My wife and I had a great night at Greyfriars Gallery at the launch of the very attractive Waterford Fring Festival and an exciting concert as part of the launch at Dooley’s Hotel with Miss Brown To You.It is strange that the Fringe seems to have all the energy and not a brochure in sight for the Opera Festival. Perhaps the Opera guys need to sharpen up their act. Karen Cheevers, the Fringe Press Liaision, is indeed sharp and informative.

Opening the Fringe with a Helnwein exhibition is a daring and high profile undertaking and such is his international reputation that it brought out a huge crowd. Emer Powell, one of the Fringe directors, described getting Helnwein to Waterford was like getting Mick Jagger to play in Ally McLoughlins.

The exhibition ANGEL SLEEPING has 13 large canvases of oil and mixed media ranging in price from €32,000 to €130,000. The work sets out to be provocative and controversial and back in 2001 his huge cloth prints on the fronts of buildings created great discussion and debate. The work in Waterford sets out to shock with images of fully formed foetuses that provoke ideas of disgust and sadness. There are mutilated rabbits, a bloody handed and blindfolded child and a child in a white military uniform shooting a cutie pie doll. Then you come upon a beautiful child’s face with a freckled nose. The Nazi imagery of Adoration of The Magi is a powerful image that is disturbing and disquieting.

Helnwein seeks out controversy and in 2005 he hosted the strange marriage of Marilyn Manson to Dita von Tesse in his Co. Tipperary castle.

At the event it was a pleasure to meet the Dowager Dame of Waterford Theatre, Jo Moylan; Jim Myers, a previous Theatre Royal Manager; poets John Ennis and Alan Garvey.

As a curtain-raiser, at Dooley’s Hotel, singer/songwriter Niall Powell, sang about personal journeys of strong men and broken men and his Men Of Steel was wonderful. His version of Richie Haven’s Sometime I Feel Like A Motherless Child was powerful and the trio of Eimear Powell, Orla Powell and Paula Minchin as Miss Brown To You were very exciting and impressive. They had the energy and ability of the early Dixie Chicks. They got people up and dancing and I loved Lonesome Blues, harvest Moon and a funky Feeling Lucky Today.