Every summer the Spiegeltent comes to town and pitches itself smack bang in the middle of the plaza in front of the Cork Opera House and plays host to a wide variety of musical and cultural acts under the umbrella of the Cork Midsummer Festival. Scandalously, it wasn’t until this year that I had the actual pleasure of finding out what all of the fuss was about. Ya, ya, I know you’re all agape with amazement as to how a social whore like myself could not possibly have been at least once before but to be honest while I had intended to go many times in the past the simple truth is that I’m a lazy bastard and anything that involves me having to pre-purchase tickets anywhere other than at the venue in question and particularly at any time other than the time for which the event is scheduled always sounds too much like hard work to me.

Also, I had convinced myself that the tent in question was going to be some grotty, smelly run down affair reminiscent of some of the circus tents that travel round this isle conning innocent parents into parting with good hard earned cash in return for laughable, piss poor entertainment. (For now I’ll leave those issues burning under the surface for another day.) Luckily, this time round some nice person convinced me that going to see a band called Wiggle in the Spiegeltent was a truly fabulous idea and even offered to get the tickets beforehand, which kind of left me bereft of any plausible reason not to go and lets face it, a girl uttering the words wiggle and tent in the same sentence is a sure fire way to convince me to do practically anything.

Upon entering the Spiegeltent on the evening in question, it would be fair to say that I was pretty damn impressed and quite honestly calling it a tent is like labelling a high class escort with a tag that reads five dollar ho... um, er... that’s not to say that I’d be intimately familiar with either class of aforementioned woman you understand. Anyway, Wiggle took to the stage and belted out their characteristically feel-good, ethnically-charged, dance-friendly electronic sound for a good hour and a half. Not surprisingly, there was much dancing most of which took place on the superb wooden dance floor that takes pride of place in the epicentre of the Spiegeltent and it was nice to have an equally crazy dance partner, which meant for a change that the usually bemused crowd had more than just my antics to gawk at. On mature reflection, quite possibly the best wiggle I’ve had in a tent this year!

Wiggle Cork Midsummer Festival

Labels: Bands, Electronic

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (2 have vented their spleen so far)

I was lucky enough to have scored a ticket for Soulwax at The Savoy, which was part of the Heineken Green Spheres tour. The band is comprised of two Belgian brothers, Stephen Dewaele and David Dewaele, who are also known as 2 Many DJs, Stefaan Van Leuven and Steve Slingeneyer.

The warm up act was some strange girl with too much angst singing over some music that she was playing on a laptop. Interestingly, about the only thing New Girl and I had in common that evening was that we both agreed that she, the warm up act that is, was utterly crap. Not surprisingly, shortly after that we callously dumped each other and ran back to the nurturing warmth of our mutually exclusive friends, Johnny Event Manager in her case, Snow Girl and Bat Girl in mine, who oddly enough thought that the girl with the angst was quite good, a view they stubbornly stuck to even after I slapped them soundly.

Anyway, Soulwax took to the stage soon afterwards and the good times returned with a bang. I had never seen this band before and I can honestly say that I was absolutely blown away. From the moment they hit the stage, they exuded an infectious musical energy that firmly grabbed you by the balls, shook you senseless and refused to let go no matter how loud you screamed. By the time they were finished, I was left wasted yet satisfied but ultimately wanting more! And the icing on the cake was that it was all fecking free! (Heh, not that I’m a tight git or anything and any comments to the contrary will be dealt with severely! :-)

Unfortunately, we didn’t hang around for the 2 Many DJs set that followed because we all had to get up early for work the next day or some other equally ridiculous reason. Finally, kudos to Heineken for doing the place up real nice with lots of spooky UFO like greenness!

(Thanks to Andrew Kendall for the photo. Hopefully, he won’t track me down and sue the no ass off me!)

Labels: Bands, DJs, Electronic

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (2 have vented their spleen so far)

The very first Heineken Green Spheres event kicks off in The Savoy in Cork on Tuesday 18th April 2006 with the multi-faceted dance music maestro's Soulwax and their alter ego 2 Many DJs.

"As dance producers they are touched by the hand of God" NME

"Music's latest craze is certainly a twisted one. Some are even calling it bastard pop. How else do you explain Destiny's Child singing Bootylicious over Nirvana's sacred Smells Like Teen Spirit" MTV

The Radio Soulwax tour features the brothers spinning dance discs under their moniker of 2 Many DJs as well as striking the chords on their synthesisers as part of the full live Soulwax line-up.

Tickets are by invitation only and in to be in with a chance of getting an invite for yourself and two of your favorite friends, all you have to do is register on the Heineken Green Spheres website. So what are you waiting for? Do it now! Especially all of you fine lab rats!

Labels: Bands, DJs, Electronic

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (3 have vented their spleen so far)