Forbidden Fruit’s 5 Most Iconic Moments Caught On Camera

Words: Dray Morgan
Photo: Via Forbidden Fruit

Forbidden Fruit has cemented itself as the start of the summer. Every year, the weekend is first to bring that festival experience we crave as the sun starts to shine a little bit more. An unforgettable range of acts have landed on Fruit’s stages, from grime to electronic artists.

This year the likes of Slowthai, Yung Singh, Wesley Joseph and more will hit the inaugural festival weekend from 3 June. If we’re going off Forbidden Fruit’s track record of providing stellar performances from artists such as Skepta and Aphex Twin, then we’re in for a treat. It’s guaranteed to be immaculate energy.

It’s only five weeks until Forbidden Fruit graces the Kilmainham grounds. Fruit has seen ten years of bringing unmatched experiences to Irish festival lovers. In the spirit of the summer, lets look at the Forbidden past and revisit our favourite Fruit moments in no particular order before we embark on that June bank holiday weekend.

The king of IDM made an appearance at Forbidden Fruit twice, one time in 2013 and again before his live show haitus in 2017. For his 2013 rendition, he brough his hectic sound and an absolute behemoth of a light show. All we can hope is the electronic artists present this year can replicate the feeling of this Richard D. James masterclass.

Fruit has never been shy to giving a stage to some homegrown icons. Last year, Gemma Dunleavy pulled out a showstopper performance and gave a beautiful statement of personal pride with her cultural staple of a track ‘Up De Flats‘. A brilliant bit of back and forth with the crowd just gets us so ready to return to being in the mix this summer.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Forbidden Fruit Festival (@forbiddenfruitfestival)

Skepta is going to run the show wherever he goes and he did exactly that in 2019. Coming off the biggest track of his career with ‘Praise Tha Lord’ combined with his chart-topping project Ignorance is Bliss’, the show was unreal. After the set, Skeppy headed to the famous Forbidden Fruit after party for another more intimate appearance.

The Flaming Lips headlined the Saturday programme 12 years ago. One of the highlights of the show was front man, Wayne Coyne, emerging from the back of the stage engulfed by a giant orb. He then continues to descend on the crow with outstretched hands, guiding the bubble across the audience as the band carry on playing. After a bit of stumbling and falling in his mini enclosure, the crowd roll Coyne back to join his band and finish out the night.

Mura Masa has blessed us with tracks such as ‘Love$ick’ with A$AP Rocky and Slowthai’s banger-‘Doorman’. The latter was performed in the summer of 2019 when he was headlining Sunday. To our pleasure, Slowthai made the trip across the Irish sea to perform his biggest hit. Seeing Slowthai do what he does best just makes us yearn for Fruit ’23 where the Northampton native will be up on that stage again.