How Was Your Witnness?

Mr. Fancypants

Bands That I Saw :

Saturday

Echo And The Bunnymen
Bit of The Revs
10 Speed Racer
Death In Vegas/The Coral
Badly Drawn Boy
Turin Brakes
The Rapture
The Streets/Damien Rice

Sunday

The Walls/The Stunning
The Jimmy Cake
Cardigans
Jimmy Cake
Calexico
SFA
I Am Kloot
Beth Gibbons/The Frames
Flaming Lips
Polyphonic Spree


Highlights
The Sun!
The Flaming Lips were magic, still have a smile on my face thinking about the Fibre Optic Jesus and Seven Nation Army
The Rapture really impressed me, will be purchasing a cd later today. They played with so many styles of music and the singer has a fantastic voice.
Damien Rice's version of Creep.
The Jimmy Cake and Calexico were superb in the Rising Tent.
The Stunning reforming on the main stage brought out a great atmosphere from the crowd.
It was reasonably well organised!
The cars getting caught by the police for using the hard shoulder on the N7!
That noone was killed by any bottlecaps, thank god security were there to cut that one off at the pass.



The Lowlights
The Sunburn!
I missed The Roots cos i heard they cancelled!! They were just horribly late. Was building my Saturday around them
Badly Drawn Boy playing solo on the main stage, should of brought his band.
€8 for a schedule of events???
No information of cancellations/lateness passed down. Why dont they have information points with updated schedules etc Har Mar Superstar cancelled (I think) and the Roots were late, not a word was said. In fact the only time that the White Stripes not playing was announced was when The Flaming Lips said so!

All in all, i had great fun. Sunday being a much better day for me personaly. But what about yourselves? How was your Witnness?

Chevano Riley

i only went on sunday.

i was massively looking forward to beth gibbons, and she didnt dissapoint me. but i don't know how she managed a set on the dance stage with getting hit by a few shoes, bottles etc. they were baying for her blood. she was great. i didnt spend much time at the main stage, cept for cardigans (who played all their new folky bollox and not even one song from their masterpiece, First Band On The Moon. Manic's were classy. I also watched flaming lips from a distance, and was quite amused, in a good way. The Mars Volta=good.

haha. the bottletop inspectors were ridiculous, considering that there was nothing but rocks all over the ground, everywhere.

super_furry

I pretty much agree with all of the above. The Flaming Lips were stunningly brilliant and for me stole the not just the show but the entire weekend. Polyphonic Spree, Manics, Mull Historical, The Thrills and SFA were all great too, while Coldplay just left me bored.

Chevano Riley

Originally posted by super_furry
I pretty much agree with all of the above. The Flaming Lips were stunningly brilliant and for me stole the not just the show but the entire weekend. Polyphonic Spree, Manics, Mull Historical, The Thrills and SFA were all great too, while Coldplay just left me bored.

I was bored some night and went to Mull Historical Society in TBMC, coz i heard good thing bout em, and was so underwhelmed i didnt leave the bar. eugh. dull, dull, dull.

Mr. Fancypants

Originally posted by Chevano Riley
i only went on sunday.

i was massively looking forward to beth gibbons, and she didnt dissapoint me. but i don't know how she managed a set on the dance stage with getting hit by a few shoes, bottles etc. they were baying for her blood. she was great

haha. the bottletop inspectors were ridiculous, considering that there was nothing but rocks all over the ground, everywhere.

Scary atmosphere at that Beth Gibbons gig, did think the dance heads were going to start throwing things too. The sound didnt seem right for it tho', seemed to be bouncing around and was very bass heavy.

The bottlecap thing amazed me, i ended up bringing a heap of bottlecaps in my pockets the second day to hand out. I could of had a couple of firearms and a kilo of cocaine in my bag and all the security would of done would be to take away the bottlecap from my bottle of water!

comet

Yep, enjoyed it, thought it was going to really start pouring down last night, but the rain just about held off.
The Flaming Lips were absolute class. Unfortunately didn't make the Polyphonic Spree as planned, were they good?
David Gray was very enjoyable apart from the usual drunk/stoned knobheads firing stuff at him and really pissing him off.
Fools, please stay at home next year.

Ro: maaan!

Did anyone see 80's Matchbox B-Line Disaster? I heard one of their songs ages ago, but never heard anything else about them. They turned out to be really good.... I thought. And The Mars Volta right after them were pretty good too. I thought the second day was far better than the first. The only good thing I can remember about the first were Ok Go.

