Christian O'Connell (V Festival Blog) #4

The Absolute Radio DJ blogs about his highlights

United Kingdom | by Christian O'Connell | 24 August 2009

In his final blog entry, Christian writes about Oasis' no show, Snow Patrol and his V Festival highlights...

So another V Festival passes. As ever it was full of knockout performances alcohol and laryngitis. And this year stunning weather.

Elbow were the perfect band as the sun was setting, crowning what has been an amazing year for a band who have refused to compromise their vision.

So let's talk about Oasis. I found out around midday that Oasis may be pulling out and I was gutted. They are on great form right now and I know they were a big ticket draw for a lot of people so it was a real shame. I was on air doing my Absolute Radio show when we first heard that they weren’t going to be playing. They smartly announced it on the giant screens rather than sending some poor work experience kids out there in front of a load of drunken upset Oasis fans.

Luckily Snow Patrol stepped up and did a great performance. Gary Lightbody was taking it all in his stride when I interviewed him a few hours before they went on the stage as the festival’s new headliners. He was in such good spirits and even did the Oasis quiz we had prepared for Noel, answering as Noel to 10 questions where each answer is an Oasis song. He got eight out of ten!

Questions like:

As we all know, Gandalf has achieved immortality. What does this mean he’ll do?
Live Forever
Why should you not touch a girl who’s in contact with a pylon?
She’s Electric
What would Liam say to you if he wanted to get you next to him for a nice family pic?
Stand By Me
What would you get if you poured bubbly over a star as it imploded (apart from wet and burnt?)
Champagne Supernova

We then played table football, me as Southampton circa mid 90s with Le Tiss, and him as Man United with Norman Whiteside in the team. He narrowly beat me 8-0. The sun was in my eyes......

Another highlight was Keane doing a great acoustic set on the Absolute Radio Secret Stage and afterwards they told me about their collaboration with Kanye West!

Over the weekend the stand out performances were Lily Allen, The Specials with Amy Winehouse, Snow Patrol, Elbow and MGMT who came on stage with a Liam Gallagher cut out.

Roll on next year.

Tune into Absolute Radio on 105.8FM in London, nationwide on 1215AM and DAB, and online at http://www.absoluteradio.co.uk

Christian O'Connell
Absolute Radio
V Festival and live