Yeah, it was unseasonable cold and that wind cutting through you was a joke (even inside the tents!). But yes I will have to pull the hardened festival goer card, there was nothing for it but to slip into a cheap plastic poncho and down a couple of Mai Tai's to warm the cockles (could of done with some hot Bristol cider). Huzzah! Strokes, Artic Monkeys, The Who were excellent. Enjoyed Dave Couse's updated endless art as well.

I heard talk of riots in the campsites over the weekend. What in the name of Jaysus were you crazy kids up to?

Every tent around me was robbed except mine, ours was such a mess they must have thought someone had already gotten there. Tent flooded on the saturday, everything soaked, it was rather hilarious. Great weekend, i touched Julian Casablancas Sigur Ros to finish was unbelievable

did anyone see manu chao? couldnt afford to get tickets, but would have really loved to have seen him live, amazing dude.

I'm back and i'm very very very tired, last i saw of the campsite plenty of tents were being set on fire as a parting gift to mcd and security were arriving with a truck full of extinguishers. That campsite was a scary place full of thieves and drunks, i spent as little time there as possible. As for Saturday and the weather yeah it was pretty miserable indeed, I just headed for the Pet Sounds stage and stayed their for the evening. Saw some great bands over the weekend I have to say.

it sounds like my idea of hell

Saturday was MINGIN. But whatddya gonna do. I probably would have left (live hundreds of others did) if I didn't have access to the media area to dry out. Felt so sorry for people camping. One of my mates got his shoes nicked which was not cool. Still, gotta hand it to the crowd - everyone was still giving it loads despite being pissed on. Saw Regina Spektor, Magic Numbers, Arctic Monkeys and The Who on Saturday. And on Sunday - such a better day and nicer vibe - I caught Wolfmother, Maximo Park, Guillemots, Hope Of The States and then skipped loads of stuff to see the match before catching a bit of the Chilis and heading home. The weekend was nice, but not mindblowing. I was really pissed off they didn't have the MTV2 accoustic set tent like they had last year - which was the highlight of '05's festival for me. So, roll on Electric Picnic!

had a great time i agree the campsite was s**te full of drunk 15 year olds. i will never camp at it again. the weather was s**te on saturday but mcd cant control that so just had to battle through. definite high lights where the who, sigur ros, the kooks, the zutons and a band called cut copy think there from melbourne i haven heard them b4

my busy oxegen, (P)for partial set Sat === Rushmore The Weepies - wholesome V Formation (P) Emm Gryner (P) Republic Of Loose (P) - comon will yeez, do somethin Dave Couse Regina Spektor - very cool The Magic Numbers (P) Delays (P) Hard-fi - what the hell, did u hear the seven nation army cover!! Arctic Monkeys (P) - f*ck its pissing and cold, end up skipping the strokes :( Eels - oh its dry in the tent and they rock Zero 7 feat Jose Gonzalez - brilliant Death Cab For Cutie - great set Kasabian - they rocked out Sun Delorentos - very good set Wolfmother (P) - it was all about the hair Mumm-ra The Cribs The Feeling (P) Gemma Hayes (P) The Kooks (P) - get me out of here as main stage crowd descends on NME stage Hope Of The States Corinne Bailey Rae (P) - sweet White Rose Movement Giant Drag - wow she's cute, surprised they don't pull a bigger crowd Pretty Girls Make Graves - liked them, must have a listen to the record Franz Ferdinand - yay! its sunny Sigur Ros - wow!! brilliant Red Hot Chili Peppers (P) - catch end of set, Under the Bridge, Californication, Give it Away, that’s plenty for me.

Ended up heading down on Saturday for work. Good craic, absolutely miserable day but wasn't too bad. Seem to be a quite a lot of skangers present. Spent most of the day between Pet sounds, some other tent and the bacardi bar. Enjoyed the day but wouldn't fancy camping. Did it twice and the amount of crap that goes on in there is unbearable! ROL were probably the highlight for me, really enjoyed it. Whipping Boy and Gomez were also quite good. I thought The Who were v disappointing. going through the motions. I like Placebo, but alameda is right, I thought a lot of bands sounded like them and hand ot consult the timetable a few times to check. Anyone go to the dance arena? Hilarious stuff, skangers off their heads chewing their lips shuffling to the music.

