Saw Doctors bring out Mayo team at Electric Picnic for performance 75 years in the making

The Saw DoctorsMain Stage, Electric Picnic★★★★★ “It brought me back to that moment – it gave me the same chills as seeing Mayo win,” one drenched reveller says about the emergence at Electric Picnic of the county’s All-Ireland-winning football squad as The Saw Doctors perform Green and Red of Mayo.The west-coast rockers are dab hands at this festival, having played it for the past four years, but this Sunday-afternoon slot must stand out as a highlight of their career – and perhaps of the festival’s entire 21 years.A sea of green and red (and raincoats) is made up of soaked but high-spirited fans who have gathered in their thousands to see the band play their 1992 song, which last month became the backing track to Mayo’s historic Sam Maguire win – a moment 75 years in the making.The Saw Doctors lead into the song from the soaring, bittersweet To Win Just Once; as the band segue into Mayo’s unofficial GAA anthem, the triumphant team process on to the Main Stage. READ MOREElectric Picnic 2026: Mayo fans Aoibhín Monaghan, Maeve Feerick, Grace Bradley, Aoibhín Maguire, Emily Heneghan and Lara Philibin, from Ballinrobe. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Electric Picnic 2026: Mayo’s All-Ireland winners on stage with The Saw Doctors on Sunday. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Electric Picnic 2026: Mayo fans in the main arena on Sunday afternoon. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Electric Picnic 2026: Mayo’s All-Ireland winners on stage with The Saw Doctors on Sunday. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw The audience, who wave not just Mayo jerseys and flags but makeshift hats made from Supermac’s bags and all manner of other paraphernalia, are as jubilant as the Mayo fans at Croke Park on the day of the final. You can feel the goosebumps form as the song swells and the crowd sing the line “forever more”.Fittingly, first on the band’s set list this afternoon was Will It Ever Stop Raining? And it mainly doesn’t: the only reprieve comes during N17, the penultimate song of the set.But nobody cares: just before that, Davy Carton, pillar of The Saw Doctors, shouts out the Galway ladies team for their second title win, earlier this month, in the TG4 All-Ireland senior football championship.It’s no wonder the references to the west land best this afternoon.