I was very excited about seeing Laura Marling and she WAS great, but sadly the tent was very loud and despite her repeated requests for people to keep it down because she had a cold and couldn't sing very loud, it was hard to hear her, specially during Blackberry Stone. I got her new album the other day and its, as expected, pretty close to perfect. Beautiful voice and poetic lyrics with just the right amount of reality.
We proceeded to go for a wander through the Body and Soul village, which even packed with people is kind of a magical personal experience. It makes you feel like a kid the way you walk around with widened eyes taking in everything that's been laid out like a feast for the imagination.
We crawled into a massive teepee tent with a fire in its centre and pillows all around and didn't move for several hours, only tearing ourselves away finally to go see Ms. Janelle Monae on the Body and Soul stage at around 10 o'clock at night. Three cloaked creatures danced onto the stage, hoods up, one of them rapping and turning around to reveal herself as the fabulously coiffed Janelle. Her show was electrifying. Even though I was standing on a slope and packed between two groups of drunk Irish LADS who didn't really know what was going on I managed to dance like crazy to Cold War, Tightrope and Wondaland. I love seeing bands when they are young and about to make it big because they have this ENERGY that they share readily with their audiences.
I took a time out from the Picnic on the Saturday to visit my friend and partake in some ritual burning, which we both agreed is good for the soul and should be done regularly. Also discovered this Unknown Fact: The National named their album High Violet after my friend Violet. FACT.
On Sunday I once again dug out my anorak (yeah, like I hadn't been wearing it every day anyway) and journeyed back to Loais to find my parents wandering around the Mindfield looking a bit dazed and some of my friends looking worse-for-wear but very happy. We all larked about like a big hippy commune for a while, then some of us went to hide beneath the covers of a giant Penguin paperback and I joined the rest ambling over to the Crawdaddy tent to see the Big Pink. They were definitely the loudest thing I've ever been to: the bass pushed down on your chest and threatened to take over your heart beat, the guitar rattled your bones and pressed your eardrums insistently. It was like being attacked by music, in a not entirely unpleasant way. Definite highlights of the sets were my friend rousing a sheepish smile with her manic waving from her step-brother the keyboard player, briefly cracking his image as super cool London INABAND, and their cover of Beyonce's Sweet Dreams.
After the Big Pink we wandered about; I jumped up and down to some Mumford and Sons, had an amazing burrito, and eventually ended up back in the fire teepee. At this stage the skies opened properly, soaking everything and anything and then some. I tore myself away from the cozy warmth of the fireside to go meet my parents in the guest area for a lift home, but finding them not ready to go yet ('we're just going to have ONE more drink darling') I climbed onto the guest areas raised stage which allowed me to see right across the crowds and watch Massive Attack do a beautiful show, made all the more poignant by the absolute pouring rain. It was lonely in a nice way.
After a long and quite strange bus journey on a gigantic coach carrying 5 of us back to Dublin I collapsed into bed freezing but happy after a lovely weekend.
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