. In addition, 20 native trees will be planted by the 'Native Woodland Trust' for every act who performs on the Big Tree stage and all remaining profit shall be given to a well established animal shelter in West Cork (see below for further details).

Friends of the Earth:
At Electric Picnic 2006 Friends of the Earth is giving festival goers the opportunity to raise their voice against climate change.
Participants will be able to challenge government leaders by making their personal Climate Pledge on a life-size speech bubble, such as "I will cycle to work more often and in return I want the government to invest more in public transport". Your photograph and pledge will go on the Friends of theEarth website and with this will form part of a massive video installation at the UN climate talks in Kenya in November, with pledges from around theworld. Friends of the Earth can also pass on your Climate Pledge to theIrish government which is running a public consultatuon on climate change until the end of September. At the Electric Picnic you can have your say and play your part in stopping climate chaos.

At last year's Electric Picnic people painted hundreds of messages to world leaders on wooden tiles which Friends of the Earth displayed with thousands more from around Europe in a huge mosaic at the UN talks in Montreal, where politicians agreed a new deal to strengthen the fight against climate change.You can see photos of messages from last year's festival in the Montrealmosaic on Friends of the Earth's Climate Pledge website.

The Leviathan Think Tank:
‘Poetry Slam’ with Emmy-award winning Raven (Los Angeles, US); Ben Kritikos (New York, US); and Brendan Murphy (Liverpool, UK) - winner of the 2006 Cúirt International Festival poetry slam. ‘Jesus of Guantanamo’ – highlights from Abie Philbin-Bowman’s satire. ‘Mars Bars and Baby Sharks’ – a panel of special guests including writers, musicians, artists and media types relate their favourite rock'n'roll myths and legends and read from their favourite books about music - from Led Zeppelin and the Hammer of the Gods to Ronan Keating's autobiography. ‘Speakers Corner' – from free speech initiatives, Rossa Ó Snodaigh (Kila founder member), Ciaron O’Reilly (Australian free speech and anti-war campaigner), Robbie Sinnot (journalist, campaigner and NEAR FM broadcaster) and special guests vent spleen and debate issues philosophical, temporal, Biblical and plain daft. Hecklers, orators and ranters welcome to join in. ‘Leviathan Political Cabaret’ – Ireland's only political cabaret, featuring a Molotov cocktail of debate, satire, music, comedy and cartoons, is hosted by writer and broadcaster David McWilliams. Incendiary interactive debate on topics such as "Is the music industry an empire in decline?", "Should all drugs be legalised?", with very special guest panellists from the media, the music business and beyond.

Amnesty International Irish Section:
“Electric Picnic is teaming up with Amnesty International Irish Section to bring a human rights dimension to this year's festival.

At Electric Picnic 2006, Amnesty International Irish Section will attempt to set a world record for the largest ever toast. The "Big Toast" is aimed at creating the largest toast "to freedom" in the world.

The significance of "…to freedom," lies in the very history of Amnesty. In 1961 Amnesty's founder, Peter Benenson was driven to action after reading of 2 Portuguese students sentenced to 7 years in prison for raising their glasses in a toast to freedom.
"To freedom from oppression, to freedom from human rights violations, to freedom from torture."

Amnesty's campaigning actions for the festival will focus on issues like torture, rendition and prisoners of conscience. Offering Electric Picnic participants the opportunity to take action on these issues, Amnesty volunteers will be circulating throughout Electric Picnic with postcard actions addressing human rights violations in Darfur, Palestine and Burma, to name a few. The Amnesty tent will be Human Rights Headquarters where people can find out more about the issues, take action, join Amnesty and participate in workshops on a variety of human rights issues.

Amnesty International is made up of ordinary people from across the world standing up for humanity and human rights.
Amnesty's purpose is to protect individuals wherever justice, fairness, freedom and truth are denied.”

Why can't the WORLD be like Electric Picnic???

Ssssssssssiiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhhhhh - can't wait!!
www.electricpicnic.ie


Before Electric Picnic what am I doing???

Thursday 24 August - Radiohead
Friday 25 August - Daft Punk

Woo, and indeed, Hoo!!!

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