Witnness Festival
Dublin, Ireland - August 5th, 2001
by Lisa Egan

Well.... my weekend was actually pretty bad, with numerous things going wrong for me, most notably losing my wallet so I couldn't afford to eat all weekend (I lost all my debit cards, cash cards, University ID cards, everything. There was even a photo of me and Sharleen with our arms round each other in there!), someone stealing my tent pegs and the weather (Fairyhouse Racecourse became little more than a swamp and wheelchairs and mud really just don't mix, I kinda sank and couldn't get around), although there were plenty more things that went wrong for me, but I'd never get round to writing about Texas if I listed them all!

Given how I had SUCH a bad day on Saturday, on Sunday I decided I was gonna take control of the situation and I was determined to have some fun.

The people in the welfare tent got a Jeep to drive me from the campsite to the Main Arena (I never would have gotten my chair through all that mud) and after I arrived in the Main Arena I went to the Welfare Tent to blag a cup of tea. I left the Welfare tent at 12:30 and noticed that there was not that many people in the front row by the Main Stage, so I decided to go and sit there for the 8 hours until Texas came on.

During the day I got to see all the bands I'd planned on seeing on the Sunday as they were all on the Main Stage with the exception of The Avalanches who I knew I wasn't going to get to see as they were on the Dance stage at the same time Texas were on the Main stage. During Placebo I got very battered and bruised and at one point almost tipped out of my wheelchair as the crowd were shoving so hard. I was actually quite scared as my disability means my bones break kinda easily and I was tempted to ask security to lift me over the barrier and out of the crowd but I'd waited for over 5 hours by this point for Texas and I was determined to hang on to my front row spot.

I got really cross during Fun Lovin' Criminals as I'd been waiting there for so long and then 3 women decided to barge their way right to the front to see Texas, not caring who they shoved out of the way. They didn't knock me from my front row spot, but I was quite near to the side and had spent all day trying to work my way that much closer to the middle, and they did shove me slightly more to the side (Oh how smug I felt when they barged their way out of the crowd again after Say What You Want, not realising that Texas would come back for an encore - I certainly wasn't going to tell them that Texas would come back!)

Anyway after waiting for 8 hours it finally reached 8:40pm.... the time Texas were due on stage. 8:45.... no Texas, 8:50..... still no Texas, 8:55..... finally! Texas came on stage 15 mins late (maybe Shar was on the phone!?!?!?).

There had been a half hour break between each band all day, and in that time they had been playing music and constant adverts for the Witnness album and Texas's Greatest Hits album. During the break before Texas at one point the played "Place Your Hands" by Reef... I was also expecting them to throw in something by Semisonic too after that, but they didn't. When Zero Zero finally began I think most members of the audience didn't realise that that signalled the beginning of Texas's set as (apart from me) no-one seemed to cheer until they actually walked out onto the stage

I've seen photo's from T in the Park and Paleo and Sharleen was wearing baggy trousers (very nice - I want some!) and a Yellow Adidas top. For Witnness she was wearing the same trousers and the same style top, but this time it was green (maybe it was the same top but she'd accidentally put it in the wash with something blue?).

The other thing I noticed immediately is that Charlotte has dyed her hair. It's much darker now.

From my position towards the side of the stage, with my view of the stage being partially blocked by the tower bit where they had the camera which was used for the projection onto the screens the only band members I could see were Ally, Eddie, Charlotte, Nicole and of course Sharleen (but not all the time... she spent sometime hidden from my line of vision). And I could also see some of the drum kit, but I couldn't see Steve.

Another difference between this festival and the others they've done so far this summer is that I Don't Want A Lover didn't have the 2001 beat in it... they just played the 'usual' live version, with Sharleen doing all the usual moves.

The crowd were much better behaved when Texas were on than they had been at any point during the day since it got crowded (it started to get kinda packed about halfway through James), but there were still a couple of crowd surfers and a couple of people had to be pulled out of the crowd. Sharleen noticed this and said "Oi! Watch what you're doing! A Couple of people just got squashed down there! Be careful!" Why can't Placebo have done that?

