I’m home after a wonderful and wacky weekend in Stradbally and am ready to review it – so here’s Day One!

After setting up my tent in the Jimi Hendrix campsite (which took twice as long as it should have due to me putting the wrong poles in the wrong section first…), I decided to kill time by passing out for a while, getting up at 1 O’Clock to head up to the main arena. At the gate, we were told it would be open at 2 – so I headed off, got some food, dossed about and came back then – where we were told to come back at 4… which a large crowd of us duly did… and waited for an hour before they finally let us in at 5.

I wandered around a bit and found the main stage – which looked like the picture on the right… Oh! Look! Grass! (That didn’t last long…)

Anyway, here’s the acts I saw on Friday:

It’s time to offline for three days (well, I’ll still be on twitter, probably!) and live in a tent as I’m heading down to Stradbally in Laois early tomorrow morning for the Electric Picnic festival. The line-up of acts is quite long – the ones I’m looking forward to seeing in particular are:

2 MANY DJS, ABC, ALABAMA 3, BASEMENT JAXX, BELL X1, BRIAN WILSON, DINOSAUR JR, DUBLIN GOSPEL CHOIR, DUCKWORTH LEWIS METHOD, ECHO and THE BUNNYMEN, FLAMING LIPS, FLEET FOXES, FLORENCE and THE MACHINE, IMELDA MAY, JAPE, JUST JACK, KLAXONS, LAURA IZIBOR, LISA HANNIGAN, MADNESS, MGMT, MUNDY, OKKERVIL RIVER, ORBITAL, PASSION PIT, RODRIGO Y GABRIELA, ROOTS MANUVA, ROYKSOPP, RUBBERBANDITS, SEASICK STEVE, THE SUGARHILL GANG

… a few of of which I’m only looking forward to because of hearing good things about them (particularly on Phantom 105.2 – they’re that kind of music!) despite never having actually heard their music!

Aside for a second… Seriously though, The flippin’ Sugarhill Gang! … I mean… these guys! doing THIS!… live!:-

Been neglecting my blog recently, and that’s due to continue for a while yet as I’ve been concentrating on the Switch FM web site. It’s the radio station for the college course I’m doing – things are really starting to pick up momentum there and it’s basically sucking up my life … not that I’m complaining!

I’ll be DJ’ing at the “Switch-It-On!” fundraiser gig on Thursday. If you’re in Dublin, check it out!

Was working on some recordings – doing stuff for college… writing up scripts and jotting down ideas… when this silly advert came into my head, and I couldn’t shake it until I recorded and mixed it.

Just goes to show … sometimes I really DO have too much spare time on my hands!

Anyway … stupid as it may be… here it is – it’s a made up advert for a completely made-up company – “Orson Carthy’s Horse and Cart Emporium”.

In the last week or so…

• My car gave up. Just decided that it can’t be arsed going any faster than 30-odd km/h. Luckily, this happened after I’d gotten off the motorway and was only a couple of miles from home. A mechanic friend of mine is having a look at it tomorrow. Personally, I think the clutch is knackered, but I know less about how cars work than I know about how womens’ brains work (i.e.: very little at all)!
• I DJ’d for a 21’st birthday party here in Donabate and, for the first time, used a big screen for music videos and messages to the party goers… was great craic altogether and the punters had a feckin’ brilliant time… one bad thing though was that the pub I was gigging in (and leaving my gear in over-night) was broken into later in the night (a while after closing)… by someone who was there at the party that evening but, luckily for me, nothing of mine was touched.
• I got a bunch of new PS3 games … loving the Simpsons game to bits – hilarious and fun, am stuck on Resistance 2 – killing alien scum in America, and getting stuck-in (online) in Farcry 2 – going to deepest Africa, meeting interesting people, and then killing them … I’m not much of a gamer to be honest – and I haven’t even touched Little Big Planet or Need For Speed: Undercover yet, 2 days after buying them as I’ve also been busy with…
• College assignments - they’re piling up! I just got my ‘Practical Skills’ (Studio Operations) one finished and I’ve to finish my ‘Broadcast Voice’ one (bit of paperwork to do) but just got ‘Media Law’ and ‘Marketing’ assignments today and have a group assignment for ‘Radio Management’ (applying for a broadcasting license from the B.C.I.) to get stuck into A.S.A.P.!
• Speaking of college, I got confirmation from Newstalk that I’ll be with them for work experience at the end of the month, working on the Tom Dunne Show – so I’m very much looking forward to that… should be a good experience working on a busy national station!

I’m pretty certain that’s all my news for now… right now I’m downloading the Windows 7 Beta… and I’m not really sure why… It’s thundering along at around the 300kB/s mark though, which is nice