Rain on Artane as Oxegen starts

The Artane Band opened Oxegen '09 just as the rain began to fall.

The band played Europe's The Final Countdownon the main stage in front of the first of the festival revellers. They dueted with Dublin band The Brilliant Things who invited them to participate.

A total of 35,000 fans arrived on site last night, and the same number will travel today. Volumes of traffic are heavy around the campsite area and both car parks are now full. Motorists have been asked to use the park-and-ride at Goffs on the M7.

Bus journey times from Dublin to Punchestown Racecourse are taking 105 minutes at present.

The Script, who are third on the bill for the main stage this evening, announced a series of Irish dates later this year and also announced that they will be playing support to former Beatle Paul McCartney at the reopening of Shea Stadium in New York next week.

The Script will also be supporting Take That and U2 this year. Lead singer Danny O'Donoghue said: “He (McCartney) is the greatest songwriter, there is no probably about it. Just to get to play on the same stage as him is just amazing. He not only influenced me growing up, but he's influenced others that influenced me.”

The Script have gone from the New Bands Stage last year to the main stage in the space of a year following the success of their self-titled debut album.

“I say to people in the new bands tent keep going, keep going. We have and we're living the dream,” said guitarist Mark Sheehan.

Northern Ireland band The Answer make a return to Punchestown just two weeks after opening for AC/DC at the same venue.

“I'm sick of playing Punchestown,” joked lead singer Cormac Neeson. “It was lashing rain then and it's lashing rain now. We're starting to get used to it.

“It did rain the whole gig, but you can't keep a good AC/DC crowd down.

“I like the festival audience. There are people there from all kinds of backgrounds. Generally speaking, people are open-minded and want to enjoy a good band.”

Gardaí made 12 arrests last night for public order and drugs offences, but said it was nothing out of the ordinary for a major festival.

There are now 60,000 campers at the Oxygen Festival in Punchestown, gardaí said.

The security bill for the festival will be €2 million, of which €750,000 will be for the gardaí. Day tickets are still available for tomorrow and Sunday.