Favourite Oxegen Moments

The Mighty Stef
"It was the time one of my favourite bands played: The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. They’re from Brighton in the UK. I’d met them at a previous gig of theirs and they put me on the guestlist for Oxegen. They were all mad into Buddhism, and before the gig they were doing their Buddhist chants and all that kinda craic. By the end of the night, they were on the campsite with us hitting the gargle. Then they started eating ham sandwiches – and they were all supposed to be vegetarians! We saw them going from being really professional about what they do to becoming crazy party animals. They were running around the campsite singing Billy Joel songs. It was mental — plus their performance was unbelievable. That Oxegen was my favourite, but some other ones have stuck out."

The Mighty Stef plays the IMRO New Sounds Stage on Friday July 10

Conor, Villagers
"Back when it was still called Witnness, I wandered into a tent and saw And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead... I had never previously heard of them. I remember thinking they were the coolest band I had ever seen and wanting to buy all of their records straight away. Dave Fanning actually recorded their performance. I heard it on his programme a couple of months later. You could see there was a sort of belief in the songs they had written."

Villagers play the IMRO New Sounds Stage on Sunday July 12

Michael, Director
“This is maybe slightly sad but the first time we did Oxegen, Snoop Doggy Dogg was playing and it was pretty amazing. Later backstage, I saw him walking around surrounded by four massive heavies and I got up the courage to say ‘Good show, Snoop’ and he looked at me – the fact that Snoop Dogg looked at me and gave me a nod made my entire weekend! It was a great experience. We were in a small tent and we were afraid that nobody would turn up. We were still pretty young and this was a big step up for us. Fear was probably the overriding emotion that day. We started playing and the tent was completely empty and we could hear the sound bouncing back at us from back. But it gradually filled, and in the end we got quite a good crowd. We had never played a festival before, so it was really cool to get backstage and see all the bands.”

Director plays the IMRO New Sounds Stage on Saturday July 11

Owen, General Fiasco
"we played last year and it was an amazing experience. We got booked late, maybe in the last three weeks leading up to the festival. Better yet, there was a band who couldn’t do their slot because they had to catch a ferry so we got bumped to second highest on the bill. The timing was great, too. R.E.M.’s set had finished five minutes after ours started, The Zutons wrapped up 10 minutes in, as did The Charlatans – there wasn’t much going on at the main stages, and we drew a huge crowd. It’s definitely one of the best gigs we’ve done. There was a great atmosphere, and everyone was completely buzzing off it, which really added to the whole experience."

General Fiasco play the IMRO New Sounds Stage on Saturday July 11

David Kitt
"It has to be the year that The White Stripes pulled out and we got asked at the last minute to fill The Flaming Lips' slot on the second stage. The Redneck Manifesto were playing at the same time and Mattie and Ritchie were playing in my band as well. So I ended up having to put together this last minute line-up. We played to a full tent – so it was pretty special. It was a joyous gig, one of those ones where everyone’s singing along. I was surprised that so many people knew the words to my songs. Sometimes you know from the first chord that it’s going to be a good gig. When you’re doing a headline slot, you feel a certain responsibility to put on a show. The crowd really helped me to do that, they really played their part and lifted the whole atmosphere."

David Kitt plays the IMRO New Sounds Stage on Friday July 10

Wallis Bird
"My favourite Oxegen moment was in 2004. I don’t know if I should be saying this, but I snuck in. I’m not condoning it, but I had a day ticket and I wanted to stay for the weekend and my friends told me that I could stay in their tent. So I was over at the porterloos trying to suss out what to do and I saw this blue plastic bag floating around. So I picked it up, cut a piece off it and wrapped it around my wrist. I pretended it was my wristband and got in for the weekend. I remember PJ Harvey was amazing. I was quite near the front, she was wearing a yellow dress. Whoever was the sound engineer that day did a phenomenal job. They made her sound like a stadium sized band. She threw herself around the place, she really used the whole the stage, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Loads of kids were going ‘Who’s this girl? She’s pretty cool’. She was unbelievable."

Wallis Bird plays Hot Press New Band Stage on Sunday July 12