This year is no different, with chart-toppers Billie Eilish and The Killers leading the bill and The Script just announced as a “surprise” Sunday act. It’s sure to be an emotive performance by the Dubliners, who lost their guitarist and songwriter Mark Sheehan to illness several months ago. 

Billie Eilish (Main Stage Friday)

The Bad Guy singer smashed her way into the record books when she played Electric Picnic in 2019, attracting the largest ever main-stage audience for the festival (estimated at well north of 50,000). 

In the intervening period, she released a triumphant second album, Happier Than Ever: one of those rare records about the burdens of overnight fame that managed not to land like an extended whinge-fest. 

Her second Picnic headliner comes on the tail of What Was I Made For, her power ballad composed for the Barbie movie. It’s plastic, fantastic – proof Eilish is still a pop star to watch.

Niall Horan (Main Stage Friday) 

Harry Styles is the big winner from the One Direction break-up (or, to be accurate, their never-ending hiatus). 

But Mullingar’s Horan has done well in his solo career, too, and his recent third LP, The Show, landed like a breezy mix of Death Cab For Cutie and Tame Impala. 

Showcasing his solid writing, it demonstrated that Styles isn’t the only 1-der to have done well out of the group’s amble into the sunset.

Fred Again (Main Stage Saturday)

A controversial nominee for this year’s Mercury Music Prize for best British or Irish album, Frederick Gibson is best known for his upbeat techno -– and for his collaborations with Ed Sheeran (he produced Sheeran’s project, No 6 Collaborations, where he teamed up with artists such as Stormzy and Justin Bieber). 

Gibson comes to Stradbally with a fascinating family history: he’s a proper blue blood – the great-grandson of an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and a distant relation of Ulster Union leader Terence O’Neill. He is also related to the wife of James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

Paolo Nutini (Main Stage Saturday) 

Drafted in as a replacement for Lewis Capaldi, who is taking time away to look after his mental health – something more artists should do when life on the road extracts too high a price. 

Into his place steps another Scottish singer with Italian heritage in Nutini, who returns to Ireland having sold out Malahide Castle earlier in the summer. It’s the perfect time to catch him. 

Early in his career, Nutini was written off as an unconvincing Millennial facsimile of Rod Stewart. No more: his latest album, Last Night In The Bittersweet, is an excellent mix of indie pop and power balladry.

The Killers (Main Stage Sunday)

“Coming out of my cage, and I’ve been doing just fine…” 

What Irish summer would be complete without a mass singalong to The Killers, Mr. Brightside? 

It’s not their only hit, of course – and they delivered a more than acceptable pastiche of Darkness At The Edge of Town-era Springsteen with their semi-acoustic 2021 LP, Pressure Machine.

Let’s not fool ourselves, however – it’s their enduring 2004 smash that Stradbally is most looking forward to. 

Hopefully, there will be no controversies along the lines of the Killer’s recent misstep in Georgia, where they brought a Russian fan stage and asked, “We don’t know the etiquette of this land, but this guy is a Russian. Are you OK with a Russian? I’m all right with it”. The crowd was not all right with it. 

Questions will also be raised about the plans of singer Brandon Flowers after a recent interview in which he said he felt distant from the driven young man who had written The Killers biggest hits.

“This is the crisis I’m in. The Killers are my identity and our songs fill the seats, but I’m more fulfilled making music like Pressure Machine,” he told the London Times. “I found a side of myself writing it that was strong. This was the guy I’d been looking for! I’m as proud of ‘Hot Fuss’ as you can be for something you did when you were 20, but I’m not 20. So I’m thinking about the next phase of my life.”

The Script (Main Stage Sunday) 

The group’s co-founder, Mark Sheehan, passed away in April, aged just 46. He had been unwell and wasn’t touring with the group – which now consists of singer Danny O’Donoghue, drummer Glen Power and backing musicians. 

The group’s long-term future is unclear – but Electric Picnic will surely be hugely emotive whatever comes next.

Cian Ducrot

The Passage West, Co Cork singer, arrives in Stradbally fresh from debut album Victory, going to number one. It also topped the charts in the UK, where just 150 unit sales separated it from Smile by Welsh rockers Skindred. 

Victory is a well-deserved success – and a showcase for Ducrot’s expressive voice and heart-on-sleeve balladry.

Rick Astley 

Irish audiences will never give up on Astley, the Stock Aitken Waterman 1980s star who has enjoyed a remarkable career renaissance and was last seen accompanying indie band Blossoms for a suite of Smiths covers at Glastonbury. 

Who, in 1987, would have guessed his stock would be higher than that of actual Smiths singer Morrissey?

Belters Only

The Dublin production partnership comes to Co Laois fresh from headlining the Indiependence Festival in Mitchelstown, where their heavy house set culminated in their chart-topping mega-hit Makes Me Feel Good.

Wet Leg 

Isle of Wight duo Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers have brought wry indie rock back into the mainstream with their chart-topping eponymous album from 2022. 

You can see the DNA of their sound: there’s a dash of Pixies, a sprinkling of The Strokes and White Stripes. But the wit and vim is entirely original – as demonstrated by their break-out hit, Chaise Longue 

Under the Radar: Five lesser-known acts worth checking out 

• Ethel Cain: Cain is the stage alias of songwriter and former model Hayden Silas Anhedönia. Her music explores melodramatic goth-balladry, inspired by her love of Florence and the Machine and her experiences growing up in a conservative Evangelical Family in Florida.
• Confidence Man: These riotous Australian party-starters are beloved by Noel Gallagher – while their liquid funk pop draws on their passion for Talking Heads, Grace Jones and the Prodigy.
• Snail Mail: The zinging spirit of 1990s indie rock crackles through the music of Baltimore, Maryland’s Lindsey Jordan, whose 2021 LP Valentine was full of heartbreaking lyrics, rollicking riffs and whipsmart grooves.
• Anna of the North: Norwegian songwriter Anna Lotterud and producer combine Olivia Rodrigo style heartbreak with loping dance beats to irresistible effect.
• Steve Lacy: Previously known for his r’n b project The Internet, as a solo artist r’n b singer Lacy has been heralded as the funkateer heir to Prince and Stevie Wonder.