We arrived on site at Oxegen 2010 for fun, frolic, probably pneumonia, and to see a few bands.
We reached the parking area with a bit of confusion as to where the Pink Car park was, as the main road to it they had decided to close, nobody had radio’s so that was a fun wait trying to figure out what to do, eventually we got directions and headed a Media Car convoy to the Pink Car park.
We arrived in, sorted wristbands and brought our tent down to setup in the Green Campsite. In typical goldenplec style, we had discovered we no tent pegs, so I embarked on a journey to the Blue Campsite to Joe Bananas for some tent pegs while Kev setup/guarded the tent. 40 minutes later I returned with 20 pegs and our tent was secured.
The Green Campsite is located beside the main entrance away from Blue and Red camping. It is a much quieter campsite, particularly compared to blue which has something going on at almost all times, The Nokia Stage, The Fairground and Silent Disco which despite its name, can be particularly noisy when 400-500 people start singing along to a song they are listening to on their headphones. So Green is the place to be for someone looking for a more serene weekend, It’s filled with amazing accommodation’s including teepee’s, myhab’s, yurts, wendy houses with solar power and more including pre-pitched tent’s from tangerine fields, but sadly is for VIP’s and too posh to pitch campers.
We headed over to the Media Area to scope it out and it seemed pretty cool. Located in the VIP area, all your radio stations are here with their tour buses, including 2FM, Phantom, Ray Foley’s Fun bus and a couple of regional stations. FM 104 seem to be outcast to the outer area though, must have misbehaved. It certainly feels like each station is trying to out-do the next with their tour bus size.
After our initial peg/sleeping bag drama, we got sorted and headed straight to grab some food myself dining with a Chicken Burrito from Flaming Cactus which went down a treat and Kev dropped over for a Spanish vegetable paella. They hit the spot but hunger is a great sauce, even Abrakebabra would have gone down well. The soundtrack to our food was kindly provided by Republic of Loose for some funk and soul on the Vodafone stage which we soaked up under shelter from the Tea and Toast tent.
Next up with our bellies full was Vampire Weekend over on the Main Stage. We listed them as one of our must see act’s in our Oxegen preview and they certainly didn’t disappoint. They embraced the rain with lead singer Ezra Koenig giving his mantra of “nobody said the summer had to be warm, just fun!” which got a great reception as the crowd embraced the dancing to their summer style tunes as the rain poured down. Favourites like “Blakes got a new face”, “Oxford Comma”, “Walcott” and newer songs like “Contra”, “Cousins” and “Holiday” proved they are as popular with the second album as the first. Finishing with “Mansard Roof” and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” they defied the weather to put a show on fit for a sunny festival day.
We decided next to check out the layout of the festival, some of the stages certainly seemed rather with sound from the Vodafone Stage clashing with the main stage at certain points, Hotpress’s stage got caught in the audio crossfire and you really can only hear that stage when inside. The Redbull Academy has moved from its location last year and the Bacardi stage has disappeared entirely, replaced by a generic cocktail bar.
Jay-Z was next on our hit-list and we braved the pouring rain to be in the pit for the Rap superstar. Having seen him at Glastonbury 2008 we were expecting great things. The crowd was bulging as people rushed to get as close as possible for the show as the countdown clock on the screen ran down. Jay-Z hit the stage at zero and the masses were soon thrilled by one of the biggest chart hits of 2009, “run this town” which the crowd sang back word for word. He said bounce, the crowd responded in kind as Jay-Z ran through his repertoire of hits, much to the delight of the heaving crowd.
We left before the end of Jay-Z to catch Goldfrapp in the Heineken Green spheres stage who was rocking a crazy 80’s style outfit singing her glam electro-pop tunes. Lots of crazy stuff going on stage, including keytars, goblin looking dancers, sparkly costumes giving the feel of a pit at the eurovision song contest. The tent wasn’t packed but the crowd that were knew every word.
As with all festivals, clashes mean partial sets, and we dashed from the Green Spheres to the 2FM/Hotpress stage to catch Irish enigma, Villagers. They have garnered all kinds of praise and press coverage over previous months, including having Video of the Week on GP on no less than 2 occasions. We for our shame had never seen them and made a point of catching the entire set. Conor O’Brien and his crew put on a quality show, one of the highlights is a bit of an obvious choice but “Becoming a Jackal” was particularly powerful. We did feel sorry for them a bit as an awesome set was hindered in parts by technical difficulties including feedback and some sound leakage from Jay-Z. I will definitely try catch them again in a more intimate venue for round 2.
Having previously seen Arcade Fire, and each other headliner being a dance act and due to the fact we were drenched to the skin we decided beat the rush to the Silent Disco to have one last bit of fun before recharging the batteries.
More tomorrow on how Saturday goes at Oxegen 2010.
Aidan and Kev
