Higher Vision festival is a perfectly pitched combo of 90s style and 2017 tech

The two o’clock train from Dublin’s Connolly Station to Dundalk today is what’s called in railway parlance a ‘special’. It’s packed with 800 people and around their same weight in booze, all bound for the Higher Vision festival in Bellurgan Park. The train has been chartered especially by the promoters.

A second one leaves at three.

Another sign of the dance music resurgence that’s sweeping Ireland from Dublin outwards (see last month’s feature on the city’s District 8 club), Higher Vision is the festival equivalent of Bicep’s remix of Domnica’s ‘Gotta Let You Go’: a perfectly pitched combination of vintage 90s style and 2017 tech. There’s a cutting-edge Void soundsystem, for example, yet the whole festival is ‘bring your own’ alcohol. The line-up is an eclectic mix, international headliners between them representing three decades of house and techno like Dimitri From Paris, Julio Bashmore, FJAAK, I Hate Models, Phil Kieran, Dense and Pika, Ejeca, Denis Sulta, Altern 8 and Josh Butler, but backed up by 10 of Ireland’s hottest DJs and producers, including Jamie Behan, Tommy Holohan, Bobby Analog and DJ Deece. Preparations began back in November, when scores of the country’s top promoters and DJs swapped the pictures on their Facebook pages for a cryptic logo that signalled a steady drip of hype-building news and info, culminating in today’s event, packed with 4,000 keen ravers.

The five arenas feature the latest in visual projections – but an almost uncanny absence of branding or advertising. “We love the vibe of the festival,” reckon FJAAK, who’ve chosen to stick around despite an equipment malfunction leading to the cancellation of their live set at the last minute. “It’s not really 2017, more 1990s”.

The weather is predictably harrowing, all mists and mud and biting March wind, but that’s not the kind of thing that matters when the vibe is this good, as Altern-8’s Mark Archer, who’s been in the business for 30 years, points out: “When you’re playing to a crowd and it’s raining, and everyone’s still there, you know you’re onto a good thing.”

At 3am, as Mixmag sets off to board the train for the return journey, passing a pair of Reebok Classics being slowly absorbed into the mud, we can’t help but agree. All in all, it’s very special indeed.