Sometimes it can be hard to bear Witnness. With glacially-slow tailbacks on the road to Fairyhouse, time and distance lose all meaning. A perceptual problem, you see, because this is not a festival, this is a megafestival. Five stages host some of the biggest names (and a couple of the best), usually simultaneously.
Japanese act Cornelius are in full angular swing in the Witnness Rising tent, performing aqua-organic-dance number Drop in monochrome suits that seem to lampoon The Hives's dandy trademark. Surprisingly acoustic, their guitars strum in clipped loops while disenchanted vocal harmonies waft around.
Other venues have names like broken promises. Café Rising, where The Turps begin with Something Wild, does not sell coffee; there are no glitterati and no jitterati, just a mud-pitterati.
The soft squelching earth has presented a problem to the dance crowd, who attempt to pogo to DJ Junkie XL's 4/4 bass thump, but only sink deeper into the sludge.
On the Mainstage, the deliriously wonderful Hives are in flying ironic-punk form. Surely sweltering in his black suit under the sunshine, Howlin' Pelle Almqvist's modesty remains unaffected - he still doesn't have any. "We are the main course," he says of their place on the festival bill. "Everything else is just appetiser and dessert." The Hives may not be funny in a year's time, but for now Die, Alright, Main Offender and the ludicrously catchy Supply and Demand don't dispute their menu explanation
As first dessert, The Frames are sweet but cloying. God Bless Mom is stirring, but Glen Hansard's wide-eyed adoration becomes a bit wearisome - a Nirvana cover, She Said, is for Dave Grohl, an ensuing dedication for Sonic Youth.
Wilt may not be the best band here, but for the moment they are the loudest. Mocking The Hives, however, they are not on solid ground (no one mocks The Hives better than The Hives). Even less solid were the Upstage grounds, now a yielding marshland wittily covered with straw and tyre tracks.
The Beta Band should be headlining the whole festival. What's more, Steve Mason, of the beguilingly eclectic Scottish group, clearly enjoys his Rising set, although their ice-white science-lab ensemble suggest they've been airlifted to the stage. Lush, creamy grooves yield to random jungle noises and feverish percussion workshops - the whole quartet rushing giddyingly from bongos to dual drum kits and from "looped" verses to French rap on a blissful The House Song.
Gag-metal stalwarts The Warlords of Pez do their joke-core routine at Café Rising. Meanwhile, mud-slinging becomes a terrifying crowd pastime during Green Day's monotonous set.
Sonic Youth, however, are travelling to strange new places on the ever more interesting Rising stage. Thurston Moore describes their new offerings as "noise opera". The Empty Page and Disconnection Notice might seem hit and miss, but they are shimmering gems of guitar soundscapes.
Mercury Rev are instantly captivating with shrill vocals, dreamy melodies and frequently abrasive rhythms. They finish with a stirringly beautiful The Dark is Rising while headliners Prodigy take the Mainstage.
Prodigy are a dance act fronted by two scary clowns. Liam Howlett, the brains of the operation, is far more interesting to watch mauling his keyboards than a paunchy Keith Flint drooling down his chin or a stroppy, skirt-wearing Maxim Reality. Thorax-rattling bass lines and ferocious beats rip through Breathe, Firestarter and the new growling single, Baby's Got a Temper.
The second day of Witnness will be reviewed in tomorrow's Arts page
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