It’s 5.00 pm at a sunny – yes, sunny! – Deer Farm where Indiependence is just minutes from officially kicking off. The going in racing parlance is soft to good, with the site in excellent nick despite yesterday’s heavy rain and no sign of any tornadoes.

It’s all very intimate compared to last night’s ginormo Blur gig, which has somewhat split the Hot Press vote. Our man with the zoom lens, Graham Keogh, thought they were epic while Stuart Clark, who sided with Oasis during the great Britpop war, felt that Damon Albarn aside it was a rather subdued affair. On stage. Off it the huge crowd was a mass of flailing arms, pogoing legs and bellowing voices. If Kilmainham had a roof it would have been blown off when Phil Daniels sauntered on for a ‘Park Life’ so joyous the inflatable banana-waving bloke next to us burst into manly tears. Check the photo action out at our gallery

Back in still sunny Mitchelstown, the Hot Press Hot Spot is primed and ready to go off at 5.30pm when The Fratellis officially open our flaps. As we speak hundreds of goodie bags are being prepared, so make sure to drop by and say ‘howaya’ to Roe McDermott, Roisin Dwyer, Johnny Keegan, Craig Fitzpatrick, Dave Hanratty and the aforementioned Mr. Clark who are all on public interview duties and, most importantly, pick up free stuff.

There are no pies, but we’ve located some cracking wood-fired pizza, Israeli standard falafel and the Molson/Craft Beer Collection tent, which we’ll obviously be far too busy to frequent for much of the weekend. As for the wine bar – nah, we just won’t have the time.

All in all, the atmosphere here is brilliant with a quick round of vox popping suggesting that De La Soul are in for a serious Irish welcome at 11.30 tonight. There are also a lot of We Are Scientists, And So I Watch You From Afar and Funeral For A Friend t-shirts so the hip hop legends won’t be having it all their own way.

Stay tuned for updates!