Oxegen 2007 - The Somme Without The Bullets

Still in recovery, a fairly bad experience all round.

Before I launch into my rant, let me give notice that I've been to a lot of Festivals and I've been going to this one every year from back since it was known as Withness and have it enjoyed it, for the most part, every time. This year's event, however, was run like a Mormon trying to organise a stag party.

First off the music - I saw various bits of The Hold Steady, The Twang, Jet, The Fratellis, The Kings Of Leon, The Queens Of The Stone Age, Air, Arcade Fire, Black
Rebel Motorcycle Club and Razorlight amongst others and most if not all were worth a look but the sound, especially in the tents was horrendous. If this was the only problem then things wouldn't have been too bad but the blame for this shambles falls at the feet of the promoters. We all know that no one can bet on the Irish weather and, true to form, it let us down badly. The rain was almost biblical which meant that the ground underfoot turned to mud which came up to just below the knees in most places but why couldn't more plastic have been laid on the main walk ways, it was there in one or two places but why not in more? It would have necessitated spending some money, that's why. The Coff and I arrived at the camp site at about 7.30 on the Friday only to find it pretty much full already so we had to walk about 30 mins through the sludge to squeeze into a small space light years from the actual event. The crowd was huge, far more than the "80,000" capacity that the organisers have claimed. This is the same amount they claim every year and I can tell you that there has been more and more tickets sold each year, taking the good out of the thing - more greed.

A lot of stories in the papers about violence at the event, I saw evidence of this in the camp site where the security was virtually non existant. You put a load of young lads in a field for a few days with access to booze and drugs ( a lot of them), you're going to have trouble so you need to spring for security.

You also need to at least try with the facilities - one set of showers in the other campsite isn't going to cut it and as for the campsite toilets being locked on the Sunday morning (I, excuse me, shit you not), what's that about?

The event itself was marred again by overcrowding, idiots out their face looking for trouble and no effort made with the mud. Willie pointed out to me, as we grabbed a staggeringly priced plate of food, that there wasn't even any refuse bins so everything had to go on the ground.

Frankly I'm surprised no one was killed at it, when I saw young lads being dragged out of the mud after collapsing face down. Any good reports I heard on the radio or TV were from "personalities" who were more than likely knocking around back stage being well looked after. You might think that these are the rantings of an old man (I'm 35) who should know better than to be at these things, and to be fair, I'm sure a lot of people had a ball and my gang can't help but have a good laugh wherever we are, but I really love these events and it let me down. They're going to kill the goose that's laying the golden egg. Heading to both the Midlands Music Festival and the Electric Picnic, both run by POD. I know from experience that these will be well run, enjoyable events. You've got to spend a little to earn a little and not treat your customers like animals.