The Body and Soul Gathering
Lisa Hannigan offers a typically delicate performance
Celina Murphy, 01 Jul 2011
Glasto. Oxegen. Picnic. The Clogherhead Prawn Festival. It seems like every year, our favourite festivals, be they big, small or crustacean-based, veer further and further away from the original blueprint, that is, the one set by the Daddy of all festivals, Woodstock.
These days, if you endeavour to kip in a field for a weekend, you’re more likely to see hipsters than hippies, skinny jeans than skinny-dipping and silent discos than dreamcatcher workshops. Your average festival site is equipped with ATM machines, hair salons and phone charging doodads, but these amenities become a distant memory once you step through the gates at Ballinlough Castle. Yup, teepee for teepee, soap bubble for soap bubble, the Body And Soul Gathering provides one of the few vintage festival experiences in the country.
For an event of its size, Body And Soul boasts a fairly solid line-up, but its children are hardly motivated by a tasty headliner or hotly-tipped up-and-comer. They’re all too busy doing precisely what they want, and if that means missing every single act on the bill to do a spot of Yoga on the grass, then so be it. This slightly lackadaisical attitude towards the tunes has its upsides though – the bulk of the punters are off exploring the surrounding nooks and crannies (the craft stalls, travelling minstrels and circus performances could easily pad out this review to a couple of pages), so you’ve got more space to thrash your arms about to the music.
Our first raconteur of the weekend is festival alumni Lisa Hannigan who offers a typically delicate performance, aided by Gavin Glass on guitar, the delightful John Smith on vocals and her trusty harmonium. “Have a brilliant festival,” she purrs before exiting stage right, “and say yes to all adventures!”
As it happens, this is perfect advice. The miraculous break in a week-long downpour gives the feeling that some great, bearded lever-puller has chosen to bless the festival, and that not a minute should be wasted. Non-headliners who impress on our personal adventures include ‘90s covers mob Attention Bébé in the forest and the impossibly tight Torann Drummers in the Orchard.
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