Oxegen is an annual Irish music festival held since 2004, sponsored by Heineken. Now Ireland's biggest festival and the largest 100% CarbonNeutral event in Ireland, it was previously called Witnness, which ran from 2000 and was sponsored by Guinness. The event is promoted by MCD. Oxegen was originally a three-day festival but for 2008 was expanded to four days. It takes place at the Punchestown Racecourse in County Kildare, Ireland and has an average attendance of around 90,000 a day, with around 80,000 of these camping on site for the duration, and the rest travelling to the site each day. It takes place on the same weekend as T in the Park in Scotland and shares a very similar line-up each year, although Oxegen is generally regarded as Ireland's version of the world-renowned Glastonbury Festival, with the 2008 festival sharing three of the same headliners as its English counterpart. Oxegen 2009 was heralded as "a marvel of organisation" when compared to the Woodstock Festival held in the United States in 1969.
Oxegen has attracted significant attention from outside Ireland, with many of those attending travelling from overseas and Northern Ireland also experiences a "mass exodus" to the festival. Members of bands such as The Killers, Snow Patrol and R.E.M. have spoken positively of their experiences at the festival. Celebrities frequently attend, including models Helena Christensen (a regular attendant) and Glenda Gilson, American television personality Chris Pontius, actor Josh Hartnett, and Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones, who was pursued by "half the journalists in the country" and many of his own relatives for much of the 2008 festival. However, Oxegen has also attracted some negative publicity, particularly following the 2006 festival. This is attributed to such factors as the age of admission -17- and easy access to alcohol.
History
Oxegen first took place in 2004 over the second weekend in July. The Killers, who went on to headline the festival twice in 2007 and 2009, were one of the bands to appear at the first Oxegen. Dave Keuning, in an interview with Hot Press prior to the 2009 festival, described Oxegen as "a big deal because it's one of the first European festivals we lpayed when we came over from Vegas in 2004. We only had one hit—"Mr. Brightside"—and were worried in case no one showed. But the tent was packed with people screaming out the words to songs we didn't think they knew. It was that night we thought, 'Hey, something's happening here!' Oxegen more so than Glastonbury even was the highlight of our summer."
The original festival, Witnness, sponsored by Guinness, took place during the start of August with notable headliners, including Oasis, The Foo Fighters and Green Day; however in its second and third year, running changed its dates to the second weekend of July. Oxegen became a three-day festival in 2008.
Rodrigo y Gabriela made their breakthrough after being asked by Damien Rice to perform with him at Oxegen 2005.
The Japanese Popstars formed after viewing several dance acts at Oxegen 2006.
R.E.M. members Michael Stipe and Peter Buck watched several shows from side stage at Oxegen 2007 before returning to headline the festival the following year. Stipe credits his 2007 visit with inspiring him to want to go on tour again, saying: "I saw all these great bands and the next day after the festival we went into the studio." Muse, known for their spectacular light show and their position as one of the world's best live bands, headlined the Oxegen 2007.
Battles played the biggest festival show of their career at that time in the Pet Sounds Arena during Oxegen 2008. The Prodigy played four new songs at Oxegen 2008 before informing the crowd: "No disrespect to people on the other stages but they are in the wrong place. I'm going to take you back to fucking 1991". Also in 2008, Interpol were sent champagne by U2 as they arrived for rehearsals.
Chad Wolf of Carolina Liar described the band's performance at Oxegen 2009 as an "an out-of-body experience".
Each Oxegen has been defined by the attention focused on its own weather, with The Belfast Telegraph referring to 2005 as "the sunny one", 2006 as "the torrentially rainy one", 2007 as "the muddy one" and 2008 as "the so-so one".
Facilities
As well as the current eight stages of music, there are three large areas for camping which are subdivided by number and the colours blue, red and green - which is the VIP campsite. The backstage and media areas are located in the middle of the site in the buildings normally used to watch the races. Stalls and shops are also provided for festival-goers, as well as toilet and shower areas for campers from 2006 onwards.
