Oxegen it isn’t. Stroll down the main street of Rathangan on this particular Sunday afternoon and you’ll find buskers on every other door step – leading to the most bizarre sound clashes you could imagine – as well as copious amounts of alcohol, teenagers dressed in mini skirts and not much else, a putting competition and a headline gig taking place in a car park.
Actually maybe it isn’t that far removed from Oxegen after all, apart from the putting competition. Both Fred and The Blizzards have had their taste of the bigger events but both also know that it’s gatherings like this – plus the endless others taking place up and down the country week in, week out – that play just as big a part of building their profile at home. In fact, playing to 2,000 hyped-up punters in a tent is the easy part – facing 100 people at the back of a local community centre probably says much more about any band’s mettle. Luckily, Fred have it to spare. There are few bands who could take such a diverse bunch – kids in Slipknot hoodies, drinkers, families and one particularly funky three year old – and create the feeling that this is some sort of event. They manage it by providing non-stop entertainment from start to finish and engaging with the weirdness of it all, as opposed to ignoring it. The worry is, though, that all this tomfoolery will end up detracting from the music, which would be a real shame. Live Fred are a lot more muscular than on record. At times they have it in them to be our own answer to The Flaming Lips.
The Blizzards, on the other hand, are almost the polar opposite. Hard as it might be when your frontman is seven feet tall and crammed onto the stage the size of a postage stamp, they could have done with a little more performance. Tonight is a bash ‘em out kind of vibe, which works just fine but leaves them missing the crucial extra dimension we know they have. Their combination of punk, pop and ska, though, has a little something for everyone, not least the mobile phone-waving teenage girls at the front.
While it isn’t rocket science, there are more radio smashes where the last one came from, not least ‘Superdrug’ (if they take out all the penis references). If they can mobilise this kind of support in every town they visit then another hit should be in the bag.