{"id":651326,"date":"2026-08-22T21:56:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T21:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/651326\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T21:56:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T21:56:44","slug":"electric-picnic-2026-19-acts-you-dont-want-to-miss-at-this-years-festival-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/651326\/","title":{"rendered":"Electric Picnic 2026: 19 acts you don\u2019t want to miss at this year\u2019s festival \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

All roads lead to Stradbally as Electric Picnic<\/a> 2026 fast approaches. The country\u2019s 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<\/a> becomes that rare homegrown female performer to headline an Irish festival. Here\u2019s an essential selection of must-see names across the weekend.<\/p>\n

Gorillaz\"GorillazGorillaz performing in Spain last year. Photograph: Europa Press via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Damon Albarn\u2019s 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\u2019s wistfully melodic songwriting. It finds Albarn (now 58) continuing on the journey into introspection that was the defining note of Blur\u2019s 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 \u2013 one of those unhappy milestones he explores via a deep dive into spiritual Indian music, with guests that include the sitar player Anoushka Shankar.<\/p>\n

Zara Larsson\"ZaraZara Larsson: escapist bangers that aim to take the listener far away from the grind of everyday life. <\/p>\n

The Swedish pop star has had a breakout 2026 after her remixed version of PinkPantheress\u2019s Stateside soundtracked the exhibition gala routine by the US skater Alysa Liu at the 2026 Winter Olympics. The moment went viral, confirming Larsson\u2019s ascension to the top tier of pop with escapist bangers that aim to take the listener far away from the grind of everyday life.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Electric Picnic 2026: Van Morrison, Amble and Aaron Rowe added to line-upOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cPop for me is a form of escapism,\u201d she said in 2021. \u201cIt puts you in a world where everything is possible, just for a moment. People like Ed Sheeran \u2013 the man with a guitar. They do something else for you. People connect with that rawness. I\u2019m more drawn to the fantasy of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fontaines DC\"FontainesFontaines 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 <\/p>\n

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 \u2013 especially as their recent live shows have seen them debut new material that continues in the synth-pop direction first explored on 2024\u2019s Romance LP. Bonus marks if you can get through their set without spotting anyone in a Bohemian FC Fontaines jersey \u2013 ubiquitous when the group played All Together Now in 2025 but since supplanted in the affections (and affectations) of the public by Mayo shirts.<\/p>\n

Audrey Hobert\"AudreyAudrey Hobert, the ‘Steve Martin’ of pop. Photograph: Gary Gershoff\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Quite how Hobert feels about being described as the \u201cSteve Martin\u201d of pop is hard to say, but that\u2019s the label that has attached itself to Gracie Abrams\u2019s one-time songwriting partner, whose own music blends zany lyrics and candy-cane melodies. (She is on record as admiring Taylor Swift\u2019s ability to write a musical bridge that goes on forever.) Live, hits such as Sue Me are topped off by a surreal \u2013 one might say Steve Martinesque \u2013 humour that extends to a fondness for oversized trenchcoats.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal and the thing I\u2019m most interested in is getting people in and out, for the time I\u2019m on stage having their attention and being as in control as I can be without taking away what\u2019s amazing about a concert,\u201d is how she described her approach to live music in a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter. \u201cI just want to keep it as fresh and exciting as I possibly can for myself and for everyone else. It\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geese\"GeeseGeese have been the unexpected saviours of rock\u2019n\u2019roll in 2026. Photograph: Emma McIntyre\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Shambling into the big time, the New York indie rockers Geese have been the unexpected saviours of rock\u2019n\u2019roll in 2026 with songs that lurch between Radiohead and Bob Dylan. But are they \u201cindustry plants\u201d? The internet has its suspicions, after it emerged that they have used the services of the viral-marketing company Chaotic Good, which specialises in \u201cgrassroots\u201d campaigns that, the closer you look, aren\u2019t all that grassroots \u2013 which is presumably why Geese have been all over everyone\u2019s social-media feeds since last year.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Beyond the Pale 2026 in pictures: from revellers to alpacas and rope dartsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Still, they\u2019re undoubtedly having a moment, and they believe it is their music\u2019s unpredictability that is speaking to their audience. \u201cI like the feeling of hearing people struggling against their own limits, like trying to break through,\u201d Cameron Winter, their singer, told an interviewer recently. \u201cThey go to the very tippy-top of what they think they\u2019re capable of, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s beautiful,\u201d he said during a breathless two-minute monologue, emphasising every phrase with his hands. \u201cIt\u2019s why people watch the bloopers of news reporters laughing like a regular person more than they ever watch the fucking news. That\u2019s more interesting, because it makes you feel something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ravyn Lenae\"RavynRavyn Lenae performing in Boston last year. Photograph: Paras Griffin\/Getty Images for for iHeartRadio <\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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. \u201cI know that there is a purpose for all of this,\u201d she told Rolling Stone. \u201cThat\u2019s the thing that keeps me going. I feel like there\u2019s, like, this rope attached to me, and I\u2019m just pulling it. I don\u2019t know where it\u2019s taking me, but this is my rope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loyle Carner\"LoyleLoyle Carner: raw honesty enhanced by expressive rhyming style. Photograph: Oli Scarff\/AFP\/Getty <\/p>\n

