Galway Arts Festival made their first announcement last week of some of the acts lined up for the Big Top in the Fisheries Field this July and while the spectacular 'Circa' show and Cuban songstress and Buena Vista Social Club star Omara Portundo will certainly enthral audiences, some of the other musical choices on offer would possibly not have been in many people's Top 100 list of bands they'd have liked to see at this year's festival, never mind their Top 10!

Blondie 'were' a great band; Ash and Dandy Warhols, both competent bands, are hardly lording it over their peers in the last five years and the inoffensive pop of KT Tunstall and Tom Baxter would perfectly suit a 'middle-of-the-road radio friendly music festival', but an Arts Festival?

It's nothing against these bands per se; some of them have released great albums (albeit 30 years ago), or wrote some great songs, or one great song. But surely music for an Arts Festival should be more than that. Should it not be one/all/any of the following: groundbreaking, pushing boundaries, leading in their particular genre, exciting, legendary, innovative or relevant???

Obviously there are difficulties to be faced finding the right bands for summer gigs in Ireland; economical and logistical problems may arise, such as bands being too expensive or being on tour on the other side of the world at the appropriate time. Perhaps bands will be playing one of the big Irish summer festivals and often there'll be embargoes on the same act playing anywhere else in the country in the month(s) leading up to or after said festival. And, of course, you can't please all the people all of the time… especially us grumpy journos!

But, taking into account all of the above and the fact that there are many more musical and theatrical announcements to come, surely in the intervening nine months since last year's Arts Festival there could have been more relevant bands booked for the Big Top??? Or did I just get out of the wrong side of the bed AGAIN!?

Comments (0) »

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment