Offaly music columnist looks forward to reliving the 80s at Forever Young Festival

In its third year, the fastest-growing festival in Ireland is back with a bang on July 14-16th! Taking place at Kildare's Palmerstown House Estate, the  Forever Young Festival  in 2023 will showcase some of the most legendary artists of the 1980s. Enjoy a three-day trip back in time and relive your youth! A mouth-watering line-up of bands featuring Andy Bell of Erasure, Bananarama, and Squeeze are set to headline the festival.

It is a weekend-long celebration of original music featuring over 30 iconic bands from the late '70s to the early '90s. Over the weekend, folks bring their camping chairs, reunite their old gangs, and feel forever young. There are many other artists to look forward to this year as well, including Billy Ocean, ABC, Tony Hadley, Go West, Soul II Soul, etc. With most of these artists celebrating 4 decades or more in the business, they sound better than ever.

“Bananarama put on a brilliant show last year, we wouldn’t normally have an artist from the previous year back this quickly, but it’s a special occasion, a worldwide 40th- anniversary tour!”  says Festival Organiser Dr Sharon Alston smiles, speaking from her home in Co. Laois.  “So many people wrote to us after 2022 and said, ‘We’ve got to have Bananarama back!’. And with Neville Staple from Fun Boy 3 joining us, it will be extra special.”

This is a high-end adult party weekend like no other, an unforgettable musical experience. This mix-tape weekend will give colleagues, buddies, and family a chance to get nostalgic, put on leg warmers, skirts, shoulder pads, and mirrored aviator shades, and relive the 80s. At the main arena entrance, a DeLorean and Knight Rider 'Kit' car welcome you to this time-machine.

Forever Young has on-site camping, luxury glamping, campervan, and caravan pitches available. With high-end flushing toilets and hot showers, glamping with home comforts – including beds, duvets, power, pamper parlours, golf buggies that give lifts around the site, there is an experience to suit all requirements and budgets. For those who can’t or won’t camp, an array of hotel packages and transport options take all the hassle and confusion out of booking your weekend. It’s all killer, no filler, with era-defining hits for all tastes, all day.

The Forever Young Festival exploded onto the scene in 2019, winning awards for ‘Best Medium-Sized Festival’ & ‘Best Line-up’ in its first year of operation. Post lockdown -July 22- attendees adored the opportunity to finally get out and party in the sun. It’s impossible to put into words, but something very special happens at Forever Young, one attendees described it as  “a field in Kildare, that just overflows with thrills and love, the best weekend of my life”.  As we return in 2023, we hope to see you there!

Festival founder and organiser Dr Sharon Alston recounts...

“I wanted to launch a new animal welfare charity; Ireland didn’t have any ‘80s festivals. I’ve been to loads – they’re brilliant fun, I thought it would make the perfect fundraiser. It gives people an absolute shot of something money can’t buy: to lift you up and make you feel young again.  Forever Young 2023 will have a bigger stage, VIP, Gold and late-night areas, and more entertainment than you can shake a shamrock at. We’ll be showing the All-Ireland semi-final matches in the Big Top tent, so you won’t miss a single thing.”

A festival with a heart and a conscience, Alston is proud to partner with 2 important charities.

“The festival was set up to provide funds for a new animal charity, Animal Welfare and Veterinary Care Ireland, but ISPCA is our charity partner on site,” says Sharon, herself a veterinarian. “All the collections and donations on-site benefit ISPCA Ireland, but all sales profits are donated to AWVCI, a new charity providing national low-cost veterinary care as unusually in Ireland there is no national provision for this. These clinics are desperately needed. We have our first site lined up ready if we raise enough money after this year’s festival. We aim to have five hospitals across Ireland in 5 years.”

Not only does the festival address emergency care for pets, all single-use plastics are fully banned from the site, meaning everything is either reused or recycled. This helps to keep the grounds immaculately clean while cutting down on material waste pollution.

Alongside outstanding tribute acts filling in the breaks between artists, the  Stars in their Eyes  competition returns this year. Festival-goers submit an audition tape in the hopes of performing their karaoke classics with a live band.

“I will not be singing!!!! But if I did it would be something like Alison Moyet to suit my deep voice”  Sharon grins.  “The entries for Stars in Their Eyes just amazed me in ‘22. It was so hard to whittle it down to the acts we had on stage 2 over the weekend. The standard was just incredible. The chosen contestants are delighted to get up on stage and sing with a live band, for a chance to win a bumper prize. It’s what dreams are made of for some people, so it’s lovely to bring it back in 2023.”

Alston has her own links to the music industry, having been immersed in the gig scene as a teenager herself, while her dad has a connection to none other than Paul McCartney.

“I was quite a wild child. I went to see loads of gigs and bands while I worked as a vet nurse as a teenager,”  she laughs.  “My dad was a Liverpudlian. He moved to London and worked as a door-to-door salesman in insurance. He landed a good job in a company where he grew his position and his portfolio, and ending up with clients like the FA Cup and Paul McCartney!

“I grew up going to see Paul McCartney & Wings from a very young age, that was the music heritage in my veins, but despite being allergic to anything with fur, I was always animal mad. Now I’m working with all the pin-ups who were on my wall as a teenager: Nick Heyward, Nik Kershaw, Tony Hadley, Marti Pellow and so many others – and helping save animals, perfect!!!."

How do today's artists compare?

“You can tell the artists today who have that iconic quality. There’s such a broad spectrum of music now - it’s a different world for young people. The likes of Ed Sheeran, Adele, Lewis Capaldi, and Taylor Swift are acts we’ll still be talking about in forty years. To still be speaking about Forever Young’s artists shows their relevance. The fact that they’re still out there playing after four decades - all of them have worked and honed their skills. They’re at the peak of their game, and they’re amazing performers to work with.”

Forever Young Festival effortlessly stands out (not just because of the neon leg warmers!) from the crowd, with an unrivalled atmosphere of craic among the acts and the attendees.

“These guys are so normal and just lovely to work with,”  Alston offers, praising the attitude of her acts.  “We are posting weekly video interviews with our artists this year on our socials, where I ask the bands questions posted by our audience, it’s a lovely feature. Back in the day you could read what they wrote in Smash Hits, or see a bit they said on MTV, but that was it. To be able to bring people closer to their favourite stars is special in this day and age.”

Forever Young 2023 will feature performances from:  Erasure’s Andy Bell | Bananarama | Squeeze | Billy Ocean | Tony Hadley | ABC | Soul II Soul | Tom Bailey | Midge Ure | Go West | Jason Donovan | Hot House Flowers | Cry Before Dawn | Cutting Crew | China Crisis | John Parr | Blancmange | From the Specials – Neville Staples | From The Jam | Jerry Fish | Stray Cats -Slim Jim Phantom | Modern Romance | Heaven 17’s Glen Gregory | Jaki Graham | Propaganda’s Claudia Brucken | Lotus Eaters Peter Coyle | The Farms Peter Hooton | M- Robin Scott | The Doctor | Qween + more

~ For ticket and other info, check out  www.foreveryoungfestival.ie