The inaugural London Feis took place this weekend 21 years after the first Fleadh which ran for 14 years at Finsbury Park in north London, unlike its predecessor the Feis was a two day celebration of Irish music with some rather special overseas guests.

Within the arena there were three stages, with the third being the most intimate and it was there is started my day to watch Bipolar Empire.  The band from Dublin formed after being punters at the Oxygen Festival 3 years ago and they have clearly learnt a lot in that time with an assured performance.  There were a number of stand out tracks including Playing With Fire and Feel That You Own It, these guys are certainly ones to watch and highlight that Irish music is in rude health.

Next I’m off to the main stage to roll back the years and see The Undertones.  The first thing that struck me was that some of the audience were sitting in chairs to watch, whereas in their heyday these would have been thrown in the air as the crowd pogo’d the night away.  The Undertones treated us to their entire first album which included such classics as Here Comes Summer, Jimmy Jimmy and of course John Peel’s favourite Teenage Kicks which got a huge reaction.  In addition to their first album they performed their other hits including My Perfect Cousin. 

Following The Undertones were The Waterboys, their set was much less frenetic, but equally enjoyable which included a bluesy version of Bob Dylan’s You’re A Big Girl Now, Play.  There was also time for a track from their forthcoming album based upon the works of William Yates ‘September 1913’ which was beautifully delivered.  The penultimate song the classic Whole Of The Moon, the finale was a tribute to Northern Soul with a cover of Do I Love You.

As is expected this summer heavy rain was never far away on Saturday and just before Shane MacGowan took to the Second Stage the heavens opened which resulted in the tent overflowing.  The atmosphere on the second stage was electric and when Shane MacGowan walked on the place erupted and every movement was cheered to the rafters.  The set list included If I Should Ever Fall From Grace, Lonely Girl, Dream, Dirty Old Town and Cracklin Rosie.  Despite his well reported addictions Shane MacGowan has the art of giving performances that live long in the mind and lets hope that this continues!

Following such an uplifting performance I headed for the bar and to get some food this meant that I missed a large proportion of the Christy Moore set, which was frustrating.

It was now a case of waiting for Bob Dylan and the crowd seemed to swell with people of all ages coming to see the great man.  He strolled onto the stage and broke into Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, and it was evident that 50 years of performing had taken its toll on his vocal chords which were almost as gruff as Lee Marvin singing Wandering Star.  As usual there was little communication with either band or audience, as Dylan let the songs do the talking as he treated the audience to a ‘Greatest Hits’ performance.  Such are the powers of the man that during A Hard Rains Gonna Fall, the rain actually stopped! The set list also included Tangled Up In Blue, Highway 61 Revisited and Thunder On The Mountain, followed by an encore of Like A Rolling Stone, All Along The Watchtower and Blowin' In The Wind. The vast majority of the crowd went home very happy with both his performance and the general quality of all the artists.

When we arrived on Sunday the arena was fairly sparsely populated however, as the afternoon progressed it slowly started to fill, but alas not to the level of the previous day. 

Sunday afternoons at festivals are often slow due to a combination of lack of sleep and hangovers, but there are some artistes who have the ability to bring everyone to life, at The London Feis it was Jimmy Cliff.

Jimmy Cliff entered the stage wearing a gold suite (not many 63 year olds can get away with that) and went straight into You Can Get It If You Really Want It and from that point on had the audience eating out of his hands.  The set included such classics as Wild World, Save Our Planet Earth and Rivers of Babylon. Throughout the performance there was great crowd participation plus huge disappointment when there was no encore.

After Jimmy Cliff I quickly went to the 3rd stage to catch the end of Ham Sandwich set, they had a massive crowd, but alas I only caught the last two tracks but both were excellent.

Back at the Main Stage to see Clannad, who performed a relaxing set just right for the time of day and they even managed to get the sun to make a rare appearance.  Their haunting rendition of Theme From Harry’s Game still managed to make the hairs on the back on my neck on end.

Following Clannad I got to one of those awful moments at a festival when you want to watch someone on all three stages, and whereas I would usually make a decision to watch just one, this time I tried to catch some of all three.

Main Stage Horslips I had forgotten what a good live band they were and how the fiddle truly does have a place in rock music, and not just folk after 4 songs I dragged myself away to watch Eddie Reader. Eddie chatted freely with the crowd during her set and created a great atmosphere and delivered a high quality performance.  Then it was off to the Third Stage for Fionn Regan, Fionn played a selection of tracks from his two albums to an ever growing and appreciative audience.

There was just enough time to grab an Argentinean Steak Ciabatta before Van Morrison hit the main stage, his appearance so early in the evening caught some of the audience out as the first few bars of Baby Please Don’t Go came from the stage.  Like Bob Dylan, Van Morrison isn’t one talking to the audience, but appeared happy to provide the audience with a selection of tracks from his 40 year career, including Brown Eyed Girl, Can’t Stop Loving You, Moondance and Have I Told You Lately.

Despite Van Morrison being the headliner, he was not the last band on the Main Stage that honour went to Thin Lizzy, but alas due to the RMT dispute with London Underground I had to leave before they came on stage.

However this did not detract from what had been a great festival, lets hope we don’t have to wait another seven years.