Spacedog

Only went on the Sunday and didn't get there for ages because the bus driver didn't know where he was going and drove to Killcullen on the M50 before he realised. (I didn't say anything because I assumed he was bringing us to a bigger secret party or something.) anyway, SFA kicked ass, (I nearly caught the carrot after recepticle buy the guy beside outjumped me, boegy.) The frames also were deadly also and I caught the end of Flint in the rising tent, who was pre' good too. Trickey wasn't what I expected (he's a dance metaler now, unknown to me) but was still deadly, then caught the Manics, good show, they played GnR's So Easy well along with the old faves, all in all good day, legs sore from all the standing though, can't remember ever standing for soooooo long, getting old methinks

Chevano Riley

Originally posted by comet

David Gray was very enjoyable apart from the usual drunk/stoned knobheads firing stuff at him and really pissing him off.
Fools, please stay at home next year.

if i wasnt too busy watching manics great performance i wouldve gone over to the main stage to throw whatever i could at the dull ****er.

Chevano Riley

Originally posted by mbroaders
Scary atmosphere at that Beth Gibbons gig, did think the dance heads were going to start throwing things too. The sound didnt seem right for it tho', seemed to be bouncing around and was very bass heavy.

i remember the sound was bad for one song, though i've forgotten which. on a side note her cover of Candy Says was pretty crap, but i love her anyway.

comet

if i wasnt too busy watching manics great performance i wouldve gone over to the main stage to throw whatever i could at the dull ****er.

Yeah its too easy to say that. I'd never seen him before and wouldn't be his biggest fan but he rocked, some of the songs came across almost as dance the beat was mental and people were in a dancing frenzy, it was far from being boring i can tell you.
Have you seen him live or are you just prejudgemental know-it-all?

Chevano Riley

Originally posted by comet
prejudgemental know-it-all

GuanYin

The highlights of the weekend for me were (in order):

The Flaming Lips
The Frames
Gemma Hayes
The Thrills
The Polyphonic Spree
Relish
David Kitt
Supergrass
Damian Rice
The Jimmycake

I was initially abit put off by the lack of international artists but in retrospect I'm glad it was such an irish-music dominated festival. Some people really rose to the occasion on the big stage (David Kitt, Gemma Hayes).

The sun helped make it a really really good festival and the camping was pretty well organised (and surprisingly clean)!

Some gripes.

Everything bar the beer was room termperature at best. And then they wonder why people were dehydrated?

The prices!
Jesus 7 Euros for a burger! 5 Euro for a Beer?
Its half that at festivals on the continent.

The toilets (yeah I know, but...) what a health disaster waiting to happen.

Giblet

What the hell was Badly drawn boy doing on the main stage, jesus I see he is still making cock ups and generally being sh*t.
The Datsuns were good.
Went to see The Coral but The Roots were on, bit pissed off at that.
Ah yes free food all weekend

comet

Jesus 7 Euros for a burger! 5 Euro for a Beer?

Yeah prices were absolute robbery alright, considering Guinness sponsor the event you've got to wonder how they can charge 5 euro for a pint, if anything you might expect it to be cheaper than normal.
8 euro for a program, of course thats just stupid, anyone on boards.ie should have printed off bambams excel spreadsheet program which was far superior and free.

conZ

Saturday :
Coldplay - fnckin rawked! chris martin was amazing.
Damien Rice - Not as good as he was when i saw him last year in Galway. The Creep ending was mad though. Amazing how he managed to break the same string twice. Though, that Nina Simone cover - Be my husband was sweet.
Sugarbabes - Watched them for a while, bored ****lees at the time. The sucked. Couldnt get the crowd going, they even stopped in the middle of that new song (name) to get the crowd to sing stupid parts in some rap. Pure ****e.
Mundy - He rocked. nuff said.
The Thrills - Fnckin brilliant! The Rising tent was packed for them. They really got the crowd going withOne horse town & big sur. It was worth the pushing and shoving. Think they mentioned the new album was coming out in Summer 2004.
The Coral - Watched them for a bit,. Got the feeling most people didnt know their stuff, only the big ones.

Would have liked to have seen Gemma Hayes (heard she was brilliant, but she clashed with Damien Rice), Badly Drawn Boy

Sunday :
The Frames - They rocked. They seemed to have the same gig as on 'Set List' but Glen Hasnard really got the crowd going.
David Kitt - He was wicked. Filled the rising tent. Played a few of his new songs too.
The Music - Heard one or two songs from a distance (inc. Take the long road). Taught they were fearly good, to my amazement (i taught they wouldnt be great in concert. Seen them live on MTV or somewhere, and they didnt look too promising)
Bell X1 - They were fairly good. Played a few Juniper songs too I think.

