YOU HAVE to feel a mite sorry for those poor acts billed to perform at Oxegen at the same time as Beyonce was onstage. When it comes to pulling an audience, she was this year’s Oxegen queenpin.
Everyone, it seems, is here to see her as the biggest crowd of the weekend gather at the main stage.
She and her all-female band don’t put a foot wrong, despite the considerable handicap of sporting vertiginous heels.
Her set is primed with hits, full of fantastic, familiar tunes capable of turning a big field in Co Kildare into a bouncy disco.
Indeed, it's like the tracklisting for a prospective Greatest Hits album: Crazy In Love, Single Ladies, Halo, Irreplaceable, Baby Boyand a string of tunes from the Destiny's Child back-catalogue.
Beyonce herself is quickly becoming an old pro at this game of playing gigs in a big field. The only time a look of confusion comes over her face is when the field start chanting “Ole Ole Ole” at her.
Overall, though, it was a weird year for Oxegen. The Co Kildare festival has become one of the summer set-pieces in the last few years, a ritual up there with the Leaving Cert exams and the Munster Hurling Final in terms of its place on the events calendar.
This year, though, there are a few changes to the script.
The sun shone, the rain stayed away for much of the weekend and the usual Punchestown mud was not really an issue for once.
Then, there’s the matter of the attendance. Promoters MCD claimed an attendance of “over 80,000” on yesterday evening, with a significant influx of Sunday day-trippers to see Beyonce and Coldplay.
However, it was evident again and again that there was plenty of empty space around the arena and its five stages all weekend long.
Another significant change, albeit one which has been on the cards for the past few years, was a greater emphasis on pop acts. You may have Foo Fighters, The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys high on the bill, but they were out-numbered by the likes of The Script, Black-Eyed Peas and The Saturdays.
Yesterday was a good opportunity to catch up on some potential stars of the future. Ryan Sheridan comes across as a poor man’s David Gray, but Irish audiences have a predilection for the singer-songwriter schtick and you can bet he’ll be further up the bill a year from now.
More established names also shone.
Friendly Fires brought a dash of tropical desert island pop to the second stage with tracks from current album Pala.
Just as happened two years ago, The Saturdays proved that pop tunes with a glossy sheen could work just as well in big tents as anywhere else.
And Black Eyed Pea Fergie hung around after her performance on Friday to duet with ex-Guns N Roses guitarist Slash on the main stage.