Finally the day came and we knew the weather was going to be rough. The rain had been coming all week and the night before it was downpouring and Saturday was no different. Before I knew it, I was dressed in my wellies, leggings, shirt, trash bag (as a rain coat), sequined hat, and hideous but wonderful sunglasses. All of my roommates and I looked ridiculous, but it was Oxegen—this did not come around everyday. Once we were ready, we headed out on a bus to the buses which would take us to the festival. We had several funny looks and jeers on the way there, but I mean who wouldn’t be jealous of us for going to Oxegen…they know they wanted to too!
When we finally made it to the buses, I was expecting long lines and to wait for an hour or so just to get on a bus. However, after a few years of doing this, I should have expected they would know what they were doing and we were immediately loaded on a bus and taken to the Punchestown Racetrack grounds. I had been there before for a horse race, but this time I was a little but different, certainly in the way I was dressed if nothing else. The ride took about an hour, but finally we made it out there and loaded off to enter into the festival I had been waiting months to attend. As soon as I stepped off the bus and went through the check-in area, I felt the energy of the thousands upon thousands of people. If you were expecting to run into a friend, it certainly would not have been like winning the lottery. Mud was another theme of the day as it was everywhere; there was not a patch of green to be seen. There were areas where mud was literally up to my shin. There were some people who had clearly dove into the mud puddles as they were covered head to toe—insane.
We scoped out the grounds and then went to get a good spot for the act we wanted to see on the main stage, Florence + The Machine. She is hugely popular over here and is also incredible live. We had to wait for a bit, but it was completely worth it. As soon as I landed in Ireland I became a fan and was insanely excited to hear her. When she came on stage, the crowd roared and when the music started, the crowd could have sung for Florence and she could have done nothing—it was crazy. During one of her songs, the rain began to pour and everyone was jumping around, it was so much fun and my friends and I were having the time of our life. My smile could not be wiped off of my face, I was having one of those moments which will truly stay with me for the rest of my life. Sadly, Florence had to end and as much as I wanted to hear her for the rest of the night, there were still so many more bands to hear.
From Florence we moved on to an American group, 3OH!3, who are alright, but not really my cup of tea. They are also do not seem to be greatly popular here either since most people were standing around and just watching, not singing along or dancing. We only stayed there for a little bit and then went to another stage under a tent and saw La Roux who is a new British singer and also popular in Ireland. We caught the end of her act, but she did put on a good show for what we saw. By that time it was somewhere around 8:30 and we were hungry so after looking around at the hundreds of options that Oxegen offered, we decided on the Mexican food. We paid and then waited for awhile for our food and the lady finally asked us if we were waiting, (no we are just standing here staring at you!) yes we are! The man who had taken our money didn’t remember us and so the woman didn’t believe we had paid so she asked for our receipts. Well mine was on the ground and at this point on a lad’s shoe and covered in mud…well thankfully I was able to retrieve it from his heel and was able to find the word burrito amidst the mud. She gave me a shrewd look and comment, thinking I hadn’t paid and had just found the receipt on the ground, but gave me the burritos anyways. At this point, the rain was still coming down and my “rain coat” had ripped on the side and I was just soaking. Once we had scarfed down our food, we made our way back to the tent and I threw on a dry shirt and sweatshirt and new trash bag.
We waited for a bit under the tent and then heard another group sing, Gossip. My roommate Mal had been playing their music all week and I was pretty excited to hear them. They certainly did not disappoint as they sounded just as they did on iTunes. After Gossip there was another band, Hot Chip and we watched them for a bit and while they were singing the rain had stopped for the moment. The big act for the night, Black Eyed Peas, was then on soon so we made our way to the stage where they were playing. We waited another while for them to come on and when they did, the crowd went insane. Everyone was singing along and they put on quite the show. When they sang their oldie and for some reason a favorite, “Where is the Love?”, the rain again absolutely poured down—it was another amazing moment to add to the list. My friends and I belted out the lyrics and had a blast. Everyone was so close together and jumping up and down, it was an absolute rain and mud dream. However, Will.I.Am. did a DJ section that I found to be excruciating, he was playing other artists and I was over it after the first random song he played, when those twenty awful minutes were over, they started back with their music and it got better.
Since they were the last act of the night, we headed out when they started on their last song so as to beat the crowd. We literally trudged through mud, I felt like a soldier in ‘Nam. On the way out, we past one last band, Muse, who is good but I really don’t know a ton of their songs. However, we listened for a bit and they were quite good. When we finally did make it out of the gates, I was again expecting huge lines and to have to wait a long time to onto a bus. However, there literally looked like hundreds of buses waiting and we were quickly seated and on our way to Dublin. The ride was long and I was absolutely soaking and ready to get into dry, warm clothes. After what felt like forever, we were dropped off on O’Connell Street and as soon as we got off the wind came in and chilled me to my deepest, inner core. We scrambled for a cab and piled in, happy to be warm. Before we knew it, we were back home at Grove Park and had changed and thrown everything into the washer. Everything was covered in mud—my black leggings were now brown as was my yellow shirt, I looked like a wet rat who had just crawled all the way from Galway. It had been a long day, but it was absolutely worth it for I will never ever forget my experience.
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