Oxegen 2005: You never forget your first (music festival)

From landfill indie to lifelong friendships, a hazy look back on coming of age (presumably) in Punchestown

The second edition of Oxegen took place at Punchestown Racecourse on this day (and tomorrow) 20 years ago - July 9 and 10, 2005. Oxegen had replaced Witnness the year before (do you get the alcohol-related puns? Witnness was sponsored by GuiNNess, Oxegen by HeinekEN), so it’s not the first of its name, and that means it’ll probably slip under the radar in the grand sweep of music nostalgia. Festivals have changed a lot since that summer, but I’m sure the feeling I had getting on the bus from West Cork - a mix of terror, buzz, and not enough socks - is replicated all these years later by teenagers heading to Electric Picnic. So dig out your baggy trousers, warm cans of Tuborg and let’s look back at Oxegen 2005.

OK, OK, with hindsight and experience, I can see the problems with the lineup of Oxegen 2005. It’s a lot of men - a cursory glance at the main stage lineup and there’s no woman to be found apart from Alison Wheeler with the Beautiful South on Sunday afternoon. The second stage, the Green Room, fares better: KT Tunstall, Tara Blaise, Sylvia Saint* on Saturday, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Suzanne Vega, Rilo Kiley (Jenny Lewis was presumably the coolest person at the festival) and Bronagh Gallagher on Sunday. The Ticket Stage: Nada. New Band Stage: The Go Team! might’ve been the only band of 27 featuring women.

(Edit: *It’s been pointed out to me that Sylvia Saint were a sub-grungy guitar band led by Graham Finn (Bass Odyssey, Emperors of Ice Cream) before he headed to New York. They were named after a porn star. So that’s another name chalked off the list of female performers at Oxegen 2005)

And soundwise, Oxegen was overflowing with guitar bands: Green Day and Foo Fighters, off the back of American Idiot and the double album In Your Honor, respectively, were the headliners. Both had played Ireland in the previous 12 months. Green Day headlined the then Point Theatre, now the 3Arena, at the end of January. Foo Fighters had supported Red Hot Chili Peppers at Slane Castle the previous summer; another male-heavy lineup. (I remember queuing up at the gates that morning and people wondering who PJ Harvey and Morcheeba were - this was before you could easily find out things like this on the internet. But we were all familiar with Feeder, Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, and RHCP).

Let’s see what we can find away from the guitars at Oxegen. Snoop Dogg played on Saturday afternoon off the back of ‘Signs’, a collab with Justin Timberlake that was huge, while ‘Drop it Like It’s Hot’ came out the previous September - Snoop was on a roll. The Streets played on Sunday, but had used up all their good ideas on the first two albums. Do Bjorn Again count as an alternative? Because they opened the main stage. James Brown headlined the Green Room on Sunday, returning the following year for his last ever Irish festival appearance (coming out after the Who!).

Of course, I don’t remember all this, but am relying on the very low-quality image that has survived 20 years (I copied the style as best I could for the main image above) and this article listing the acts stage-by-stage. I don’t think I had a camera, so no photographic evidence of my experience at Oxegen 2005 exists. I have a notoriously terrible memory, too, so read ahead with caution.

Oxegen didn’t feature any breakout moments that lingered in the music-loving consciousness a la Arcade Fire at Electric Picnic 2005. EP was also celebrating its second edition that summer, but I don’t think I was cool enough to have even heard about the festival yet. Do I wish I had been there for Arcade Fire’s Irish debut and the singalong for ‘Wake Up’ instead of, er, the Ordinary Boys’ Irish debut? *Presses play on Over the Counter Culture* I dunno guys, ‘Week In Week Out’ slaps and ‘Boys Will be Boys’ was one of the songs of the summer (do I need to make a songs of 2005 playlist? See below).

An aside about Leeds Festival 2004….

