A.Wake

The Obsessive Diary - 19th August

Did I mention I danced? A wake for a festival born 15 years ago in Ireland but conceived many years before at The Big Chill where my friend was given a corner to create something epic and so she did. It got so full of punters longing for a lie down in the arms of artists that security tried to lock the gates. But still they climbed over. We had the best music, the best installations and the best treatments. Body&Soul grew into its own Irish person, from small to Nick Cave and a crowd of 15,000. Through rain and sorrow and wild and covid she never stopped moving till last year, when she died - not that they knew it till after - and last night at her funeral weekend when at the Birdcage, coated in dust, the music was finally switched off.