The Who, Chili Peppers to headline Oxegen

MOD legends The Who and American funk-rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers will lead the line-up at this year’s Oxegen music festival.

Tue, 21 Feb, 2006 - 00:00

Ed Carty and Padraic Killeen

Some 24 years after releasing their first album, the British icons will make their Punchestown debut with anthems like My Generation and I Can’t Explain in front of around 70,000 revellers.

They play the first night of the festival on July 8, while the Chili’s highly anticipated gig on the Sunday will be the band’s only Irish date this year.

The record-breaking Arctic Monkeys lead a list of other big name acts confirmed for Oxegen.

The northern English rockers will be joined by a string of others returning to the racecourse including Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs and The Strokes.

International music star Manu Chao, the Magic Numbers and Damian

Marley also join the list, while legendary rockers Primal Scream will add their own slice of madness to the weekend while Irish band BellX1 make an appearance.

The line-up was confirmed yesterday in the Westbury Hotel, Dublin, and further acts are expected to be added in the weeks and months ahead.

The line-up was announced by MTV’s Tim Kash, who also detailed MTV’s plans to once again record and screen footage from the festival.

“Last year was our first time at Oxegen,” said Mr Kash.

“And as well as getting incredibly hammered and subsequently hung-over, whilst we were there we also filmed some fantastic footage.

“MTV are proud to be involved with the festival for a second year running. We’re coming back to film over 50 hours of live performances and artist interviews, to be shown on eight of our channels in the UK and Ireland, including MTV, VH-1 and TMF, as well as channels all across Europe.”

MTV intends to air 150 hours worth of Oxegen programmes over the course of an Ultimate Festivals Weekend on July 29 and 30.

Tickets go on sale at 8am on March 3 from usual Ticketmaster outlets. They can be purchased online at www.ticketmaster.ie or on a 24-hour hotline:

(ROI) 0818-719300

(NI) 0870-2434455

Oxegen line-up

Red Hot Chili Peppers

The Who

The Strokes

Kaiser Chiefs

Franz Ferdinand

Bellx1

Arctic Monkeys