Christof's Blog: OXEGEN Festival

A few months ago, a colleague and I had a difficult decision to make: See one of the biggest rock festivals in Europe with an amazing line-up or keep the incredible amount of almost 250 Euro, which would be enough for two other festivals. In the end, we decided to buy the tickets, buy a tent, buy a decent supply of food, get a third person - our favourite intern ;) - to come with us and just do it. So enjoy my personal festival report, some videos made by me on YouTube and some pictures.

So Thursday night we packed a car with all those things - excluding the intern, who would come on Friday - and went to the festivalground on Punchestown Racecourse, around half an hour from Dublin. After having pitched the tent and making friends with our neighbours - within an hour everyone in a 200m-radius knew, we were "Ze Germans" and had tried their German skills on us - we realized how unbelievably big this was going to be. The campground was huge, including a supermarket, a tremendous number of food stands and camping shops. Apart from this there were two fairgrounds with amazing, yet expensive attractions. And the festival ground was even more impressive.

Friday morning the sun was shining and the first night in the tent had been more or less comfortable. After some German Bratwurst from the small barbecue we had brought, we felt ready to rock and went to the festivalground. Which was about the time it started raining for the first time. This did not keep us from seeing some great performances, starting with Therapy? and Lily Allen. Then we decided to go to the pit and have a better view for The Script (which none of my German friends might know, but let's say they are like the Irish "Wir sind Helden" or "Sportfreunde Stller" - and a real chick flick). Snow Patrol, who were on afterwards and were my personal favourite on Friday had a great show including some cool videos, which we were enjoying from the fifth row, with an amazing view back over thousands of people.

The headliners on Friday were Blur, who were a disappointment to me. Damon Albarn was so stoned, he was unable to remember his setlist, which is not an assumption, but a fact, because he admitted it between two songs. Still, I went crazy for "Song 2", for which we had to wait until the very end of course, although the band seemed pretty bored. Which is somehow understandable if you are always associated with one song, even if you are not a one-hit wonder.

Saturday my two fellow festivalgoers could not be bothered to get out of the tent and trade their afternoon nap against some decent rock music, so I prepared myself a festival bag (a 1,5 litre Tetra Pak with Vodka Orange, turned into a nice handbag by using duck tape) and went off to see The Blizzards on my own. The hardest decision was yet to come, because I was standing in the second row when James Morrison started playing and the next act on the Main Stage were the Yeah Yeah Yeahs - so would I trade my perfect position and the nice female company I had met in the pit for Maximo Park, who were playing at a smaller stage at the same time, or just stay in the pit. I chose the pit, got soaked like crazy as the strongest downpour of the weekend started and also saw Elbow before finally my personal favourite was on: Bloc Party.

Or for an even better video of my favourite Bloc Party-song go to MTV. If you look hard, you can even see me in their footage. In this moment I had been in the pit for six hours without anything to drink or a toilet and no chance to get back to my place if I gave in to my basic needs. So I just went crazy and forgot about my thirst, my bursting bladder and the fact that I was soaked despite my raincoat. And if you are in the pit with a girl who wants to see Kings of Leon and without having heard from you friends in hours (the mobile network had a time lag there) you will stay there and shout "Sex on Fire". After over eight hours in the pit, I still had to skip their encore, because the girl I was with had fainted and I was gentleman enough to accompany her to the first aid tent - also because I might have been close to fainting from pure exhaustion myself.

So my first decision for Sunday was: No pit for me! The second decision was that we were all dying for a shower and a decent bed and so we carried our tent and supplies to the car before we went to the festival. The fist band we saw were the White Lies and then came the biggest surprise of the weekend. After we had gotten a glimpse of Lady Gaga's crazy performance of kneeling on a bench and playing an acoustic version of "Pokerface" on a piano while holding her nearly naked booty into the cameras, we enjoyed a show I would never have thought to be good - so my price for the hottest and most talented female goes to: Katy Perry! Her show was awesome and the crowd went crazy after she had covered Queens "Don't stop me now" and then played "I kissed a girl".

After seeing The Ting Tings, we went off to the main stage to finish our festival experience with Razorlight and The Killers. I have to say though, I liked The Killers better last year on a small German festival called Highfield. They played on Friday night and it was great. Still, I think a festival needs some decent rock to finish off with and not a cool rock band that turned mainstream (no offense guys, I still like you and was to one to shouted his lungs out for "Mr. Brightside"). So think about inviting The Beatsteaks to Oxegen next year! :) All in all the whole festival was fun and I managed to stay pretty clean until the very end when people went crazy in the mud. So let me cite my friend and colleague Florian: "Who needs a mosh pit when you can have a mud pit?"