Oxyegen Diaries

Posted on 26th Jul 05 by Contributor | 0

Artist: Various
Author: Orla

Warning" This is entirely written from a lady"s point of view "yes" a LADY" so if you don"t wanna hear a girls view then don"t read it.

With pictures of the drowned Glastonbury in my head" I set off for my first ever music festival. Yup" this year me and many other festival"virgins had to learn what countless already knew. Despite all the advice I"d received before I went" there are somethings ya just have to earn for yourself " most of it seems like common sense but I never had much of that anyway so I was ready for those epiphanies that are so obvious""now.

Travelling is always a bitch but I truly felt sorry for myself this particular weekend. After a lot a searching and finding no alternative I forked out 55 euro for my bus ticket
"I get two foreign holiday for the amount I spent on this weekend""..but "twas worth it". I am female in case you haven"t guessed by now and
I know that we as a species can be somewhat irrational when it comes to giggling but Jeebus
" I had four hyenas sitting across from me on the bus and by Fermoy I was ready to jog to
Kildare with a tent and three people on my back.

This was only consoled by the company of my bestest friends "camping in a relatively small place with minimal facilities is a test of friendship and I think we passed although it may have helped that we didn"t spend every night together "" and some anonymous fumes floating around the back of the bus. Five hours later we arrive at Punchestown" although the bus was not a bad experience" we are most definitely driving next year. There are too many advantages to driving " our neighbours for the weekend informed us of the lovely fry"up they had on Sunday morning while we ate our chocolate biscuits for breakfast.

Next year "yes" me thinks I shall attend again " that must be a sign of a good time" I shall not leave
Cork city without a pair of wellies. They were not overly necessary this year " it was
merely a drizzle on Saturday but if it had gotten any worse I would have been fecked. I saw
a load of hot girls wearing wellies this year and I must say it was my shallow vanity that
prevented my from bringing a pair. I can only imagine how attractive I looked with my pants
rolled up so they wouldn"t get destroyed " in saying that" Sunday I looked shite anyways. I
really can"t understand how some girls still looked good enough to eat on Sunday evening
"I still have to learn that trick". Just for the record" there are no showers on the
campsite " yes" we went three days without one but honestly" I wouldn"t be too incline to
use them if they were supplied " hardly the safest or most hygienic. You quickly get used
to regularly baby"wiping to stay clean. For those of you who believe that the horror
stories of the toilets are overstated I regret to inform you they are not but in the name
of fun you get over it and use the cleanest one you can find " yeah they are manky but they
are cleaned at 6 in the morning so try to use them then. It must be noted that the area
surrounding the toilets is suspiciously soggy but nobody quite acknowledged what it might
be"".it was probably water anyway""..surely it was water.

Saturday morning I toddled down to the Concert arena all bright"eyed and bushy tailed to
see The Saw Doctors. Anyone that was there must agree the the "actions" to Tommy K were
as easy as tap"dancing on stilts " I just couldn"t get it at all. Eventually I had to stop
trying trying for fear of bruising the people around me. The Kaiser Chiefs gave a majorly
impressive performance leaving the crowd in no doubt that Ricky Wilson "lead singer" is in
fact crazy. Most people agreed with my praise of the performance " it must be hard to get
the crowd going so early in the day " however there was suggestions of miming"".ggrrr"""""
Now" what can I say about Snoop Dog " I don"t like him anyway but being fair he put on a
good performance""at the start""but then there was the constant repetition of "I say
Punches" you say town" " huh""""" That gets old after the first 20 times but of course he
musta realised that because he did vary it to "I say Snoop" you say dawg". Honestly" I have
no shame in saying I am self obsessed " almost everybody is" but how can so much egotism
be embodied in one person. For those of us queuing to squash ourselves into the pit for the
rest of the the night" he severely over"stayed his welcome " I couldn"t wait to see the
back of him.

Thankfully" The Frames made up for it. I have never seen Glen Hansard looking as hot as he
did when he was singing Hayday " as someone else so cleverly put it on the text screen
"Glen" I"d like to Lay You Down". The Frames performance didn"t dissapoint " I definetly
think that was my highlight although I do prefer their older stuff and he sang a lot from
the new album but I suppose that"s how you come to love that stuff too.

The Frames were a hard act to follow but GreenDay were a great second. Predicting the
formation of deathly mosh"pits" me and my three girls tried to situate ourselves in a "safe"
place. Naturally" a bunch of six foot somethings "possibly a basketball team" managed to
stand in front of us. Truthfully" we were like four hobbits but we were well looked after
by our surrounding total strangers " but we are pretty hot so guys like to help us. When
the human pyramids "which seemed to pop up all around us" began to eh"..topple over" we
were protected and crowd surfers were moved around us as firstly we couldn"t reach them
to carry them and secondly we woulda dropped them so thank you to those who looked after
us. Greenday really finished the day perfectly " I don"t think my voice will ever recover
from it. It was so cool when they chose some people from the crowd to go up and play " the
drummer had somes balls with his little solo at the end which was greeted with appreciation
by the audience. I have to stand up for the lady in this situation. I heard criticism
because she took a while to figure out what he wanted her to play but honestly" if Billie
Joe Armstrong was touching my face my brain would fail to work" in fact I"d probably just
die happily.

Saturday night was a quiet night in our campsite" well compared to Friday night it was but
we had first"class neighbours who were a laugh so it didn"t matter "for anyone that was
there" we were next to the Hard Hoff Caf"". And then there was Sunday " yup Sunday came
after Saturday" amazingly enough. The Beautiful South played all their classics and it
was a really relaxed happy atmosphere " much needed because we were so tired. With the
heat and the tiredness and the dehydration" we retired to our tent for the afternoon and
were occasionally squirted with water from surrounding strangers. The Killers" although
they sang all the favourites" lacked interaction with the crowd " I dunno what it was" it
just didn"t have that Live sensation. They were followed by Keane who were the opposite
and who adopted "Keano" as their own" showing a bit o comradery with the crowd. One of the
toughest decisions of the whole weekend was Foo Fighters or James Brown" inevitably
James Brown won. We" stoopidly under"estimated the demand to see him and were confronted
by crowds of people who were forced to listen from outside the tent. Many jumped the fence
and made a run for it " some succeeded but some failed and miserably at that. Being small
has its advantages in some cases" I managed to get really close to the entrance and the
barrier was broken at one point. I never did run so fast in my life " I had a conflict of
conscience at the start but luckily someone ploughed into to me and snaped me out of it. I
saw the last half hour of James Brown and his happy music.

Naturally" Sunday night was just a big party" with the singing and the fires and the tent
burning " it has to be experienced. Described it sounds barbaric but that"s what you feel
like doing I doubt too many people went to sleep on Sunday night " it was the night that
you had to do anything you hadn"t already done that weekend. Last nights are always my
favourites. "Twas really cool. No doubt many will disagree with me about the greatness of
the festival. It is completely impossible to experience it all and it is fairly inexplainable.
I definitely recommend Oxegen to anyone who even likes music a little bit " the atmosphere
is amazing. I had a great time "in plain terms" in case that didn"t come across in the
above. Roll"on Oxygen '06""""""

Author: Orla Dowling