Gossipnness...

“Other bands are appetisers and dessert. We are the main course of this festival.” Howlin’ Pelle has never been one for false modesty, and this afternoon is no exception. "We love you and God knows you love us,” he yells and, coming after a blistering ‘Main Offender’, there are few dissenters among the Main Stage crowd. The cheeky blighter even stops them mid “ole, ole, ole’ and gets them to sing ‘The Hives, The Hives, The Hives.’

All Mick Jagger pout and Kenneth Williams camp, he’s the first performer of the day to really grab the audience by the scruff of the neck and

demand a response. The Hives may be a one-trick pony but, hey, what a trick.

Not a good start – three-hour traffic from Dublin (in which many of the artists will be stuck), massive queues into the area, followed by the discovery that three of the stages were waterlogged... The 'Up' tent, as fate would have it, is down (it later reopens, after much havoc with onstage times is wreaked, at 6 o'clock). The unbelievable, everpresent mud is a kind of strange sideshow all of its own, and will change character over the course of the weekend: mucky and sodden all afternoon, cakey and as thick as drying concrete by nightfall. We start to see a higher-than-for-normal-festivals number of lost shoes around the site, as well as an abandoned sole, stuck in the mud and pulled away from its upper...

Big rumour of the day: David Bowie is here and lined up to be the special guest... The Bluetones arrived too late to play but still did a manful stint in the Hot Press signing tent... other bands to come a cropper during a confused afternoon: Gemma Hayes, Hundred Reasons and Creative Control – who played their set despite the fact that no-one was allowed in the Dance Tent to see them...

In lieu of any actual bands during those first few hours, the Ash video playing on the overhead screens proved to be the most entertaining thing... And exactly who thought to cheer up the muddy miserable masses with Staind on heavy rotation?... The Oasis spoof was funny at first but is now starting to grate... The Hives proved to be the only men brave enough to

wear white shoes on site...

Those struggling through the mud to see Decal were slightly confused to find themselves faced with the far less electronic Electric Soft Parade. Decal’s whereabouts is still unknown...

Spotted backstage, the bloke who used to play Matthew in ‘Eastenders’, looking like a member of Happy Mondays...

Sandra Bernhard shouting at the audience on the merits of love and then following it with a brusque “sober up arseholes”. Worse was to come when she started to sing...

We came across a quartet of lucky punters who had managed to acquire a Garda escort to the festival by posing as an alt. country outfit from Nashville... rumours abounded that the giant jenga in the Treatment area got a bit tense, with the Phantom FM team beating off the Melaton boys... Glen Hansard proves that he has the festival spirit, assuring the assembled masses that the best way to survive the

weekend is to “engage with the mud”. He then proves his point by jumping from the stage and rolling on the ground. Then he rejoins the rest of The Frames for a rollicking finale - but not before yelling, covered in mud, "ARE YOU FESTIVAL FIT?!"...

Comment on Jimmy Eat World – “the further away you get the nicer they sound”. We thought they were great... Spare a thought for poor Gemma Hayes and her band, who had travelled for 18 hours from Switzerland to play, only to find that their gig had been rained off... Overheard – “Alex can you meet me in the production office with the Wellingtons”... The Bluetones succinctly describe the aftermath of turning

up too late as feeling “like spare pricks at a wedding”... Lovely and well proportioned as it is, Stuart Clark would’ve preferred it if one of The Parkinsons hadn’t shown him his todger. And bitten his head off for mentioning The Hives! As for their hastily rearranged TV Tent set, the

Anglo-Portuguese quartet seriously rocked. Imagine an even more balls to the wall D4 and you’ll have some idea of the Dead Boys-y racket they make...

Never mind shit, the grin on Mundy’s face was positively sewage farm eating after a couple of hundred punters turned up for his Hot Press/Tower Records Signing Tent stint. Also getting pen-handed were Wilt, Turn, Josh Ritter

and, well, you’ll see the pictures on Thursday in Hot Press... The Frames are about to play an acoustic set in the TV tent. We’re not worthy... Never knew Robbie Keane was a Prodigy fan! Keano is currently relaxing in the VIP Bar but is promising to check out Keith Flint’s mob...

Why are Green Day’s brass section dressed up as chickens? The jury is split but Phil Udell

reckons their “ole, ole, ole” is better than The Hives’. Clarky disagrees. Vehemently. Fight! Fight! Fight!... Was that The Revs driving down the emergency lane with a fake police siren blaring away? Probably was given that they covered Dublin to Fairyhouse in just 40 minutes. The rest of us have been averaging three bleedin’ hours...

How come a leading Dublin pirate radio station and champion of new Irish talent found its media access withdrawn at the last minute?...

Ian Brown arrived on stage wearing a weird

shirt like affair fashioned from the tricolour, the old crowd pleaser... While the masses dealt with the mud, the lucky few in the Treatment area reclined in an Arabic style opium den being entertained by dark eyed belly dancers gyrating to ‘Get Yr Freak On’... Green Day gave it large on the pyrotechnics, as well as a cover of Lulu’s ‘Shout’ and a Billy Bragg style version of ‘Time Of Your Life’... Nice to see some

decent vegetarian food here for the first time...

Phil Udell, with additional reporting by Stuart Clark, Peter Murphy, Hannah Hamilton and Kim Porcelli