Because for me, there is nothing on earth like a music festival.

People may go to see their favourite bands and DJs, people go to escape for a weekend, people go to drink their faces off and take as many drugs as they can, people go to chill out from the sometimes breakneck pace we find ourselves setting these days, people go to hang out with friends and catch up with others they haven't seen in a while, people go to be cool, to be seen, people go to see what it's just all about. But most of all, people go to experience the most intangible thing of all: the collective joy of thousands coming together for a party.

The preparations for a festival have kind of become a familiar ritual for me. I usually go with my friend who doesn't do tents, camping, mud, rain, cold, walking, bad cocktails, wind, crowds or sore feet. Which is a bit much considering she's a music photographer. After the bus trip which is spent gossiping and eating sandwiches that she always prepares especially, and the queue for press accreditation, comes my favourite moment, stepping over the threshold into the site. With that one step, you enter an alternate universe, where anything goes. The constraints that guide our everyday lives fade away and all of a sudden it's ok to dance from place to place, it's ok to hug random strangers, beer bong bottles of vodka, decide that cocktail hour starts in the AM, and breakfast? Who needs breakfast when you've got beer?

Music festivals are my kind of place.

This year has already thrown up some pretty fun times. Losing the plot when The Gossip played 'Standing In The Way of Control' and then meeting Beth Ditto backstage and getting to tell her how much her band meant to me; being surrounded by friends dancing to the Pet Shop Boys at Garden Party; feeling like I was going to be lifted by a spaceship and transported to some weird planet when Muse took to the stage at Oxegen. Not even the detailed neuropsychological investigation conducted by Daniel Levitin in the book I'm reading at the moment . . . This Is Your Brain On Music:

Understanding a Human Obsession . . . can describe the almost narcotic haze that descends on a crowd of people when a set reaches its emotional peak. But the best memories are never musical ones, but the feeling of unity that permeates the vibe of a festival.

There are very few forums left where people actually gather to experience the unity of collective emotion. People attach a lot of importance to sporting occasions on this level, but most of them last for less than two hours. And apart from protests or a national tragedy . . . be it a large-scale one or the death of a beloved individual . . .

music festivals are the only places in modern society where large numbers gather for a collective experience. Maybe it's because the smaller scale gatherings have disappeared . . . the family meal, church-going . . . that we feel the need to gather in a way that often feels like a last hurrah, one weekend where all responsibilities disappear, the only chasm being the closing gate of the festival on a Monday morning.

After Garden Party earlier this year . . . which was almost perfect despite the fact that I arrived down early and three friends followed and we greeted each other in the camp site and then stood around until we realised that all of us had forgotten to bring a tent . . . I wondered if it would be possible to create a nation, let's call it Unanistan for convenience's sake, that was a music festival all the time.

A land where all you did was lie on the grass eating pies, checked out new music and made friends with people you would never encounter in the 'real' non-festival world. And perhaps bought unusual hats on impulse. Brilliant!

Then I thought about the realities of festivals, and how such a life would be largely unsustainable. The portaloos. The men in attendance, who in real-life at least occasionally tend to hide their public urination, take the philosophy of freedom a little too far and all of a sudden everywhere is a urinal. Including my leg in the pit during Arcade Fire at Oxegen this year: yes, you little scumbag, I did cop on to what you were doing.

The drunken gang of 10 blokes who have camped beside you who for some reason are always from Down, Monaghan or Derry, who have by now fallen through your tent four times, spilled a can of Harp into your shoe, and scarred your eyes for life because one of them is ALWAYS naked.

There's the gastritis that kicks in around hour 60 where your stomach begins to refuse to digest any more alcoholic beverages and decides that you can't fool it into thinking that Nutrigrains are whole meals. The colossal fullbody exhaustion that remains for days after when you eventually arrive home looking like a dangerously smelly combination of Captain Jack Sparrow, Wurzel Gummage and Vicky Pollard.

Maybe we're better off having these weekends in small, intense doses, so. Because while it's great to have a massive collective uplifting feeling descending on a few fields over a weekend, the come down clouds that follow would certainly not be a welcome permanent sight. Now, where did I put that Nutrigrain?

THREE THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK

Online 2fm DJ Rick O'Shea has created something of a monster. Inspired by the blog PostSecret, he asked Irish people to send their secrets to him, which he uploads on his Text Secrets blog. A poignant and fascinating read. http: //textsecrets. blogspot. com/

Music Charlie Parr @ the Roisin Dubh, Galway Do not miss this opportunity to see one of the most talented country blues guitarists and songwriters on the planet. His real-deal persona and tales from Duluth are a must see. Tickets are just /10 Book Ahead Theatre @ the Fringe, Dublin The awards for best play names go to the following:

'I Licked A Slag's Deodorant' by Jim Cartwright, 'Waiting For Ikea' by Georgina McKevitt and Jacinta Sheerin and 'Hairy Bottom & The Jock Strap of Destiny'. It has to be the Dublin Fringe Festival 2007. All these and more are booking now on www. fringefest. com