Ozzfest Ireland revisited and why we need more alternative music festivals | JOE.ie

reported back on standout acts like 'Flayer' and 'Lost Profits', whoever they were.

"Slayer’s set was predictably killer and one cool thing was Dave Lombardo joining System of a Down for a song – he was about twice as loud as the SOAD drummer!" grins McKeegan, who, alongside his Therapy? comrades, "Our market at the time was the UK, mainly, and the States,” O’Shea says, mentioning support slots for the likes of Bush and Iggy Pop. “We’d done ‘toilet tours’ all over England all the way up until it got bigger and better. We played Reading and Leeds, lots of Kerrang! stuff, all that kind of thing. Ozzfest was brilliant because I loved all of those bands. We grew up as fans of all of that music, just non-stop. I think the best period of music was the ‘90s and the early 2000s.

Getting to experience songs like 'Solitaire Unravelling' and Hell is for Heroes' 'I Can Climb Mountains' and Kittie's 'Brackish' and American Head Charge's towering 'Just So You Know' – in my personal top 10 favourite songs of all time, by anyone, in any genre, for the record – up close and in-person? Are you kidding me? This was a passport to a world that just didn't feel like it really existed in Ireland.

"My take is that ‘alternative/punk/metal’ isn’t really very well represented at the larger Irish festivals but there are some cool, smaller niche ones that have eclectic line ups," says Therapy?'s Michael McKeegan. "I think we had Beggars Banquet come to see us but the minute we went to England, it only took a few weeks and we were offered a record deal. Whereas here, it was two years up and down the country trying to get something tangible. We had to leave."

Cyclefly's moment in the nu-metal sun would burn out in 2003. O'Shea, these days making music with alt/indie collectivealongside fellow former Cyclefly man Christian Montagne, looks back with something of a bittersweet affinity.

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