My view list Foy Vance - Decent The Spinto Band - good The Upper Room - poor man's editors tbh, not bad though Damien Dempsey (Partial)- I'm not a fan of the man and what i saw didnt do anything to change my mind The Magic Numbers - okay Hard-Fi - The visuals were excellent (especially the NOTHING that was left lingering for ages), but the band was pretty poor. Arctic Monkeys - Very good, didnt particularly like the new song though The Strokes - Very good Death Cab For Cutie - Very good Sunday Maximo Park (Partial) - for the three songs i saw they were good Guillemots - Excellent Hope Of The States - Excellent Corinne Bailey Rae - she wasnt bad Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! - Probably would have been more enjoyable had i actually listened to the album that I bought probably about a month ago. Seemed pretty good, had some sound difficulties. Played an encore Ben Harper - an amazing guitarist, but I found myself bored and staring at my watch after about 15 minutes. Sigur Ros - Brilliant, highlight of the weekend, best live act I've ever seen Red Hot Chili Peppers (Partial) - Seemed to be a carbon copy of the Slane 03 gig with mediocre songs off the new album thrown in.

My Oxegen micro-review Very disappointed to arrive during Whipping Boy's last two songs, but they sounded great anyway.. Aside from that, the Strokes sounded tight but had to contend with the wind blowing their skinny rock notes all over the shop. The Who did their thing quite well, the weather had cleared at this stage so it was great to be outdoors. Some seriously dodge collective called ' Fear of Music' made some noise for a while and forced me back out into the wild. I thought it backfired having Republic of Loose on the main stage so early, but I suppose if the weather had of been better it might of worked. Anyway, I was off watching Dave Couse ( sample strange banter : ' Thank fcuk it's raining ' when he saw the size of the crowd) at the time so it didn't bother me, and he was excellent anyway, with the Updated Endless Art (featuring Grant McClennan) being a high point.. James Brown was worth it for the experience, but it was way too drawn out and was a bit too 'love-in' for me, but had I of been sitting down with a basket of chicken it might well of been spectacular. The real high light of the night had to be The GO! team, they were a serious party... Oh, yeah the Eels were great too..

I saw the Spinto Band, We Are Scientists, Eels, The Srokes, The Go! Team & James Brown on Saturday and I saw Maximo Park, Erol Alkan, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, Franz Ferdinand and Sigur Ros on Sunday. The Go! Team, Eels and James Brown were my favourites. Overall I enjoyed it. I know that the weather was sh*t, the place was crawling with knackers and the gardai were taking peoples names merely for p*ssing in a field. But on the plus side the food was much better than in previous years, security were more relaxed so it was easier to sneak booze in to the concert area and the communal showers were a great idea. By the way did anyone take a dump in the Happy Crapper? I was put off by the €5 price tag but any time I walked by there was a queue out the door.

thought the sound in the pet sounds tent was awful unless you were smack bang in the middle which most of the time I wasn't, the eels were great as was regina spektor, lily allen, the automatic(kinda suprised me), delorentos, primal scream, the go!team...some poeple here mentioning dave couse i didnt like him at all, think he needs to get over himself.. as far as the weather goes it did really ruin things on the saturday, most people were still in good form tho, will be keeping a close eye on the weather coming up to EP if its going to be raining for the 4days might have to reconsider, finding my tent flooded out twice was bad enough(Partially my fault for not bringing the little triangly bit that goes on the very top...who'd have thought leaving an exposed hole in the top of your tent would cause it to flood eh??)Major gripe of the weekend was the "toilets" in the campsite, as usual not enough of em and overflowing but sure whats new, the ones inside by the green room were fantastic..attendants and all:-)All in all i think i've done my last oxegen, sticking to EP from now on

saturday was a horrible miserable day. got completely soaked. tried so hard to see bands but ended up wet and pissed off. stood in the green room and endured kubb. krapp. saw some magic numbers, even they were too wet. saw some we are scientists - they did their best to put me in good form - god bless them - but nah. strokes were quite good, then. after that gave up hope. sunday - yay! sun! delrentos - great, huge crowd. director, guillemots, manu chao - good. some bell x1, then on to the kooks - huge crowd for them. good frontman, few good songs, they've changed my mind a little. then over to catch the end of hope of the states... quite good. might get a cd. then dragged to orson. not a highlight. later saw franz ferdinand, enjoyable, but over to ben harper, he was great, more political than i imagined. then.... sigar ros. saw the first half - fantastic, skipped over to see how humanzi were getting on, watched a scrap or two, then skipped back for the last two songs. SR were stunning, amazing light show. proper amazing. then ran for a bus covering my ears to avoid the red hot chilli plonkers. thats all. saturday - least fun day in years, sunday very enjoyable. food was proper, atmosphere was good. a lot of drunks though, a lot of people passed out, a lot of morons staggering about, but was enjoyable. seemed to be better organised too.

