Rock on! The legacy of the Trip to Tipp
How Féile in 1990 changed Irish culture... forever
LIKE the tens of thousands of other Féile fans, I have a kaleidoscope of visuals from my Trip to Tipp – still vivid despite the distance of almost three decades. Traffic jams, muddy fields, moonlight walks, drunken snogs, Woody Guthrie songs around campfires and the eternal search for a decent can opener.
Interestingly though, the most abiding memory of that seminal 1990 event is a throwaway phrase uttered by a local farmer. Leaning on a gate and casting his unaccustomed eyes over that endless sea of tents and the chaotic carry-on of their occupants, he observed with laconic midlands wisdom: ‘Them canvas sheets do hide a variety of sins, right enough.’
How right he was. Long before Ireland enjoyed the throwaway culture of Lidl tents that are now so wantonly discarded after Electric Picnic, the Trip to Tipp gave birth to a whole other kind of cultural exuberance – a peculiarly Celtic version of ‘Woodstock with Wellingtons’.
The year 1990 was always destined to be pivotal in Ireland’s modern history, as Mary Robinson became our first female President, the soccer team made the World Cup quarter-finals, and Brian Keenan tasted freedom after 1,574 days in captivity.
WHILE East and West danced in the streets at the destruction of the Berlin Wall and Bart Simpson urged everyone to ‘Eat my shorts’, we rejoiced to Brian Friel’s Dancing At Lughnasa on the Abbey stage and Jim Sheridan’s The Field on cinema screens.
In an Ireland where disenchanted youth were once again contemplating the emigrant plane to New York and Melbourne, the idea of a large-scale music festival was perfectly in sync with a generation thirsting for a cultural happening that would be theirs alone. While there had been gatherings like the Mountain Dew in Macroom and Lisdoonvarna in Clare, Féile offered something new – a weekend happening where booze, beans and cannabis resin would be the essential staples – plus those all important tents.
While heavy hitters Meat Loaf and Big Country topped the 1990 musical line-up, the depth of talent over the three days was almost entirely Irish.
Van Morrison, Moving Hearts, The 4 Of Us, Something Happens, The Stunning, Christy Moore and The Saw Doctors were all well on the way to becoming national treasures – Féile just made the transition all the speedier. (And a few of those acts are playing the Féile Classical this weekend, the first outdoor gig in Semple in 21 years.)
While the following years would see the event’s growing popularity attract global names such as Elvis Costello, INXS, Steve Earle, Bryan Adams, Simply Red and The Prodigy, there was something volatile and envelope busting about the first one in 1990 that it became one of those ‘were you there?’ moments for a whole generation.
This being Ireland, the weekend had its share of hilarity – the caravan displaying a sign: ‘Hangover cure 50p’, with Alka-Seltzer in smaller script; 16 youngsters arranging their sleeping bags in the rear of a VW van; a pair of teenagers deep in the throes of abandoned passion in full public view atop two adjoining phone boxes; and six lads in Cork jerseys happily ‘mooning’ an amused queue outside the chipper. It was an Irish concoction of alcohol and adventure – but one whose exuberant joie de vivre was infectious, and which would thereafter be exported to the Continent supporting the Boys in Green. Like many a great idea, that first Féile came about out of necessity, specifically, debt. Semple Stadium was £1.2million in the red, much of which was due to the GAA centenary final in 1984. When an ambitious Fine Gael councillor decided to organise a celebration concert for the victorious 1989 Tipperary hurling team, it became the acorn from which the towering oak of Féile would take root. ‘We organised a concert with Joe Dolan and the Wolfe Tones at a fiver a head to welcome home the hurling heroes,’ recalled Michael Lowry. ‘My office was fairly near the railway station, and when I looked out the window and saw the incredible sight – they had hobnail boots, they were dishevelled looking – but I knew we were on to something serious. I can recall I had to go and sit on the loo for an hour.’ Lowry approached concert promoters MCD with an idea that would, in time, turn out to be the forerunner of a new kind of musical events like Oxegen and Electric Picnic. But there were many against the plan, including the clergy, the gardaí, many of the local shopkeepers, even the GAA itself. Eventually, though, the prospect of clearing that debt helped dilute the naysayers, as the town of Thurles girded its loins for an invasion of 25,000.
THE 1990 weekend ticket was £29, an entrance fee that rose steadily over the following years and would see the stadium’s debt cleared in five years. By then, Lowry had moved up in the world with a ministerial post, while the festival subsequently moved to Cork in 1995 and the Point in Dublin in 1996. However, when the travelling caravan of thousands left Thurles, that early freewheeling spirit evaporated and things would never be quite the same anywhere else.
‘Driving into Thurles, it was like Sodom and Gomorrah, like a scene from a Mad Max film or something,’ Steve Wall of The Stunning recalled. ‘People had set up stalls in their front gardens, selling bowls of cornflakes, cups of tea and anything they could sell.’
Despite muddy fields, litterstrewn streets and a major absence of adequate toilet facilities, that first Féile became the ultimate rite of passage for the generation who kicked down the door into an inclusive, more liberated Ireland. The Trip to Tipp became the clarion cry of a new world order as the genie was released from the bottle, opening eyes and hearts to cultural horizons that would have been unthinkable a few years before.
‘I was coming to Ireland, and it was summer, and I thought it would be a lovely green place, kind of like a Renaissance fair, with people playing flutes and singing folk songs,’ said Iggy Pop, clearly having watched too many Bord Fáilte adverts. ‘Instead it was 25,000 really intense little Irish people going, “Up yours, Iggy,” and it got me really nuts. And I enjoyed it.’
Féile Classical takes place at Semple Stadium, Thurles tomorrow and Saturday. Féile – An Turas Go Tipp is on RTÉ One tomorrow at 8.30pm.