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The festival newbie


Turlough

Turlough is an 18-year-old student from Northern Ireland who dreams of festival life and Kirsten Dunst.

Turlough is going to one of the best kept secrets on the festival circuit. Here's how he gets on.

The day before (7 July) - Getting ready

When tickets for the Oxegen festival went on sale earlier this year, I jumped at the chance to get some. There's an eclectic line up on and I had the time of my life last year. Although I had a brilliant time last year, I was quite unprepared for the experience known as the 'festival weekend'. This year, I have made sure I have everything I need. I'm going to take extra pairs of socks, trousers and tops as you never know when you could suffer a flash flood, eh Glastonbury? I have also made some homemade food; the queues can be long at festivals and the food can be pretty expensive. You also can't guarantee if it'll taste good. Oh and how could I forget drink? I am well stocked up with that. So that's the preparation done, all there is now is the two-day wait for the bus to take me to, hopefully, the best weekend of my life.

Day One (8 July) -The Campsite

It was a long bus journey down to the venue but no one on the bus really complained as we were all in good spirits and couldn't wait for the festival experience to start. As we got off the bus, my mate and I had to walk a mile to the campsite lugging our heavy backpacks. It was a relief when we finally unpacked our bags and pitched our tents. Now all there was to do was to get stuck into the drink and talk to our fellow Irishmen. It was a great day all in all, with everyone talking about which bands they wanted to see the next day. They also played Lord of the Rings on a massive screen in the campsite to provide us with some entertainment which I thought was a great idea.

Day Two (9 July) - The bands

The day started off as a bit of a disappointment as I had woken up to some heavy rain. Thankfully, it didn't last long and was gone about the same time as my hangover. The group from the bus all gathered around to discuss what bands we wanted to see. We all had different tastes in music so I knew the group would be separated. I didn't care too much; half the festival experience is meeting new friends. I began my journey down to the different stages. I thought the set up was good because all of the stages were so near to each other. The first band I saw was The Kaiser Chiefs. Although I think they've been much better live, they managed to get the crowd jumping which really got me in the festival mood.

After getting a bite to eat (which cost me a lot of money) I went back to see Snoop Dogg. I'm not the greatest hip hop fan but I thought his set was pretty bouncy and his dedicated followers seemed to love it. After that it was onto Queens of The Stone Age, who are one of my favourite bands. They played all of their best songs and the mosh pit was pretty intense. I was feeling a bit tired after that so I just chilled out and listened to Bloc Party and Mylo before the highlight of the evening; Prodigy. They had an amazing light show and the lead singer is just as mad in real life as he is in the Firestarter video. They played all of their hits and a few rare ones, it was a fabulous performance. I got back to the campsite at midnight and had a few drinks and a bit of craic. I was completely wrecked so I went to bed quite early.

Day Three (10 July) - The finale

In stark contrast to the morning before, I woke up to sweltering heat. I was sweating all over as I fell asleep in my coat the night before. All the beer was warm too but my mate and I downed it anyway.We decided to do a bit of walking to see what else Oxegen had to offer other than music. There was a fun fair that had some great rides but they charged too much so we didn't go on them. There was a half-pipe where bikers and skateboarders did their moves and attracted a good crowd. There was also a tent where you could breathe pure oxygen. I'm not sure what the point of that was but it looked interesting. After a wee nosey around the place, we decided to see more bands.  Audioslave were playing quite close so we went to watch them, I thought they played a pretty good set. After that we went over to see Suzanne Vega, I heard someone talking about her and wanted to see what the fuss was about. She played an acoustic set and I thought it was the perfect music for the chilled-out sunny atmosphere. I caught the end of The Streets after that and then waited until The Killers came on. They really got the crowd going with their hits but I was a bit too sunburned to join in. I then decided to see The La's, I only really wanted to hear that song There She Goes. By the time they finished I was really hungry and was burning up so I went back to the campsite for some food and sunscreen and then went back out again for some more music.

I popped into the dance tent to see LCD Soundsystem and a bit of Deep Dish, who I thought rocked. The last band of the festival I saw was Foo Fighters who played a great set and capped off a perfect weekend.Back to the campsite, we all sat down, had a few drinks and talked about how good the weekend was. Everyone was pretty knackered so we all fell asleep. By the time we woke up in the morning we were all dying from hangovers and heat exhaustion, we waited for the bus to come and when it did we rushed onto it. As we left I turned around for one last look of the festival that gave me so many memories and I was already looking forward to Oxegen 2006.


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