All roads lead to Stradbally as Electric Picnic 2026 fast approaches. The country’s largest multistage music festival returns to Co Laois with a line-up that includes rock, electronica and an impressive selection of Irish artists. History will be made, too, after a fashion, as CMAT becomes that rare homegrown female performer to headline an Irish festival. Here’s an essential selection of must-see names across the weekend.
Gorillaz
Gorillaz performing in Spain last year. Photograph: Europa Press via Getty Images
Damon Albarn’s ever-mutating pop collective return to Ireland amid acclaim for their meditative new(ish) album, The Mountain, a downbeat rumination on grief and ageing elevated by Albarn’s wistfully melodic songwriting. It finds Albarn (now 58) continuing on the journey into introspection that was the defining note of Blur’s 2023 LP, The Ballad of Darren, which chronicled the dissolution of a long-term relationship. This time the subject is the death of his father – one of those unhappy milestones he explores via a deep dive into spiritual Indian music, with guests that include the sitar player Anoushka Shankar.
Zara Larsson
Zara Larsson: escapist bangers that aim to take the listener far away from the grind of everyday life.
The Swedish pop star has had a breakout 2026 after her remixed version of PinkPantheress’s Stateside soundtracked the exhibition gala routine by the US skater Alysa Liu at the 2026 Winter Olympics. The moment went viral, confirming Larsson’s ascension to the top tier of pop with escapist bangers that aim to take the listener far away from the grind of everyday life.
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“Pop for me is a form of escapism,” she said in 2021. “It puts you in a world where everything is possible, just for a moment. People like Ed Sheeran – the man with a guitar. They do something else for you. People connect with that rawness. I’m more drawn to the fantasy of it.”
Fontaines DC
Fontaines DC: fans will be keen to hear them play live in Ireland for the first time in more than a year. Photograph: Tom Honan/The Irish Times
It has been a challenging year for the Dubliners, who lost their long-serving manager, Trevor Dietz, in June. In the aftermath of that tragedy, their return to Stradbally for one of their biggest Irish shows is sure to be bittersweet. Still, fans will be keen to hear them play live in Ireland for the first time in more than a year – especially as their recent live shows have seen them debut new material that continues in the synth-pop direction first explored on 2024’s Romance LP. Bonus marks if you can get through their set without spotting anyone in a Bohemian FC Fontaines jersey – ubiquitous when the group played All Together Now in 2025 but since supplanted in the affections (and affectations) of the public by Mayo shirts.
Audrey Hobert
Audrey Hobert, the ‘Steve Martin’ of pop. Photograph: Gary Gershoff/Getty Images
Quite how Hobert feels about being described as the “Steve Martin” of pop is hard to say, but that’s the label that has attached itself to Gracie Abrams’s one-time songwriting partner, whose own music blends zany lyrics and candy-cane melodies. (She is on record as admiring Taylor Swift’s ability to write a musical bridge that goes on forever.) Live, hits such as Sue Me are topped off by a surreal – one might say Steve Martinesque – humour that extends to a fondness for oversized trenchcoats.
“My goal and the thing I’m most interested in is getting people in and out, for the time I’m on stage having their attention and being as in control as I can be without taking away what’s amazing about a concert,” is how she described her approach to live music in a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter. “I just want to keep it as fresh and exciting as I possibly can for myself and for everyone else. It’s interesting to watch what everybody else does, and then take that into account too. But nothing is as fun as having my own ideas, trying them, and seeing what works.”
Geese
Geese have been the unexpected saviours of rock’n’roll in 2026. Photograph: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Shambling into the big time, the New York indie rockers Geese have been the unexpected saviours of rock’n’roll in 2026 with songs that lurch between Radiohead and Bob Dylan. But are they “industry plants”? The internet has its suspicions, after it emerged that they have used the services of the viral-marketing company Chaotic Good, which specialises in “grassroots” campaigns that, the closer you look, aren’t all that grassroots – which is presumably why Geese have been all over everyone’s social-media feeds since last year.
[ Beyond the Pale 2026 in pictures: from revellers to alpacas and rope dartsOpens in new window ]
Still, they’re undoubtedly having a moment, and they believe it is their music’s unpredictability that is speaking to their audience. “I like the feeling of hearing people struggling against their own limits, like trying to break through,” Cameron Winter, their singer, told an interviewer recently. “They go to the very tippy-top of what they think they’re capable of, and that’s why it’s beautiful,” he said during a breathless two-minute monologue, emphasising every phrase with his hands. “It’s why people watch the bloopers of news reporters laughing like a regular person more than they ever watch the fucking news. That’s more interesting, because it makes you feel something.”
Ravyn Lenae
Ravyn Lenae performing in Boston last year. Photograph: Paras Griffin/Getty Images for for iHeartRadio
Futuristic synth-funk and genre-bending R&B are prominent in the songwriting of Ravyn Lenae, whose sci-fi-tinged music is brilliantly epitomised by her 2024 viral hit, Love Me Not. Raised by a single mother in Chicago and brought up on Kendrick Lamar and Janet Jackson, she’s had to bide her time before breaking through. However, she feels that the years of struggle have been worth it, and that you learn as much from your failures as from your triumphs. “I know that there is a purpose for all of this,” she told Rolling Stone. “That’s the thing that keeps me going. I feel like there’s, like, this rope attached to me, and I’m just pulling it. I don’t know where it’s taking me, but this is my rope.”
Loyle Carner
Loyle Carner: raw honesty enhanced by expressive rhyming style. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty
The heartfelt rapper has made a career out of songs about family, community and the importance of chasing your destiny, his raw honesty enhanced by his expressive rhyming style. His music is all about tenderness and honesty – qualities that can be hard to get across from the anonymous surroundings of a festival stage but that he expresses with a vulnerability all too rare in music today.
