Photo credit /
Grant Jones - Lead, Sunil Sharpe, Moxie, Midland
Jake Thompson - Overmono, Sassy J, Brame & Hamo,
Luke Joyce - Bicep, Denis Sulta, KiNK, Samba band
Lewis McClay - Boiler Room, Daylight
AVA Festival 2018: Five key performances
- PublishedJun 6, 2018
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- At some point early on Friday evening, I plonked myself down on a couch in AVA Festival's airy green room and got chatting to the woman next to me. She introduced herself as Sheena McBriar, mother of Sarah, AVA's founder, and Matt, one half of Bicep. Eventually our conversation turned to the festival's marquee booking, Larry Heard, at which point her face fell. "No-one told me it was his birthday yesterday! I would've baked him my special Guinness cake." (In the end, Sarah bought him a caterpillar cake from the shop.)
As clichéd as it sounds, AVA has a genuine family feel. Sarah's dad, Willis, was also spotted lending a hand. I met someone who had been taught by Sheena at school. Matt and Andy Ferguson, his partner in Bicep, headlined on Friday night, but they were back onsite on Saturday, sinking beers and catching up with old friends. And it wasn't just the McBriars. I stood next to the parents of Sally C and Cromby while they performed, their mums beaming and clapping along as their dads looked on proudly.
All this helped foster one of the friendliest, most easygoing festival atmospheres I've ever experienced. That makes it sound chilled—it wasn't. Irish crowds are famously mad for it, and the noise and energy all weekend was intoxicating. The audiences were quieter if no less engaged at Friday's expanded conference, which moved to the classy Metropolitan Arts Centre in town. Most of the talks and panels were full of young adults asking interesting questions. Some took the day off work to attend.
AVA also moved venues for the main nighttime section, taking over S13, a vast warehouse formerly owned by the British DIY retailer B&Q. A few people grumbled that last year's venue, T13, had more personality, but the team did well to inject some soul into what is essentially a giant grey box. There were four stages—The Garden Centre, The Warehouse, The Loading Bay and Smirnoff Stage—and apart from a couple sound snags (The Warehouse could've been louder on Friday night) and some minor congestion trouble (The Garden Centre was too popular), it was hard to fault. The same goes for the lineup, which was heavy on stars and bursting with wicked Irish talent. Expect to see many of these smaller acts rising up the bill as the AVA editions roll on.
Here are five key performances from across the two days.
Overmono Around ten minutes into Overmono's hour-long set at The Loading Bay, a sunken concrete pit where lorries used to drop off and pick up cargo, I glanced to my left and saw a young lad, eyes closed, mouthing: "Oh my god." I knew what he meant. Truss and Tessela, standing side by side, eyes trained on the hardware and laptops in front of them, were coiling out melt-in-your-mouth acid lines to complement the mild breeze blowing through the site. With barely a glance between them, they began picking up the pace, first unleashing galloping drums, then amen breaks and eventually full-on jungle freakouts. The drums were tough—you could feel the sound whacking your chest—but never brutal. The melodies, bright and sparkly, whirled into slow emotional crescendos, climaxing with what sounded like the neon synths from their remix of Nathan Fake and Prurient's "DEGREELESSNESS." To finish, the brothers emitted one final squall before shutting their MacBooks with a simultaneous "snap."
Bicep Larry Heard's Belfast debut, KiNK jamming with a samba band, Denis Sulta in a flashy two-piece—by the time Matt McBriar and Andy Ferguson shuffled onto AVA's main stage, AKA The Warehouse, on Friday night, the crowd had seen some serious action. But still, Bicep, arguably Belfast's biggest-ever electronic act, were always going to steal the show. Having played live last year, this time they chose to DJ, treating the thousands-strong crowd to 90 minutes of big-room house with bags of personality. KiNK's "Five" and Cromby's "Retribution" went off, as did, predictably, "Opal." But those reactions paled in comparison to the tumult that met "Glue," the biggest track from their recent self-titled album. As thousands bellowed along to the vocal, a drag queen in AVA-stickered platform heels pranced across the stage, spurring everyone on with the help of two giant foam fingers.
Sunil Sharpe The Garden Centre, hosted by Boiler Room, might be building a reputation as the world's rowdiest festival stage, but Sunil Sharpe wasn't here to mess around. Sweaty and unsmiling throughout, he closed on Saturday with one of the best sets I've seen in a long time, presenting 70 minutes of unreal techno, rave and hardcore. Playing all vinyl, he mixed with the speed and agility of a DMC champion. As soon as he was done with a record, he'd toss it to one side and instantly pick up another, riding the pitch fader for a matter of seconds before slamming it in. At one point, someone jogged the decks and the needle skipped—I swear I've never seen anyone rescue a mix that fast. The tunes were every bit as raucous as the crowd, full of huge stabs, punishing breakbeats and, in the case of AnD's "Prophecy," a melody with the surge of white-water rapids. With the BPM count north of 140, Sharpe closed with DJ Phantasy & DJ Gemini's "Everybodys Under The Influence," a 1992 hardcore gem. For the second or third time, he visibly suppressed a smile.
Sassy J Sassy J is one of the most versatile DJs out there, and on Saturday night at The Loading Bay she was tasked with building the floor for the stage's headliner, Hunee. With Floorplan rocking The Warehouse inside, the pit was quiet, as a few dozen ravers grooved along to the Swiss DJ's taut synths and slow BPMs. From there she transitioned into upbeat house—O B Ignitt & Omar-S's "Follow Me" was particularly lovely. The soulful tones were welcome respite after Sunil Sharpe's set, and by 9:30 PM, the pit was bustling and loud with wolf whistles. Her final track, a beautiful trumpet number with lush chords, inspired three lads in the front row to take off their tops and swing them around their heads.
Moxie Smirnoff Stage, a square space nestled between The Garden Centre and The Warehouse, was the least enticing and most heavily branded of the four stages. I'd purposefully swerved Friday's bill of heavy-duty techno, but Saturday night, hosted by the legendary local party Twitch!, had something about it. The atmosphere during Jayda G's set was electric, the flamboyant tunes matched only by her riveting dance moves. Her final track, an edit of Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," had everyone screaming along. Following that kind of act can't be easy, especially when you've only got an hour. Moxie went too linear too early, her four-to-the-floor grooves sounding flat so soon after Jayda G's rich instrumental textures. But she quickly won the room over. Booming piano tracks and Dexter's "I Don't Care" melted into Paranoid London's "Give Me The" and an unreleased Bwana cut. When the timeless warble of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" crept in, a guy in a "Less Donald Trump More Techno Music" T-shirt lost his shit. So too did AVA's founder, Sarah McBriar, who was dancing off to the side of the booth, handing out the remaining drinks tickets and beaming wildly.
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