Oxegen 2005 wasn’t my first festival. I had somehow, as a just-turned 17-year-old, made it to Leeds Festival in England the previous August. I consumed NME religiously, and while I didn’t understand the ‘Summer of Shrooms’ they were hawking, I drooled over the yellow poster for Reading and Leeds. Twenty-one years on, and the Sunday night main stage lineup is still the best experience I’ve ever had at a festival:

• Franz Ferdinand

• The Libertines (Pete was very much in ‘will he, won’t he’ mode that summer; he didn’t - he had been in jail for robbing Carl Barat’s flat. Reading/Leeds was the same weekend they released their self-titled second album - what a time!)

• Morrissey (the only time I saw him and off the back of his last decent solo album You Are the Quarry - actually there’s a good chance that in summer 2004 I didn’t even know who the Smiths were)

• The White Stripes were a year on from Elephant, and according to Setlist.fm, started with ‘Black Math’ and ended with ‘Seven Nation Army’ among a 25-song set. Holy moly! The only thing I really remember about the gig was the sheer heaving of the crowd, which fell over at one point, and my teenage self thought ‘Am I going to die?’ Thrilling.

OK back to Oxegen

So I wasn’t a festival virgin at Oxegen 2005, but as you can imagine, teenage boys are probably not the best packers. We had a tent, possibly sleeping bags, but who knows what else we brought - or didn’t. Hazy campsite memories:

• Being terrified in a portaloo and my ‘friends’ bashing into it - it was the same feeling I had at the White Stripes the previous summer: Am I going to die?

• The friend of a friend who seemed to be shouting ‘Pills, pills, anyone got any pills!?’ across the campsite all weekend. My innocent self probably thought: He REALLY wants/needs paracetamol.

• Other pals downing cans of Tuborg all weekend, some pouring it into their eyes for reasons only known to teenage boys.

Landfill indie (I love it)

As for the music, it was very much, looking back, landfill indie summer (indie sleaze if you want to be kind) - but hey, I like(d) landfill indie. Nine Black Alps felt like the next big thing (they weren’t) and were one of the first acts I saw that weekend. Biffy Clyro were still in Infinity Land mode and a year or two away from turning shit but getting massive. Kaiser Chiefs, whom I never really liked (‘Modern Way’ is great though), made their Irish debut on the main stage. I was more of a Razorlight fan - they also played Saturday - and thought Johnny Borrell was the second coming of Pete Doherty; a poet for the modern times. Green Day headlined as the sun went down. Walking back to our tents afterwards, we passed by Prodigy - my first, but not last, time bypassing them like that at a festival for whatever reason.

On Sunday, the sun was blazing down and I remember we simply sat far removed from the music during the afternoon. It felt anathema to me then, and still does in 2025: Why would you want to do anything other than watch music at a festival!? We saw Fightstar as the sun beat down. Charlie had only left Busted the previous year and was still struggling for credibility even after releasing debut EP They Liked You Better When You Were Dead earlier in the year. Sunday afternoon under the sun probably wasn’t the best time for Fightstar’s Irish debut. I didn’t predict they’d be an on-again, off-again proposition for the next decade-plus - or that Busted would get back together.

As mentioned, the Ordinary Boys were amazing. In case they’ve been lost to the landfill and you haven’t heard of them, they were indie by numbers but with added brass (woah!) and a brash frontman in Preston, who became tabloid fodder when he entered Celebrity Big Brother in January 2006, losing to Chantelle Houghton (who had entered as a non-celebrity, unknown to the others, and ended up marrying Preston!), and then ended his career, basically, by walking out during a recording of Never Mind the Buzzcocks when host Simon Amstell, er, quoted from Chantelle’s autobiography Ahhh, the noughties….

Jimmy Eat World, Audioslave or The Futureheads?

I was messaging P, who I camped with that weekend and I’m still friends with, to see what memories he had of Oxegen 2005. His replies: “I don't remember ANYONE from the Sunday. Not one. JEW (Jimmy Eat World) were playing and I didn't see them?!” Also: “I've seen Fightstar? This is brand new information.” We had probably skipped Jimmy Eat World for what would turn out to be Audioslave’s only Irish festival appearance. At least I can say I’ve seen Chris Cornell in action. (Unless it was actually the Futureheads who we went to see instead that Sunday afternoon, and if so, that’s a decision I can still stand by now). Looking at the main stage lineup that evening, The Streets, the Killers, Keane and Foo Fighters is pretty decent.