I got up about 12pm, had some green tea and watched the Mixed Singles Final at Wimbeldon. Was pretty good, the lovely Justine Henin-Ardenne was playing a tough guy called Amelie Mauresmo. Thought it was a bit unfair but seeing as it was the first year of the Mixed Singles I let it go. The man won anyway. The day was then spent arsing about on the sofa, flickin over btwn "When Hurricanes Go Wrong" (is that not from the moment they start?!?!)"Cops" (which is really good actually) and was weeeeeely lucky and got some classic "Fawlty Towers" in. One Freshly cooked meal later, which by the by, consisted of a breast of chicken, oven cooked, then covered in Honey Grain Mustard, Parmasan Cheese and Cream b4 being baked again for another 10 mins plus Garlic Potatoes (incidentally, if you cover your garlic spuds with some tin foil on top as you near the climax of the cooking section, it protects the lovely golden top from turning this kind coal like, dark "I-been-playing-with-black-colouring-markers-again" look). Then I was ready to sit down and watch the absolute b*llox that is the cherished 3rd & 4th place playoff consisting of the surprisingly exciting Germans and Portugal, lead by the new flying super hero "Ronaldo", a.k.a Batman, El Diver, flicksymycurlyhair, The soul-glow-bucked-teeth-bunny, amongst others. 3-0 to the Germans and for once, i was beaming. I think Portuagl and they're antics, were an absolute disgrace throughout the World Cup.. (and yes I know there were other culprits). Then it was a Horror Triple Bill. First up,SAW (really good - WHAT A TWIST!!!), House of Wax - remake and REALLY REALLY BAD) and The Omen which i had never seen, REALLY GOOD!). Suitably giggled and freaked out off to bed to listen to Black Holes & Revelations which is finally winning me over!! At one stage, i thought, am i getting old? Should i be at Oxygen? Then I read this thread, looked at my slippers and sighed... Now, where is hot water bottle!?

On the bus to Oxegen, the driver actually got lost in the city centre. We drove around town for about 15 minutes before pulling over. We were stopped for about 20 mins until he eventually said he had no idea where Punchestown was! Someone had to direct him the whole way down.

Manu Chao was brilliant, Gomez and Clap your hands were great too, and Sigur Ros were absolutely amazing yet again. Couldnt believe they wouldnt do and encore, they finished up a good half hour before the Chilli peppers. Ridiculous amount of scumbags around the place looking for trouble. Lots of robberys, bottles and glasses being thrown and general knackerness. If Id a euro for everytime someone called me a hippy or told me to get my hair cut...

Some positive points on oxegen 1. The Showers... damn fine idea although very few people took it up. 2. Security. Much better staff then previous years. Seem to be a english company.found them to be polite and helpful 3. Sound. I thought that the sound on the main stage this year was much better then last year. 4. Layout. A lot easier to get between the tents. 5. Food. Much better then previous years. A nice selection Some Negative points. 1. The rain 2. Too few toilets in the campsite 3. The queues to get in friday 4. The amount of people there not for the music. Crazy 5. The size of the crowd for the Kooks... mad. Theres more but im too tired to type...zzzzzzzz

I suppose it depended on the time of day maybe ? the wind hbeing heavier and effecting the equipment ? duno. But last year the sound on the main stage was a complete disaster so for me it was a definite improvement

carlsberg:

carlsberg...nice one!!

quote:

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Originally posted by kavobaggins Sigur Ros were absolutely amazing yet again. Couldnt believe they wouldnt do and encore, they finished up a good half hour before the Chilli peppers.

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An encore would have been nice but I think they were out of time, the other stages all finish up before the main stage on purpose.

Carlsberg, it was 3-1 to Germany, not 3-0. i smell a rat. Methinks you spent the weekend in the oxegen dance tent, demented on bangers, telling anyone who'll listen that david morales is a messiah.

My five pence worth: Arrived on Saturday for ROL’s set on the main stage. They played a cracking set and I was surprised at how much of a crowd they pulled, especially given that it was pissing down at that stage. Watched Damien Dempsey’s set after that, thoroughly enjoyed him, again managed to pull a good crowd despite the appalling weather. Got diverted a bit at that point as the weather drove me to find shelter in the Dance “arena”. Great moshing to the Arctic Monkeys although I think I tore a muscle as was in agony for a couple of days this week. I may be forced to face the fact that I’m geting a bit old for moshing. The Who ruled, great to hear all the hits including “Substitute”. PS pissed off I missed Feeder. Sunday: Was looking forward to Placebo but I have to say they bored me rigid. I left before the end of their set, thus missing “Nancy Boy” AND they never played Pure Morning which is cock. Was also looking forward to The Feeling but after three rubbish songs I deserted their set just in time to catch the wonderful Gemma Hayes. Stayed there for the equally wonderful Divine Comedy. Finished Sunday by being bored by the Chilli Peppers. Have to say I didn’t come across any nasty skanger types but then I’m a hardened festival goer for donkey’s years so maybe I'm just used to them. Yiz have all got spoiled by your poncy Electric Picnic I reckon. :D

hey comet - yeah, but it was in the main area and access was restricted and there were very few sets on, not at all like last year's set up.

ah ok