Breathe Deep..

So the weekend that was Oxegen/witnness. Bloody great. So heres what bands I seen and what I thought..

Saturday morning due to rain I found myself starting in the Green Room.

Stone Ocean: Not a great start, nothing mad new going on there but you had to
give the guys credit for their enthusiasm. A cover of outKasts "Hey Yeah" was
funny if not particularily good. complete with dancing "Babes".

God Is an Astronaut: Really good musicians. All instrumental stuff ( the guys didn't even introduce themselves or the songs.. letting the video wall do it all for em..) The melodys reminded me a little of nine inch nails. However these guys never give you a minute to catch your breath its heavy and loud. Each song is like a dirge built up to a crescendo then ending abruptly. Coupled with the harrowing imagery of holocaust victims and nuclear bombs it was pretty heavy for so early in the morning..

Automata: Discovered these guys last year at witnness. Bloody great. Some of the new songs they seemed to be less quirky than the old material, But thats a small complaint.
Again nice video show going on too.

liquid wheel: only saw a little of these guys while sheltering from the rain again in the Spirit dance arena. I heard these guys way way back in the day. they seem to have evolved a lot. Really nice funky dance music with real instruments and all.

Bell XI: Bloody great. Surreal Adam and eve apple head people walked on stage. Bloody great. If you haven't heard music in mouth, get it now.

The Things: again sheltering from the rain caught the tail end of the performance from these guys. The whole punk thing don't really do it for me. But as punk goes they seemed to be pretty good.

Buck 65: Still sheltering in the new band stage the american guy with a pair of decks comes on and does this crazy rapping thing. Really funny and talented. Does a weird song, rapping over an instrumental version of QOTS "no one knows". First new band find which is a tradition of witnness.

Snow Patrol: Started listening to these guys along the same time as bell XI and both albums have since got equal airplay. Their live show doesn't dissapoint, the guys really seemed to appreciate the crowd and played their hearts out.. however I had to leave early to catch the last half of ..

PJ Harvey: on the main stage, looking pretty damn good and sounding even better. Caught a couple of tracks from the last two albums. not sure if she played any of the older material but what she did play was great. oddly it was easy to get right up into the pit for her show.. bizarre. Reckon i'll go see her properly when she plays the olympia in september.

Orbital: One of the bands I HAD to see this year. they don't dissapoint. Great buzz going on in the packed green room tent. Fantastic version of The box (now with extra beats) and the brilliant "You Lot" from the new album. I went nuts to this. I stupidly left before the encore though in order to catch the

Chemical Brothers: the other band I had to see.. I ended up waiting in the bloody huge queue and even when I got in they hadn't come on stage. They didn't dissapoint when they made it on stage though. Opening up with "hey boy, hey girl" and following up with "Get yourself high" and either some kind of live fill or new material I couldn't tell. unfortunately the atmosphere in there was just thick with sweat and the smell of dope. I couldn't make it up to the front either and had to settle on a bit of dancing space halfways to the stage. And having danced myself into exhaustion I squeezed my way out of there.

Massive Attack: Caught a little of this as I left from the dance stage. hymn of the big wheel was on and it stuck in my head for the rest of the weekend..

The Cure: Caught a little of these too. Friday I'm In Love was great but they didn't seem to be too Lively..

I'll give you a little breathing room here and then post day two...