Looking back on it now, what was I doing on sunday ?! WOuld have liked to have seen the Manics (chose David Kitt. Kind of regretting it now ;/ ), Polyphonic Spree (had to go back to the tent to get drink, and wasnt bothered walking back)


Overall, brilliant weekend. Best acts were Coldplay and The Frames. Brilliant weather (had no cream on Saturday, got burnt around the neck - Went to the medical tent on Sunday for it, the cloudy day but it was still fairly hot) Sunday evening there was light drizzle and lightning in the distance.

Food there was crud, and overpriced. Breakfast rolls were pure spam, Rolls in general were undercooked. Best meal i had all weekend was probably the noodles from that chinese place near rising (€5 for a nice bowl of them - best price on the site). They beat the hell out of the hot chicken rolls.

What was that with the bottle caps alright, I couldnt make it out. Snuk a decent amount of cans into the concerts, i r teh innocent. Only went into the portoloo once during the weekend, wasnt too bad. Thank god there were urinals, at least they were open air, smell wasnt too bad. The person before me must have flushed after they covered the place is piss.

Got a grand witnness t-shirt on the way out this morning for a fiver. - How much were they during the weekend?

Vodafone brought in an antenna for increased mobile coverage too, which was nice. The only times they didnt work was when you were in the centre of a concert.
At eminem last week in punchestown, there was no coverage.

Some skangers air rocketed my (not mine - but im responsible for it) tent, leaving a huge mofo'n hole in the porch bit. The three of us had just left our tent to go drinking at like 1am, and had an arguement about where to go so we returned to the tent (only 20feet away from where we stopped for about 1 minute) and the security guards were looking in the tent, shaking it about.

Luckily the girls next door to us, put the flames out with drink .
****in security guards didnt even tell us what happened, until they returned back like an hour later.
Luckily I brought a lock for the tent, I set it up, and just as we went inside, a load of skangers set up beside us . Knobs sat in a circle outside their tents all day, drinking dutch gold and running around naked for the weekend. Retards, you'd think they would have just stayed at home.

<sarcasm> Although, It was nice to see the security and Guards out in force </sarcasm>

Oh yea. Meant to ask this before I went, Why wasnt Damien Dempsey there? Think i remember seeing him on the bill at the start.

dregin

Bottle Caps:
Once a bottle cap goes down your throat it won't be coming back up and it wont go the whole way down. In otherwards unless your within reach of someone with first aid experience, your dead. Pretty dumb that none of the security ever tell anyone this. Cud save some hassle.

Berkeley rocked socks. Tommy and Eugene looked well oiled. Tommy crowd surfing at the end the whole way to the back of the tent was quite impressive too:)

Dregin

ella minnow pea

just went saturday, fuppin brilliant
didnt think id like coldplay but they were excellent, everything's not lost was amazing, then breaking into shining light!
damien rice is god, never seen him before, lisa was v good too
july by mundy was also v v good
didnt get to see half the bands i wanted to eg. thrills or the streets, but on the plus side i was 3 ppl from the front for damo and coldplay

Greenbean

Pretty damn good. Went on saturday, good weather, got beer into it, so not really ripped off, nice and relaxed music mostly.

Highlights, Lemon Jelly, Coldplay pretty decent, The Streets (what I heard) good, Turin Brakes excellent, Nightmares on Wax good, Gemma Hayes pretty good. But more than anything Royksopp were absolutely fan-bloody-****ing-tastic. Thankfully they were very very late getting started, so much so they were only 15 mins into the set when coldplay was over, so I could drag all the friends up. After going nuts to Royksopp they apologised profusely - best high of the weekend, whole crowd was going bannana's, best cheers all saturday and much better than I expected.

monument

I'll start with the bad stuff, which in the end was out done the the goo

[****tnness....]
SUNBURN!!!! When not drinking the over priced black stuff drinking the right amount of water which led to needing to.. a lot! First aid been out of after sun. No shower for the weekend. Walking into Naas today.

[Non Musical Highlights....]
Buckfast, Pringles, Guinness, Noodles, Getting a lifts in and out of Naas both days, Little rain, watching barrier jumping and some other stuff

[Musical Highlights....]
*TWO MANY* including… The Flaming Lips, Gemma Hayes, Polyphonic Spree, The Frames, Turn, The Walls/Stunning


[Musical Surprises…]
How good Turin Brakes were live, How Badly Drawn Boy wasn’t bad live.

