Festivities-Murakamian Summer Part 2.

I think one of the forefronts of poking my blowhole out of the sea of time-wasting that is this long summer, is the UK festival circuit. Since going to my first festival five years ago, I've always tried to expand on the experience-if simply going to more events and staying there longer. This was immortalised-for me anyway- at last year's Oxegen Festival. Oxegen is essentially a condensed version of Glastonbury for those who live outside of it's reach. It's hosted in a Horseracing course some miles outside of Dublin and with eccentric dignity includes both Top of The Pops bullshit, great obscure acts and some truly headline stealing er, headliners.

The thing about Oxegen however, is the atmosphere. I don't know if it's a product of my endeavoring to live on the campsite for four nights-or something less specific about the people themselves. Whatever it is, despite the fact that literally 85% of the 75,000 masses are intoxicated, their complete fascination and enamor with the event in and of itself is incredibly infectious.  So, what happens is after spending 24 hours at Oxegen is the world outside the site ceases to exist and you are magnetised into this little realm. Call it a cliche but I call it jumping in with both feet. The conditions are pretty fucking dire as are the number of approachable drunk people and somehow, a way in which all my knowledge can't fully explain this is what makes it immersive. The only way I can explain it is by remembering that at the point you are standing in 10.C weather in the middle of July, in one of the most marginal countries in the world, listening to acts that have changed the face of cultural purveyance, you just shrug it off and dive in.

This enclosure is stronger than any other...daytrip I've embarked yet interestingly, it is a feeling of mindless self indulgence rather than any kind of imprisonment. As alluded to, I'm spending alot of this Murakamian summer abroad, perhaps it shall bring some further speculation. I depart for Oxegen Festival 2011 in approximately two weeks. I'm going to sit inside my home and head until then I suppose.