Nowhere For Nothing

New Springsteen single for nothing, you can't argue with that.

Mighty Midlands

I've recovered sufficiently from last weekends revels to attempt to weave the tale. Regular readers will have already heard the savage tale of this year's Oxegen experience and how I predicted that this would be a much sweeter affair, not least because of the different promoter. I was right, of course. An example of how to do it right and it made the return to "real life" all the more heartbreaking.

Friday night we only made it as far as the Hayes house in Portarlington and sat up half the night boozing it up good-o and listening to classic eighties rock from the likes of Toto, Journey, The Jovi and their ilk. Someway to prepare for a country festival says you, the only way says we.

The weather actually seemed to be ok on the Saturday morning as we drove from Portarlington, through my home town of Tullamore and on to Mullingar. Needless to say we were all dieing and we had to stop and buy even more beer because we had taken a large chunk out of our weekend allocation on the first night, but you'll have that.

Very smooth sailing when we got to the car park as the Coff refused to stop his jeep until we were ordered to on pain of death. This cut out a lot of that walking shit that can so ruin a kick off, we got our provisions in and got the tent up just before the rain started again.

As we're becoming old hands at this, a lot of other punters spotted our tent raising skills and requested help with their own meagre efforts. I was having none of it and took a seat with the first few cans although, the Coff, Willy and the Hayes all helped out. I may add that one of these 'gents' was up making a fine breakfast the next morning and wouldn't even offer the boys the time o' day so we'll be watching for him again.

Finally made it into the arena at about three after a lot of drinks by the tent, was it still raining? Can't remember to be honest. The campsite was pretty much right beside the main stage but our first port of call was Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder on stage two - an early highlight, fantastic music played by superb musicians. He had the crowd eating out of his hand.

Caught a bit of Aimee Mann at the main stage, very good she was too before suffering through Steve Earle's desperate set. He needed a band as one dude playing protest songs to a half drunk crowd in the rain does not a good experience make. He tried with "Galway Girl" and "Copperhead Road" but he was a let down. The same could not be said for The Waterboys who gave great show, special mention goes to Steve Wickham's fantastic coat but what was the muckball version of "Walk On The Wild Side" about? They were followed by another disapointment in the form of Kris Kristofferson who again delivered a dreary set with just an acoustic guitar and appeared to be reading some of his lyrics out. The set was enlivened somewhat by the fantasticly staggering exit of Hayes as he headed for the hills, worse for wear.

Once Kristofferson finished, I headed for the tent myself and found Hayes half in and out of it but couldn't move him, I took a seat cracked open a few cans and listened to the Christy Moore set (very good, if you like the sort of thing) in comfort - that's how close the camping was to the stage!

Day 2
After 9, yes 9, hours of sleep (amazing what a shead load of booze and the absense of children can do to a body) I awoke fresh and well to face the day. Once the breakfast rolls, Coffees and morning ablutions had been taken care of we again hit the beer in the presence of the sun for a change. Headed in a bit earlier this time to catch a fine if subdued set from Niall Toner followed by equally fine turns from The Hillbilly All-Stars, The Hothouse Flowers (the great lost Irish band) and the Blind Boys of Alabama (almost enough to give the boy religion). Caught a bit of Kila at stage 2 and then a really great set from Paul Brady, a surprise to me, on the main stage. When he played "The Island" you could hear a pin drop and it was genuinely affecting. Well done Sir!

The Fest closed with certainly the finest shirt of the weekend which covered the back of the mighty Glen Campbell, who played all the hits and included a Beach Boys medley - result!

A surprise finish to the musical part of the fest took place as we joined a queue for food, a discussion broke out on the merits of Whitney Houston which prompted yours truly to step out of the line and gave a full throated (HELLO!) version of "The Greatest Love Of All" much to the amusement of all and sundry.

The line forms here for next year.