A Centra store was located in each campsite from 2007 onwards and An Post first appeared at the festival in 2008. The toilet facilities, which had previously been criticised by some as not being adequate for the large number of people at the festival, were improved in recent years. There is also a funfair adjacent to the arena, featuring a big wheel and other rides, such as the "Magic Carpet", the "Big Drop", and the roller coaster. In 2008, an additional funfair was located in the blue campsite alongside other campsite entertainment such as a circus, silent disco and the Xbox Live Stage. Glass in any form is banned from the festival site and bottle corks, cans and umbrellas are banned from the concert arena.
52 miles of fencing are used across the site. 14 mega watts of power are used to energise Oxegen, with 28,000 miles of cable used to transfer this power. 25,000 litre water tankers are located around the site. Hats and cloaks are regularly seen, whilst wellies are also commonly worn by festival-goers.
2004 Festival
Oxegen 2004 took place at Punchestown Racecourse from 10 – 11 July. The Strokes, The Cure, Basement Jaxx, The Darkness, Faithless, Kings of Leon, PJ Harvey, Wu-Tang Clan, The Libertines, Muse, Massive Attack, Keane, Franz Ferdinand, Chemical Brothers, Belle & Sebastian, Scissor Sisters, Elbow, Electric Six, Ocean Colour Scene, The Complete Stone Roses and Cartoon are some of the bands that played at the 2004 festival which took place over five stages. Orbital played their last ever Irish show at the festival, whilst Black Eyed Peas performed in Ireland for the first time in over two years. The Killers, Republic of Loose and Razorlight were among the bands headlining the New Band Stage. Other Irish acts to appear included Ash, The Divine Comedy, Hothouse Flowers, The Saw Doctors, HAL, Snow Patrol, The Devlins, Simple Kid, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Cathy Davey and Bell X1. David Bowie was due to headline the festival but had to pull out due to illness. Kings of Leon's performance was threatened by an incident at Roskilde the weekend before Oxegen when Nathan Followill injured his wrist but, despite the cancellation of a midweek show in Serbia, the band turned up for Oxegen.
Tickets sold out a week before the event, having gone on sale on Friday March 5 . One-day tickets cost €59.50, two-day tickets were priced at €110.00 whilst a two-day ticket with camping included cost €130.00.
2004 Line-up
The main acts that played the festival were:
* denotes cancelled performance
2005 Festival
Oxegen 2005 took place at Punchestown Racecourse from July 9 -10. Green Day and Foo Fighters headlined. Also appearing were New Order, Ian Brown, James Brown, The Prodigy, Queens of the Stone Age, The Frames, Keane, Feeder, The Killers, Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, The Bravery, Nine Black Alps, The Departure, Razorlight, LCD Soundsystem, Echo & the Bunnymen, The La's and Snoop Dogg. Irish acts to appear included The Revs, The Saw Doctors, Kerbdog, HAL, Bronagh Gallagher, Humanzi, Director and The Blizzards.
2005 Line-up
For full line-up, see Oxegen 2005#2005 Line-up.
The main acts that played the festival were:
2006 Festival
Oxegen 2006 took place at Punchestown Racecourse from July 8 -9. A limited number of tickets for the festival went on sale a week after the 2005 festival on Friday, July 15 . On February 20 , the festival was launched and the first acts were officially announced. Tickets went on general sale on Friday March 3 at 8 a.m., with weekend camping tickets priced at €160. This allocation of tickets sold out within 48 minutes. The festival itself encountered bad weather which eclipsed previous records. There were improvements on the Sunday afternoon with sunny skies and a cool, gentle breeze ensuring a decrease in wet festival-goers.
The Who and Red Hot Chili Peppers headlined the festival, the former performing live in Ireland for the first time in 35 years, the latter for the fourth time in five summers. James Brown made his last ever live performance at an Irish festival and Arctic Monkeys their first festival appearance in Ireland. Also appearing were The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, Placebo, Richard Ashcroft, Primal Scream, Editors, Feeder, The Kooks, Kasabian, Sigur Rós, The
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