In 2010, I celebrated my forty-first birthday, soggy fashion, at Oxygen with 75,000 other music fans.
Oxegen is Ireland’s biggest music festival and takes place every year at Punchestown racecourse. It has become one of the best festivals in Europe and happens to be down the road and fall on my birthday every year. I may not look like your average music festival fan, but underneath this sensible exterior is a techno-electro-rap-funkster waiting to get out.
Before setting off with I nipped into Dunnes to buy a raincoat. Of course, the more organised Oxegen fans had got there before me and the only one they had left in my size in a camouflage print, a deep mossy green and brown colour. It was made of thick plastic and featured a clip on hood. Along with a pair of old wellies, a small packet of baby wipes, a bag of chocolate covered peanuts and this ever-practical rock chick was ready to go.
My eighteen-year-old nephew was my festival buddy. We printed off the line up from the internet and circled with a highlighter pen the bands that we wanted to see. His must see act was a young lad called Jamie T. For me, it was Brooklyn rapper Jay-Z and Scottish DJ Calvin Harris.
All the big names were there this year: The Prodigy, Paolo Nutini, Fatboy Slim, Faithless, Eminem and The Black Eyed Peas. But with over a hundred and fifty bands playing, there were plenty of bands that we had never heard of, including ‘Fake Blood’, ‘Bipolar Empire’, ‘Bitches With Wolves’, ‘Frightened Rabbit’, ‘Readers Wives’, ‘God Is An Astronaut’, ‘Cashier No.9’ and ‘Ou Est Le Swimming Pool’ to name a few. I have no idea what kind of music they make, but with names like that they deserve a Grammy.
The rain poured down like never before. Friday night and the going was heavy. To get to the portaloo (aptly titled the ‘Bog Father’) was a good ten-minute walk in five inches of thick mud. A quicker option chosen by many young women was to squat down in the mud and pee randomly. For the men, peeing against any stationary object was the order of the day. I quickly learned to keep my arms moving at all times. In my camouflaged Dunnes mac, I could easily have been mistaken for a tree.
Fifty thousand people in front of the main stage and Jay-Z walked on. “WATS UP OXEGEN?” he shouted out. Fifty thousand people screamed and waved their arms about as he began his set. He told us to ‘BOUNCE’ which I dutifully did despite the fact that my wellingtons had suctioned themselves into the mud. He had us all making the peace sign and saluting Barrack Obama. Then TuPac and the Notorious B.I.G. With my clip on hood over my head and making the peace sign, I did my best to get into a ‘gangsta’ state of mind.
There was no sign of Jay-Z’s wife Beyonce, a shame as I am sure she’d have loved it. She could have had a go on the Big Wheel, or the Bungee Balls. Or perhaps she might have been interested in the Oxygen Bar around the corner from the Main Stage. There, sat around tanks of colourful bubbling liquid, were festivalgoers who for five Euros a time were inhaling pure oxygen. It came in apple, orange and cranberry flavour and, via a nasal clip, for five minutes ‘breathing time’ it was supposed to help you ’party all night’, ‘party harder’ and be a cure for hangovers.
Saturday night was even more exciting and even wetter. The man in the van selling ice creams had no customers, whilst the man in the van selling hot chocolate was close to selling out. Those fans that had gone for a spray tan were now looking very streaky and those fans in straw hats were beginning to compost. Many people were wearing black bin liners. Still, the mood was good, everyone was happy I headed off to see ‘Gossip’ play in the Heineken Green Sphere tent.
Gossip’s lead singer is Beth Ditto. With a black bob, black eyeliner and black skull t-shirt, she looked clean, fresh and dry. “Hands up those of you who are NOT camping”. I put my hand up, along with two others. “YOU ARE EITHER OLD OR SOBER” she shouted to cheers from the audience of soaking wet through campers. And of course, she was right. The music fired up and we splashed around in the lakes that had formed in front of the stage.
Next we headed over to see the Black Eyed Peas. Fergie came out wrapped head to toe in tin foil (or so it seemed from a hundred metres away). They soon got the party started and with a back drop of flames and fire, blasted out crowd-pleasing hits. I danced around manically. Of course moshing in heavy ground in a thick plastic rain mac has its advantages. It was like dancing in a mobile sauna. In the space of half an hour I had sweated off half a stone.
But the highlight was waiting for us in a big blue tent. It was Calvin Harris. “ARE YOU READY TO GO MENTAL?” he asked us. Of course we were. We were already mental after forty-eight hours in the rain and mud. We went even more mental when he sung ‘It was Acceptable in the Eighties’. I danced in the laser beams with my eighteen-year-old nephew. Life doesn’t get much better than that.
There is a list somewhere of the top ten things to do in Kildare. Oxegen isn’t on it. I urge everyone to experience Oxegen once in a lifetime. We all need to go mental once in a while.
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