[Sat....]
Royksopp
Gemma Hayes
Mogwai
Turin Brakes
The Thrills*
Badly Drawn Boy
Turn
Mull Historical Society*
Mundy*
Ten Speed Racer
Relish
The Revs*
Rubyhorse
Echo & The Bunnymen*

[Sat......... ]
Manic Street Preachers
David Gray* (two songs in the middle of the Manics set)
Polyphonic Spree
The Flaming Lips
The Frames
Super Furry Animals
Paddy Casey*
The Cardigans*^
The Walls/Stunning
The Futureheads
Jerry Fish & The Mudbug Club*^

*^ = Bit of, From far away.
* = Bit of.
^ = From far away.

razorfeather

Originally posted by Chevano Riley
The Mars Volta=good.

they were INSANE! ****ing brilliant.

Unknown

I went on the Sunday and, being the first time at Witnness, or any festival for that matter, I was impressed. The weather was excellent, everything seemed to be in order, and I saw some great bands including;

The Futureheads*
In Me^ (crappy band, great scream)
Bell X1*
Snow Patrol*
Calexico*
The Warlocks*
Ladytron*
Kings of Leon*
The Flaming Lips^
The Datsuns*
The Polyphonic Spree^
The Mars Volta*

* = full or near-full set
^ = bands I watched for ten to twenty minutes

BEST PERFORMANCE:
The Mars Volta (RUNNER-UP: Calexico)
No doubt about it. They were incredible, their music and the band being so unpredictable. (Cedric Bixler would throw his mike in the air and, in a few seconds of suspense, grasp it in its fall). Sometimes, the band would unleash an amazing solo that fused styles like psychedelia, jazz, and metal. And it would all be done so fast, so fast that it would stun you. Unfortunetly, their set was cut short for unknown reasons, but hopefully we'll see them play a headlining show on these shores soon. One to look out for methinks.

WORST PERFORMANCE:
Har Mar Superstar
Man, I thought he was supposed to be good - it was essentially an aging porn star dancing to a backing track. Funky not.

BIGGEST DISAPOINTMENT:
The Flaming Lips (RUNNER-UP: The White Stripes cancelling)
This was definetly my low of the day. I was hoping for the band to complete the day in the intimate (by comparison) Rising tent. Unfortunetly, things were changed and so were my hopes. The atmosphere was like a football match, and I could barely see the band because large balloons distracted me.

It was a good make-up for the loss of The White Stripes, but did it have to be The Flaming Lips? I just wanted to see them play music. People seemed to be more interested in the stage show than the music itself (Michael Ivins and Steven Drozd were really tucked away behind Wayne Coyne). After "Race for the Prize" and "Fight Test" I left. When Wayne said "he'd play (in Ireland) a hundred more times", it gave me relief, but don't play the Witnness festival.

BEST MOMENT OF THE DAY:
Kings of Leon performing "Red Morning Light"
Its amazing how big this band has gotten over the last couple of weeks - their debut album was just released two weeks ago. Yet, when they played their first single "Red Morning Light" in the packed On Stage tent, the crowd went wild, and the song immeadiatly became an anthem.

BEST LINE OF THE DAY:
Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon
CALEB: "They asked us to cancel the show today cause were feeling pretty sick" (points to throat)
(crowd sighs in sympathy)
CALEB: "Well I said f*** 'em"
(crowd cheers)

WISH I HAD'NT MISSED...
Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man
Unfortunetly clashed with Kings of Leon.

GOOD BAND NOBODY SAW
The Futureheads
The new wave of new wave.

All in all, the day went off without a hitch (except Har Mar Superstar switching with The Warlocks, although that was great cause I got to see Calexico). My hope for next year is more international talent, a proper headliner (than David Gray) and, obviously, good weather.

comet

BIGGEST DISAPOINTMENT: The Flaming Lips

Yeah sure they put on a show thats what festivals are all about. Its not an intimate gig and thats why some bands are crap at big events like this cos they don't raise the bar, they don't raise their performance to carry a big crowd. I thought, like like most people, that they were one of the highlights of Witnness 2003.

Emboss

hearing alot of good things about "The Music" from people who seen them, haven't noticed many people on boards that seen them tho ???

anyone see them ?

