This coming weekend 80,000 music-lovers are set to descend upon the Punchestown Racecourse to celebrate Ireland’s greatest music festival – no, not Electric Picnic ,you self-righteous hippie, we’re talking about Oxegen 2010.
With over 100 acts performing and over 60,000 square feet of ground to cover, it’s fair to say punters, especially first-timers, pitching their tents Thursday have a daunting challenge in hoping to sample the best of what Oxegen has to offer this year.
This is exactly where JOE comes in though, with our own handy guide to the stand-out experiences, acts and general recommendations to ensure you’re fully equipped for a weekend of mud, music, and massively over-priced festival grub.
1. Download the free Oxegen App
Tips don’t come more essential than this. Currently topping the iTunes App Store, the official Oxegen app is a godsend for any iPhone-owning festival goer this year. Featuring the festival’s full line-up and event planner, the app also contains a live traffic feed, maps and a Drinkaware.ie Festival Survival Guide. Even more impressively, the boffins at Dublin’s CKSK Studios have included an augmented reality function, which utilises your on-board iPhone camera to show you live points of interest and allows you to tag your tent to ensure a safe stumble home. If your Facebook friends have downloaded the app too, you can find their exact location through the app’s GPS. Oh, and did we mention that it’s completely free?
2. Vampire Weekend – Friday, Main Stage 5:35pm
Indie favourites Vampire Weekend look set to rock the Main Stage Friday
New York indie-rockers Vampire Weekend are easily one of the earliest Oxegen highlights, bringing their summery, African-tinged anthems to the Main Stage Friday afternoon. Now certified hipster royalty, be sure to stick around for the group’s signature track ‘A-Punk‘, and a sprinkling of tracks from their recent sophomore effort, Contra, with latest single ‘Giving Up The Gun‘ a real highlight.
3. Fancy Dress Friday
Fancy Dress Friday hits the Punchestown crowds for the first time in the festival’s history, with event organisers MCD scouring the fields Friday in search of the wackiest, most creative costumes on display. Ten of the best ensemble’s will be then posted to the Oxegen website, with users able to vote on their favourite creation. The lucky winner(s) will then recieve the very first set of VIP tickets (4 in all) for Oxegen 2011. And to think, your girlfriend was calling you a moron for wanting to show up in full Spider-Man regalia for the weekend – now who’s the idiot?
4. Jay- Z – Friday, Main Stage 8:50pm
Hip Hop legend Jay-Z is now a regular festival staple after his headline tour-de-force at Glastonbury 2008, where the rapper confounded critical festival-goers and even Noel Gallagher with an epic, world-class performance that paid homage to rock classics such as U2’s ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’. In our minds, Jay-Z’s ability to captivate a crowd, up-end his well-worn classics and most importantly, put on a good show, should never be underestimated. 8.50pm – be there.
5. Pimp Your Tent
So you’ve managed to show up in a full Banana Man costume Friday, assured of your chances to win your VIP Oxegen 2011 tickets, only to find out some chap has stolen your thunder with an incredible, fully-transforming Optimus Prime effort – what now? Luckily for you, web-based mental health service ReachOut are running their own Pimp My Tent competition for the most creative campsite. The ReachOut team will be roaming the fields Friday 3-5pm to snap pics of the most impressive camps, with the winner taking home their own VIP tickets for next year’s festival.
6. Arcade Fire – Friday, Main Stage 11:00pm
Arcade Fire really like to make you wait. In the past six years the group has released just two albums, both of which are arguably modern classics in their own right. With their hugely anticipated third release The Suburbs just weeks away, Friday’s headliners should be one of the hottest gigs at Oxegen this year, with the lure of the groups’s new material combining with the fact the Montreal outfit hasn’t performed in Europe since 2007.
7. Two Door Cinema Club – Saturday, Vodafone Stage 4:05pm
Not since The Thrills (shudder) has there been such an instant worldwide following for an Irish band as there is for Derry-based Two Door Cinema Club. With catchy, instantly memorable tunes and frequent appearences in two mobile phone operator advertisements, Two Door’s prevalence is all the more incredible when you consider their debut album was only released in March. Catch what all the fuss is about on the Vodafone Stage Saturday.
8. Muse – Saturday, Main Stage 11:10pm
Muse’s dazzling stage set-up is a perfect distraction from Matt’s pink trousers
Renowned as one of the most dazzling live shows in the world today, some would say the showmanship and stage presence of Muse frontman Matt Bellamy is peerless. Either way, the stage show is something that demands to be seen, whilst their ten-year-plus back catalogue is nothing to sniff at either. Whether you’re long-standing Muse fan or are only familiar with a couple of their hits, there’s no better gig Saturday night than the Main Stage headliners.
9. Watch the World Cup Final in HD
One of the unfortunate aspects of Oxegen’s weekend dates is that every four years, the World Cup Final falls on the last night of the festival. Four years ago, a big-screen campsite monitor was set up for drunken revellers (myself included), but for 2010 the festival organisers have really outdone themselves. Pop over to the Nokia Live Stage in the blue campsite Sunday night to watch the Brazil/Holland clash on the largest mobile LED in the world, which is full HD too.
10. Mumford & Sons – Sunday, Heineken Green Spheres Stage 10:50pm
London folk band Mumford & Sons have taken the country by storm, even claiming the unlikely honour of being a rock band played on Irish commercial radio that are neither the Killers or Kings of Leon. With country-tinged, banjo-strumming hits such as ‘Little Lion Man” and “The Cave” from their debut album to look forward to, Mumford’s Sunday night set is a perfect alternative to the sight of gougers in Celtic jerseys bopping to Eminem.