When Sharleen came off the stage to pick guys for the dancing competition she looked really scared - the stage was really high! She very cautiously lowered herself into the arms of security who caught her.

She picked her 3 boys (I was heckling SO much to try and get her to notice me, and she must've heard me - I'm the loudest person I've ever met, I guess I'm just not a boy!) and went round the back of the stage to walk up the stairs. She still had her mike with her and while she was on her way she was like "Bloody Hell! I'm gonna be knackered before I even begin! Charlotte, Nicole, do something to keep 'em entertained while I'm on my way!" so Charlotte and Nicole started dancing flirtatiously with each other and it was so funny.

Sharleen got back on stage and realised that only two of the 3 guys had followed her so security yanked the third guy out the crowd as passed him up onto the stage. Then she goes "I've got the three, please god let them be Irish!" (A reference to Cardiff I take it)

Sharleen decided to have the shy guy who didn't want to come up on stage and allocated the other two guys to Nicole and Charlotte. Nicole's guy introduced himself and then Sharleen's guy. He said he was only 17 to which Sharleen goes "Oooo good, I like 'em young!" so then Charlotte's guy said he was 16 (even though he blatantly wasn't).

The dancing was pretty competitive and Nicole got her guy on the floor, on his back and sat on top of him. I'm so jealous of Shar's guy.... I wanna get to dance like THAT with her! The crowd in the end decided that her guy was the winner.

Other bits of amusing banter were when Sharleen went to join Eddie on keyboards for Tired Of Being Alone when she said that Eddie was getting lonely and horny in his hotel room and was looking for someone to join him and the whole crowd was invited. She also made a more general comment about how horny it makes you touring and staying in lots of different hotel rooms. I managed to refrain from shouting "Can I join you in your hotel room!?!?!"

During When We Are Together when Mark One does his big scratching bit Shar said "This is Mark One... everyone cheer, we're trying to boost his self-esteem"

When they did Tired Of Being Alone, when they went into the cover of Shaggy's It Wasn't Me in the middle, I'm CONVINCED that Sharleen sang "Honey came in and he caught me red-handed sleeping with the GIRL next door"... I could be mistaken though, she might have said boy/guy because the crowd were making a lot of noise at that point.... but it did sound a hell of a lot like she sang "girl"......... hmmm...... ;-)

I think for me one of the highlights of their set was In Demand. In Demand is not one of my favourite Texas songs, by a long way, but I do love it when Sharleen does it on her own with the acoustic guitar (the other time I saw her do that was when Texas played G.A.Y in December). This time though she played it differently to the acoustic versions of that song I've heard before. As we all know, Sharleen has a very impressive vocal range and can reach very high and very low notes. She alternated each line of the song between singing it high and low, apart from the chorus which she sang high. Then, towards the end of the song a really strong drum beat came in, just like the mix of Put Your Arms Around Me that's used in the video for that song, and also some very subtle scratching came in too and it made the song sound like such a classy 'Chill Out Tune'.... I'd love to have a recording of that. It sounded SO beautiful. That is exactly how the single for In Demand should have been.

I'm really disappointed that rain seeped into my camera and ruined the photo's I took. A couple of them are OK. One would have been a REALLY good photo of Shar, if it wasn't for the fact that one of those three stupid bi**hes that barged to the front stuck her hand out in front of me and her hand is completely covering Sharleen's face in the photo. There was one other photo I took where Sharleen looked directly at me a split second after I took it. I'm so gutted, it would have made a great photo if I'd got a picture of Sharleen looking directly at the camera.

I'm happy to have seen Texas again, I did have a good day on Sunday, if only I could erase Saturday from existence I'd of had a wicked weekend. Texas really saved what would have been a nightmare weekend as after everything that when wrong, my strongest memory is jumping up and down and waving my arm from side to side as the Wu-Tang beat bit of Say What You Want kicked in.

Only 9 days left until I get to see them again at V2001! Yay!


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