At times during the MTV Europe Music awards you knew just how Dorothy felt when she stepped out of her house and into the Technicolor land somewhere over the rainbow. Maybe it was the funky MTV munchkins milling purposefully around, headsets surgically attached to their ears. Or it could have been the strobe lights scanning the sky over the Point Depot as though at any minute Batman was about to swoop.

Equally odd was the temporary police state that had been declared around the venue as gardai stopped and checked that you were carrying a ticket. Only those who did were allowed to freely roam the streets.

But far more disconcerting was the revelation that not only did RTE's Dave Fanning not possess a laminated backstage pass to the event but his ticket was in the standing section.

Toto, I don't think we're in Dublin any more.

The Point Depot's yellow brick road was the ream of red carpet the stars stepped on to from their limos. There was Whitney Houston, head down with husband Bobby Brown, exuding "loads of attitude", according to one unimpressed punter.

Later Adam Clayton, Bono and the Edge appeared, but they don't really count because they are Irish, one professional starspotter pointed out. Then Pierce Brosnan (he does count, apparently, because although he is Irish he is based in the US) came running up the escalator as though he was about to save the world. That guy really gets into character. "Gotta run," he said, tearing after some invisible baddie at the top of the stairs.

Maybe it was Geri Halliwell's stylist.

If that wasn't enough excitement, inside the countdown to the awards was taking place. MTV veejays Donna Air and Richard Blackwood began pointing out the stars in the balcony, perched a safe distance away from the 1,000 fans in the moshpit. Where's Britney Spears? There she is.

Say hello to Britney.

Hellooooooo.

Then Whitney.

Then Boy band 5IVE.

Helloooo.

It was great fun altogether.

The show began with a rousing performance from Iggy Pop who may never crowd surf again after his experience on Thursday night. Instead of letting him glide gracefully along on their hands, the crowd let him drop and he was almost crushed underfoot. To add to the ignominy of the experience his boot was dislodged in the process.

Everyone agreed that presenter Ronan Keating read very well from the autocue all night, and his patter about Mariah Carey from Tipperary, and Whitney O'Houston went down very well. Better, perhaps, than his new hairstyle which made him look as though he was auditioning for a Scandinavian Beatles Tribute Band. But as we were soon to find out, bad hair days were the least of Boyzone's worries.

OK, so it wasn't big and it wasn't clever of Shane to use four-letter words on a live programme with a potential audience of one billion, but it made a change from Britney and Whitney's saccharine acceptance speeches.

If Boyzone weren't, as Shane colourfully rebutted, splitting up in the year 2000, then chances are his embarrassing performance has made such an eventuality even more likely. He has had his wrists severely slapped by everyone from the National Parents' Council to Brian Hayes TD for setting a bad example to the hundreds of thousands of young people who had tuned in.

By all accounts he was far from repentant at the press conference that followed the awards. While his bandmate Stephen Gately tried to defuse things with talk of God and Family, Shane went into expletive overdrive.

That was another of the more bizarre things about the whole MTV experience. If, as their press release stated, the awards were attended by 700 of Europe's "highest-calibre" journalists, then how come several exchanges along the lines of the following took place at the post-award press conferences backstage?

Journalist (to rapper Eminem): Was that you knocking on my hotel room door last night?

Eminem: No.

Journalist (to The Corrs): Is it hard to open your eyes with so much make up on?

Andrea from The Corrs: No.

Jim from The Corrs: No.