Body & Soul 2019: Festival reveals first headline acts

Ballinlough Castle event oganisers taking this 10th festival back to its forest-dance-floor roots.

Body & Soul 2019: Modeselektor
Body & Soul 2019: Modeselektor

Body & Soul has announced the first round of acts for this year’s festival, which runs over the weekend of June 21st-23rd at Ballinlough Castle, in Co Westmeath. Its organisers say they’re taking this 10th event back to the festival’s forest-dance-floor roots. Here’s the line-up so far.

Modeselektor
The German electronic veterans, aka Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary, return this year with a new album, Who Else. Body & Soul says their live show will fire up your mind and transform your festival experience.

The Blaze
The "enigmatic, ambitious and disruptive" Paris-based cousins Guillaume and Jonathan Alric specialise in integrating sound and film.

Santigold
Santi White, whose bright, breezy and bold 99c was one of the best albums of 2016, and who, after last year's I Don't Want mixtape, has just announced her 10 Years Golder tour, returns to Body & Soul.

READ MORE

Kruder & Dorfmeister
The Austrian remix masters Peter Kruder and Richard Dorfmeister present an anniversary set, 25 years after G-Stoned, their debut EP.

Body & Soul 2019:  Santigold. Photograph: FilmMagic/Getty
Body & Soul 2019: Santigold. Photograph: FilmMagic/Getty

Plus:

  • New York feminist emcee Princess Nokia
  • Spoken-word performer Kate Tempest
  • Irish DJ Mano Le Tough
  • Cork electronica act Talos
  • Highly rated London rockers Dream Wife
  • Derry indie-folk prodigy Soak
  • Bray rock-pop trio Wyvern Lingo
  • Multilayered electronica from Baikal
  • French vogueing from Kiddy Smile
  • Electronica meets singer-songwriting from Monolink
  • Greystones electronica via Berlin from The Drifter
  • R&B and hip hop from Oshun
  • Electropop from Laoise
  • Mighty trad from the Tulla Céilí Band
  • Driving bass and infectious guitar riffs from whenyoung
  • Funky hip hop from Coely
  • Irish new-punk from The Murder Capital
  • Electro energy from Meltybrains?
  • Bubblegum pop through a "wall of sonic death" from Thumper
  • Art folk from Niamh Regan
  • Maeve label DJ Lil'Dave
  • Irish indie punks The Clockworks
Body & Soul 2019: organisers say they’re taking this 10th event back to the festival’s forest-dance-floor roots
Body & Soul 2019: organisers say they’re taking this 10th event back to the festival’s forest-dance-floor roots

Body & Soul also promises hidden art installations, immersive theatre experiences and impromptu spoken-word performances, plus political discussions and workshops – not to mention “masseuses, yogis, sound healers and classical overtures”, seaweed baths, wood-fired hot tubs and Balinese steam treatments. The festival says its eco-campsite option, Us & You, which operates a leave-no-trace policy, is doubling in size year on year.

Spring-release adult weekend tickets, for people aged 20 and over, cost €199.50 plus booking fee from bodyandsoul.ie. Children aged 12 or under are free but must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. Nobody aged 13-19 is allowed at the festival. Family tickets, for one adult and two children aged 12 or under, are available for the family campsite. Adults without children are not permitted in the family campsite. Camper-van passes cost €70.