Rónán Mistéil's blog

I’ve put together an app for the Electric Picnic using the very simple to use Android App Inventor. The app inventor is only in its infancy but from playing around with it, it has a lot of potential for people to get to grips with the basics of programming and put simple apps together in a matter of minutes.

So far I’ve spent not just minutes, but a few hours on making the app, but a lot of that time has been learning the functionality of the app inventor, as well as its limitations.

And so, to the app itself…

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This is basically a fantastic musical driving game a few of us invented at the weekend.
(Well, we thought it was fantastic, you might think otherwise).

What you’ll need:

• iPod (or other portable music player) – the bigger the better, anyone with a Classic can consider it money well spent since the invention of Leap-pod.
• Car
• Method of connecting iPod to car (bluetooth, fm dongle, cable etc)

Preparation:

Set your iPod to shuffle, sit someone with good arithmetic skills and eyesight in the passenger seat and hand them the iPod.

Rules:

When you overtake a car, take the last digit from their registration plate and skip forward that many songs (Do this even during a current song).

When a car overtakes you, skip back the number of tracks equal to the last digit of their registration plate (you’ll need to add one to this number because your first press back will leave you on the current song).

That’s pretty much it.

You might not hear all of many songs depending on traffic, or you might hear all of every song if you meet no cars. We played on the M6 to and from Galway and it worked quite well. Sometimes we’d pass two or more cars and have to combine all their reg numbers.

Of course, additional rules can be added as necessary. Foreign regs with letters can be translated to corresponding number (A=1, B=2 etc). And you may want to give each passenger one pass/lock on long journeys if they particularly like/dislike a certain song.

Having to skip away from a good song isn’t always fun, and other times you’ll be stuck with Westlife (which no one but me appreciated) or that stupid Fireflies song (which I hated), but that’s how the game goes, as the proverb says: “Leap-pod is a cruel mistress.”

Even though I’m not going, I’ve put all the stage times, poster and map together in a handy folder for those of that are going.

Similarly to what I’ve done for the Electric Picnic previous years, here she is:

http://idirlion.org/oxegen

I’ll add any additional maps/timetables/stuff as I find them. Enjoy.

EDIT: Also of interest may be swearimnotpaul‘s “cross-reference style” timetable here

EDIT 2: Found a lovely iPhone/Android site by CAD Monkey

EDIT 3: Charles Julienne on twitter has let me add his fantastic time coded pdf to the folder.

No, this isn’t another sappy memoir dedicated just to the memory of Michael Jackson, but from most ‘year in review’ summaries you’d be inclined to think that he was the only big loss to music this year, but  unfortunately he wasn’t the only one. (more…)

Having only seen Springsteen perform a year ago at the very same venue, a year felt like it was too long to have gone without. Listening to his studio albums is one thing, but seeing him live is an experience like no other.

Performing for a non-stop 3 hours and 10 minutes is a feat no ordinary man can accomplish, needless to say one who is nearing on 60 years of age, yet perform he did, and what a performance.

From the moment Nils walked out on stage playing The Fields of Athenry, I knew we were in for a magical evening.
He and the band played some of my favourite tracks, Badlands, Outlaw Pete, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Badlands. I could go on and on (and they did).

He managed to fit in plenty of crowd pleasers too: Hungry Heart, Spirit in the Night, Proud Mary, and Glory Days (as part of the encore). Needless to say the crowd were indeed pleased, and understandably so. Although he spoke little over the course of the gig, his interaction with the crowd was admirable. He ran and danced and pulled signs from the crowd. No other act I’ve ever seen live can match the Boss’ love for his fans. The ticket had Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band printed on it, but it wasn’t their show, it was all about us the fans.

After playing as many requests as he could pull from the crowd, he then launched into the encore (this is over two and a half hours of playing already), and what an encore! Kicking off with an amazing rendition of Jungleland, and even mustering up enough remaining energy for a lively Rosalita. He then finshed off with a wonderful cover of Twist and Shout.

I went home fairly tired after all of that, I can only imagine how he felt.

The Full Setlist
No Surrender
Badlands
Night
My Lucky Day
Outlaw Pete
Hungry Heart
Working On A Dream
Seeds
Johnny 99
Youngstown
Darkness On The Edge of Town
Spirit In The Night
Sherry Darling
Proud Mary
Prove It All Night
Trapped
Waiting On A Sunny Day
Promised Land
Radio Nowhere
American Skin (41 Shots)
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Born To Run

Jungleland
American Land
Rosalita
Glory Days
Dancing In The Dark
Twist & Shout