Mitchelstown Indie-Pendence

The Mitchelstown Indie-Pendence Music Festival takes place this weekend and it’s shaping up to be even better than last year’s inaugural event. Well, having said that, it wasn’t really inaugural. The festival began in the early 90’s and over the years played host to many acts from Boyzone to Mary Black. I myself have fond memories of seeing the Revs there when I was younger. I jumped so much during the gig, I puked afterwards. But lately, with the likes of Kylie’s crappier sister, Dannii and Coolio, the festival had become something of a joke.

Graham Lynch (he of Rest fame) has the full story in this week’s Cork Independent. though. He says:
“… the festival was cast into debt and in 2005 the decision was made to forgo any plans for future events.
Step forward a group of pro-active locals, led by Shane Dunne. Having bought the festival and it’s debts for the sum of one euro, Shane and co. spent the the best part of a year raising funds, paying creditors, chasing sponsors and bloking bands until The Mitchelstown Music & Arts Festival re-emerged as Indie-Pendence…”

Last year, they played host to acts like The Frank & Walters, The Chalets and The Sultans of Ping, among others. This year is bigger than ever though, with Republic of Loose, Sultans, Director and Delorentos as well as street performers and extra stages.

I plan on spending all of Sunday in the town, catching Lerner in the afternoon as well as Hooray for Humans and Fight Like Apes later in the evening (a blogger that likes Fight Like Apes? Quelle surprise!).

If you’re in Cork, check out Graham’s article in Cork Independent (which you should be doing every week anyway – the man’s got the pulse of the scene!) to get the full story from the mouth of organiser Shane Dunne. If you’re not in Cork, well…you’re worse off than you think.

(Image borrowed from the Indie-Pendence MySpace here and quote taken from Graham Lynch’s article in the Cork Independent here.)