What didn’t I see that weekend? Apparently LCD Soundsystem played on Sunday night. They weren’t even on my radar in 2005 and wouldn’t be for another year or two. I don’t remember anybody talking about them at Oxegen. It would be nice to say I’ve seen James Brown, but I didn’t. Tom Vek is still cool 20 years on from ‘Nothing but Green Lights’ - still never seen him. Ditto Super Furry Animals. Interpol would’ve been cool to see post-Antics, but I’ve just never been that big a fan. Irish acts who played Oxegen 2005 included the Frames, Hal, Saw Doctors, the Revs, Josh Ritter, Kerbdog, Future Kings of Spain, and Director, but as mentioned, NME was my main influence back then so they didn’t really register.

RIP Oxegen

Oxegen 2005, with tickets for the two-day event costing €150, seems quaint compared to what festivals soon became. It got increasingly massive headliners in the following years, such as Beyonce, REM, Eminem, Muse and Coldplay. Plus, the Killers in 2007 and 2009 - Ireland loved them more and earlier than anywhere else. Influencers and advertising tie-ins weren’t yet a thing, even though there was a Bacardi stage back in 2005 (is it an Irish music festival if there ISN’T a Bacardi stage!?), but you knew it was over when they had an onsite Centra in 2007. Oxegen lurched on until 2011, with one final blow-out featuring David Guetta and Calvin Harris in 2013. How times change (Guetta’s next Irish appearance: Longitude 2025, which took place this past weekend in Marlay Park).

When people look back on Oxegen, the 2005 edition probably pales in comparison with some of the other lineups. Look at the reaction to my post about the inaugural Oxegen headlined by the Strokes, the Cure, and David Bowie The Darkness. But it’s one that lives in the hazy part of my music-loving mind. I wouldn’t cross the road to see some of the acts now, but at the time, it felt like I needed to do whatever it took to get to Punchestown on July 8 and 9, 2005.

And some people thought I was cool for having gone. I worked with B and T in a shop that summer. We didn’t know each other but Oxegen was the conversation breaker and we became best pals. And me and B are now married.

So thanks for that, Oxegen…

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Songs of 2005 playlist (good, bad, indie landfill)

As promised, a playlist featuring Oxegen acts and tracks that were inescapable in 2005. You can listen on Tidal (I’ve left Spotify and so should you)

Oxegen acts

• Green Day – Holiday

• Foo Fighters – Best of You

• The Killers – Mr Brightside

• The Ordinary Boys – Boys Will Be Boys

• Razorlight – Golden Touch

• Kaiser Chiefs – Modern Way

• Nine Black Alps – Shot Down

• Biffy Clyro – Glitter and Trauma

• The Bravery – An Honest Mistake

• Bloc Party – Banquet

• The Futureheads – Decent Days and Nights

• Interpol – Evil

• Fightstar – Paint Your Target

• The Streets – Fit But You Know It

• Tom Vek – Nothing But Green Lights

• Rilo Kiley – Portions for Foxes

• The Go! Team – Bottle Rocket

• LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk is Playing at My House

Songs that were everywhere

• Gorillaz – Feel Good Inc

• Rihanna – Pon de Replay

• Gwen Stefani – Hollaback Girl

• Amerie – 1 Thing

• The Pussycat Dolls – Don’t Cha

• Ciara ft. Missy Elliott – 1, 2 Step

• Black Eyed Peas – Don’t Phunk with My Heart

• Snoop Dogg ft. Charlie Wilson & Justin Timberlake – Signs

Indie sleaze

• Franz Ferdinand – Do You Want To

• Beck – E-Pro

• Hard-Fi – Hard to Beat

• Maxïmo Park – Apply Some Pressure

• The Magic Numbers – Love Me Like You

• The Subways – Oh Yeah

• Editors – Blood

• The Cribs – Hey Scenesters

• Art Brut – Formed a Band

• Test Icicles – Circle. Square. Triangle.

• Mylo – Drop the Pressure

• The Rakes - 22 Grand Job