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.