Djo
Joe ‘Djo’ Keery has a parallel career specialising in psychedelic indie pop. Photograph: Arturo Holmes/Getty Images
Better known as Steve from Stranger Things, Joe “Djo” Keery has a parallel career specialising in psychedelic indie pop that blends punk-pop guitar and hazy melodies. The good news is that if you like Stranger Things, you’ll probably enjoy Djo’s music, which, on hits such as End of Beginning, gives off a similar aura of half-remembered nostalgia. He is aware that Stranger Things has helped with his profile but tries not to become obsessed with drawing a line between Djo and Joe.
“I think about it, but I try to combat that in a bunch of different ways because you’ll never know the answer. Living that question too much is thinking about the past, and I think it’s important to really live in the present.”
Role Model
Role Model, aka the Maine singer Tucker Pillsbury. Photograph: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for MoMA
The 1970s heyday of the thoughtfully miserable singer-songwriter comes back to life in the form of Role Model, aka the Maine singer Tucker Pillsbury, and music that steers a deft course between Randy Newman and Neil Young. He is set on doing things his own way, however, and recently said he had no wish to become a pop star.
“There’s just constantly this debate of who’s going to be the pop boy right now or whatever,” he explained to Rolling Stone. “I just don’t want to be in that race, ’cause I’m not trying to be a pop star. I think you can hear it in the music and by who I choose to work with, and, I don’t know, how I carry myself. Being a pop star is not interesting to me.”
CMAT
CMAT will be taking a well-deserved year off touring in 2027. Photograph: Katja Ogrin/Redferns
It has been a busy year for Dunboyne songwriter Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, aka CMAT, who spent part of the summer touring Ireland with Lewis Capaldi. She also popped up for a cameo when the pop icon Robyn played 3Arena. Now she plays her largest Irish headlining show to date – to be followed by a well-deserved year off touring in 2027.
Skepta
Skepta will preview material from his apparently imminent new LP at Stradbally. Photograph: Katja Ogrin/Getty Images
The grime pioneer Joseph Olaitan Adenuga jnr brings his robust take on British street music to Stradbally, where he will preview material from his apparently imminent new LP, Fork & Knife. It’s been a while, with his previous album dating back to prehistoric, pre-pandemic 2019.
Wolf Alice
Wolf Alice: continuing on to bigger things and returning to Ireland after headlining 3Arena last December. Photograph: Kieran Frost/Redferns
The London indie group made an unconvincing stab at becoming a mainstream pop band with last year’s The Clearing album – but despite that record’s shameless attempt to reposition the band as Gen Z Fleetwood Mac, they continue to go on to bigger things and return to Ireland having headlined 3Arena in December. They will hope their return to Ireland is smoother than that previous visit, when they were delayed by Storm Bram (remember him?).
Gurriers
Gurriers, the indie rock band from Dublin
Furious indie rock from a Dublin band who combine the unfiltered aggression of Idles with the postpunk songcraft of Fontaines DC but whose greatest draw is the desire to connect with the audience in a way that feels entirely original. “I don’t think it’s the worst thing [to be compared to Fontaines],” they said in 2024. “I feel like we are a little bit louder or a little bit more aggressive.”
Reggie Watts
Reggie Watts is a household name in the US. Photograph: Araya Doheny/Getty Images
Music and comedy become one thanks to this renaissance performer who blends the two disciplines – and is a household name in the US as bandleader on CBS’s now-cancelled The Late Late Show with James Corden.
John Francis Flynn
John Francis Flynn spent his early career playing trad music aboard a Disney cruise ship. Photograph: Kieran Frost/Redferns
The Dublin songwriter taps into the spit-and-sawdust spirit of Liffeyside folk music with a voice that has the rough-hewn honesty of Ronnie Drew or Luke Kelly yet is also capable of remarkable beauty and warmth. It has been quite a journey for a performer who spent his early career playing trad music aboard a Disney cruise ship – until he drew the line at performing dressed as part of the Mickey Mouse Club.
“We got an email saying, ‘We enjoyed your performance on the Disney cruise ship – we’d love to have you back. But we were thinking next year maybe you could dress up in costume and do a few Disney numbers,” he said. “No amount of money would be worth that.”
Rowetta
Rowetta is best known for her work with the Happy Mondays
Jerry Fish’s retro sideshow welcomes the 1990s house queen Rowetta, best known for her work with the Madchester ruffians Happy Mondays.
NewEra
The Dublin production duo Ben Williams and Karl Durkan have racked up millions of plays for their 2023 hit Birds in the Sky, an irresistible mix of retro samples and house piano.
The Scratch
The Scratch are a marriage of two genres that shouldn’t really work together. For the past 10 years they have argued that mosh pit and folk session are perfect bedfellows. Photograph: Evan Doherty
Folk meets heavy metal in the furious onslaught of the Dublin four-piece the Scratch, who come to Stradbally on the back of their thunderous third LP, Pull Like a Dog.
Florence Road
Lily Aron of Florence Road performing earlier this year. Photograph: Gus Stewart/Redferns
Named after a thoroughfare in the middle of Bray, Co Wicklow, the indie quintet Florence Road have been burning rubber with their accessible mix of pop melodies and 1990s indie. This mash-up has seen them support Olivia Rodrigo and sell out 3Olympia in Dublin, while their cover of Hard Times, by Paramore, has notched up millions of views.
Electric Picnic is at Stradbally Hall, Co Laois, next Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You’ll be able to read all our coverage on irishtimes.com