Civilian_Target

Went for the weekend, arriving Friday night. The campsite was really good friday night but it was absolutely freezing though, and by 4am I just went to bed, in all my clothes, because it was so cold. Saturday was good, but not excellent. Saturday night was surprisingly quiet, after a day of jumping , and with well-blistered face and some sunstroke, I went to sleep at 3 and when I woke it was noon! Sunday, however, was the best concert I've ever been to.

BEST PERFORMANCE:
The Mars Volta (RUNNER-UP: Manics)
I was expecting a lot from what used to be At The Drive In, and I wasn't disappointed. The small crowd at the stage were so well up for it, and when they came on, they looked well-psyched and played a brilliant set, which was sadly short, probably because Cedric's mike didn't seem to be working (you could barely hear him and he looked really pissed off). The bass solo was excellent. Manics were pretty fecking good too, a set of classics, with a suitable amount of old stuff. While the crowd didn't go so well, I was enjoying it too much to care. Other notable performances were Datsuns (sorry for the guy out there who still has casio imprinted on his head after that moshing, I forgot, I'm sorry), the Cardigans, Mogwai (the techincial difficulties but a damper on the crowd, but they were excellent), The Saw Doctors (a genuine surprise), 10 Speed Racer (always a treat), Gemma Hayes and Paddy Casey

WORST PERFORMANCE:
Bell X1
Painful. I had to leave after 3 or 4 tracks, they were just ****, I'd never heard them before and I never want to.

BIGGEST DISAPOINTMENT:
Beth Orton (RUNNER-UP: Super Furry Animals)
I'd heard a lot of good things about Beth, but she was disappointing, she played waht sounded like bland Alanis Moirsette tracks, and kept apologising to the crowd. Just not what I wanted after the excellent performance from the Saw Doctors.

From what I heard of the Super Furrys, I knew I didn't want to hear any more, they were disappointingly impersonal, sadly.

BEST MOMENT OF THE DAY:
Manics crack out Die In The Summertime
While no one else bounced, or even seemed to have heard this track, I loved it. One of my favorite manics tracks, rendered live excellently. A close runner-up was the Saw Doctors very short cover of 7 Nation Army.

BEST LINE OF THE DAY:
Paddy Casey
"I'd love to do a proper set, but I'm a small man and I only get to do a small set. But if anyone wants to build a house...."

Mr. Fancypants

Bloody hell, so the Sawdoctrs covered Seven Nation Army as well? So, thats the Sawdoctors, The Flaming Lips and The Roots all doing versions of that tune. Any others?

monument

Originally posted by Unknown
BIGGEST DISAPOINTMENT:
The Flaming Lips B]

As well as what Comet said; performances, visuals and music have been used together for a long time. If all you want is interrupted music the best thing is to go out and buy albums and listen to them on a stereo. The performance and visuals are there to add to the music. Festivals should be about good music and fun.

The Flaming Lips were a hightlight for me as well.

GuanYin

Yeah, I think the whole live band experience is Cause and Effect.

If the band get the crowd going then the performance is much more enjoyable, but the crowd will only really "get going" if the band perform well.

The crowd didn't get much more going than for the flaming lips.

I thought that with the frames following that they would have been the best atmosphere of the weekend, but the flaming lips (or the flaming stripes) really walked away with that title.

Mr. Fancypants

While i was watching the Flaming Lips I kept on thinking... David Gray is going to be on next?? How on earth can you follow that? But David Gray?? He must be ****tin in his pants.

Another slight negative for the set up was how close some of tents were together. There was noticable noise from the dance area onto the Upstage and some of quieter acts on the onstage were almost blown away from the acts on the main stage. Hope they sort that out next year.

monument

Originally posted by mbroaders
Another slight negative for the set up was how close some of tents were together. There was noticable noise from the dance area onto the Upstage and some of quieter acts on the onstage were almost blown away from the acts on the main stage. Hope they sort that out next year. [/B]

I think I was only in the onstage tent a two or three times, but the same thing was happing in the Rising tent

Big Chief

my witnness was absoloutley fantastic thanks

think i slept about 5 hours from friday --> monday, although did sleep for about 20+ hours yesterday when i got back.

Am burned to a crisp though, getting blisters coming out and starting to peel now, still alooot of pain going on.

I was in B3 at the crossroads to the left.

Highlight for me was us sitting there at our tents on sunday morning/afternoon, with the big tarp in the middle, my brother getting out his guitar and were sitting there with about 5 people, i put my head down in the tent to get away from the sun and popped back up and we now had about 20 odd people just sitting there singing along and having a great laugh.

Heres looking forward to next music festival

did have pics uploaded but webspace appears to be down so never mind for justnow