Witnness Festival
Dublin, Ireland - August 5th, 2001
by Darragh McCarthy

Witnness was the best weekend of my whole summer! If you weren't at witness then I am genuinely sorry for you because you missed out big time! The main reasons I went to witness were because feeder and ash were playing, and also because it was going to be one mega party!
We, that's me, Danny, Gaz, Conor, Gally, Finsie, Rory, Shane and Ken and a couple others, arrived on the site at about 12:30 thanks to the soundest bus driver, Michael Griffin! We were greeted by the sunshine, which was great, the atmosphere was electric.

We went over to the amusements and wasted a load of cash. The first band we saw was Snow Patrol, and they were ok. Half way through the day we went to Feeder, who were unbelievable, the crowd surfing was the best thing I've ever done! We saw lots of great bands that day but anyone reading this only wants to hear of one band in particular! TEXAS!!!

Being a Limp Bizkit / Ash / Feeder fan I never even thought I could enjoy Texas, but how wrong was I! They were Brilliant! We were not expecting much from Texas, but as soon as they came out, us hard lads couldn't help but admit to each other that we really did like Texas. And immediately we were commenting how fine the backup singers were, Charlotte in particular, little did I know I was soon to be one of three who would have a very close encounter with the band, and especially Charlotte!

Of all the bands that were there that Sunday, Texas and Sharleen in particular were the best at crowd interaction, she would talk to the crowd like some of the other bands didn't. It made the whole experience far more enjoyable.

Then about half way through Sharleen said she might come down of the stage. The security guys promised her that if she jumped they would catch her! The high kicking' babe was not about to chicken out of that, and so she came right down, and she was right in front of me, this was a really weird thing seeing a famous person right in front of me and as I was one of thousands there I wanted her to notice me, so without even thinking I took of my cap and tried to give it too her. She looked at me and said in that sexy Scottish accent, "are you giving me your cap?" Well I love the cap but I was hardly going to say no!!! So the next thing I know there are about four security guys pulling me out, and this time it wasn't because I was crowd surfing!

One of them took me and led me behind the stage where we were rushed up some steps, and then we made a turn and all we could see were people for as far as we could see! I thought to myself, O MY GOD IM ON STAGE, everyone was cheering and I was on the biggest high ever, Sharleen was of talking to the first guy, I was the last. When she came to me she asked me my name and my age, she likes them young so I told her I was sixteen she didn't believe me! And then she asked me if I could dance, and I was honest and said, "no, I'm shite!" But not letting that stop me I went on to do a bit of dancing with that fine backup singer I told you about, and I have to say I was very proud of some of the positions she got me in. SHAWING!

The crowd were asked to vote for the best dancer, my friends told me I was but I didn't get the majority vote! What the hell, I had just had the best moment of my life, the best weekend of my life and I would give anything to go back!

I really would love to meet the band again but that unfortunately isn't ever going to happen, but next time they play Ireland, I'm there!!!!

Daz


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