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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

Djo\"JoeJoe ‘Djo’ Keery has a parallel career specialising in psychedelic indie pop. Photograph: Arturo Holmes\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Better known as Steve from Stranger Things, Joe \u201cDjo\u201d 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\u2019ll probably enjoy Djo\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think about it, but I try to combat that in a bunch of different ways because you\u2019ll never know the answer. Living that question too much is thinking about the past, and I think it\u2019s important to really live in the present.\u201d<\/p>\n

Role Model\"RoleRole Model, aka the Maine singer Tucker Pillsbury. Photograph: Dimitrios Kambouris\/Getty Images for MoMA <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just constantly this debate of who\u2019s going to be the pop boy right now or whatever,\u201d he explained to Rolling Stone. \u201cI just don\u2019t want to be in that race, \u2019cause I\u2019m 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\u2019t know, how I carry myself. Being a pop star is not interesting to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

CMAT\"CMATCMAT will be taking a well-deserved year off touring in 2027. Photograph: Katja Ogrin\/Redferns <\/p>\n

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 \u2013 to be followed by a well-deserved year off touring in 2027.<\/p>\n

Skepta\"SkeptaSkepta will preview material from his apparently imminent new LP at Stradbally. Photograph: Katja Ogrin\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

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\u2019s been a while, with his previous album dating back to prehistoric, pre-pandemic 2019.<\/p>\n

Wolf Alice\"WolfWolf Alice: continuing on to bigger things and returning to Ireland after headlining 3Arena last December. Photograph: Kieran Frost\/Redferns <\/p>\n

The London indie group<\/a> made an unconvincing stab at becoming a mainstream pop band with last year\u2019s The Clearing album<\/a> \u2013 but despite that record\u2019s 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?).<\/p>\n

Gurriers\"Gurriers,Gurriers, the indie rock band from Dublin <\/p>\n

Furious indie rock from a Dublin band<\/a> 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. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s the worst thing [to be compared to Fontaines],\u201d they said in 2024. \u201cI feel like we are a little bit louder or a little bit more aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reggie Watts\"ReggieReggie Watts is a household name in the US. Photograph: Araya Doheny\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Music and comedy become one thanks to this renaissance performer who blends the two disciplines \u2013 and is a household name in the US as bandleader on CBS\u2019s now-cancelled The Late Late Show with James Corden.<\/p>\n

John Francis Flynn\"JohnJohn Francis Flynn spent his early career playing trad music aboard a Disney cruise ship. Photograph: Kieran Frost\/Redferns <\/p>\n

The Dublin songwriter<\/a> 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 \u2013 until he drew the line at performing dressed as part of the Mickey Mouse Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got an email saying, \u2018We enjoyed your performance on the Disney cruise ship \u2013 we\u2019d love to have you back. But we were thinking next year maybe you could dress up in costume and do a few Disney numbers,\u201d he said. \u201cNo amount of money would be worth that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rowetta\"RowettaRowetta is best known for her work with the Happy Mondays <\/p>\n

Jerry Fish\u2019s retro sideshow welcomes the 1990s house queen Rowetta, best known for her work with the Madchester ruffians Happy Mondays.<\/p>\n

NewEra<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The Scratch\"TheThe Scratch are a marriage of two genres that shouldn\u2019t really work together. For the past 10 years they have argued that mosh pit and folk session are perfect bedfellows. Photograph: Evan Doherty <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Florence Road\"LilyLily Aron of Florence Road performing earlier this year. Photograph: Gus Stewart\/Redferns <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Electric Picnic<\/a> is at Stradbally Hall, Co Laois, next Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You\u2019ll be able to read all our coverage on irishtimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All roads lead to Stradbally as Electric Picnic 2026 fast approaches. The country\u2019s largest multistage music festival returns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[14867,18,11985,117,275232,34759,2215,42283,256407,19,17,31947,37687,40066,70755],"class_list":["post-651326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-cmat","tag-eire","tag-electric-picnic","tag-entertainment","tag-florence-road","tag-fontaines-dc","tag-for-you","tag-gorillaz","tag-gurriers","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-francis-flynn","tag-listicles","tag-wolf-alice","tag-your-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117141399191309026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}