Download 2013
Donnington Park
June 13th to 16th, 2013
For those who have never been lucky enough to make the yearly
pilgrimage to Donnington Park for Download Festival it may appear to be just
another festival but in reality it is 3 days of hard rock and metal with the
occasional bit of punk thrown in for luck.
It is usually muddy and wet, but this year it held more surprises than
just the weather!
This is a not so brief run down of my
Download experience this year.
Download's arena gates opened at 12pm on
Friday the 14th June and the first bands kicked off at 1pm. As I missed them last year due to the weather
I made a bee line for the main stage to catch Rise to Remain.
Rise to Remain opened the day in style with
a high energy set and got everyone in the mood for the rest of the
weekend. Judging by their performance it
won't be long before Austin Dickinson is challenging his dad for the headlining
spot!
As a huge fan of Download virgins Patent
Pending I headed to the Pepsi Max Tent early in the hope of finding a spot
where I would be able to see.
Palm Reader were on the stage prior to them
so I took in their set while I was there.
Palm Reader are a metal band with screaming lyrics and good guitar
riffs. They are not the best band I have
ever seen, and certainly not the worst, but their place on the running order
suggests that they have not been around very long and are still finding their
feet. I would certainly check them out
if they are there again next year to see how they have progressed.
In their usual style Patent Pending brought
the sunshine to an otherwise gloomy and rainy day. Before their set, lead singer Joe Ragosta
came on stage and announced that he had just managed to break their equipment
and had the whole audience telling him off for being naughty.
Taking the stage to the theme tune from
kids TV show 'Chucklevision', the Long Island lads burst into 'I Already Know (She
Don't Give A Shit About Me)'. Singing
all of the high energy favourites Patent Pending had more bounce than a box of
springs! The only slower song in their
set was 'One Less Heart to Break', which any Patent Pending fan knows means a
lot to the quintet as well as being a favourite amongst fans.
During 'Psycho in Love', Joe had the whole
crowd waving their pirate hooks (hooked fingers) in the air and performing a
'wall of crawls' as they had been told they were not allowed to do the wall of
death.
As usual Joe spent as much time at the
barrier with the audience as he did on the stage and even guitarist Marc Kantar
played his solo on 'Anti Everything' at the barrier.
It was obvious that Joe, Anthony, Rob,
Corey and Marc were enjoying every moment of the performance as they bounced
and smiled the whole time, and even treated us to a bit of on stage mischief as
Marc and Rob flicked guitar picks at each other.
Finishing with 'Douchebag' they finished
their set in style and as usual after their set Joe came down to the barrier to
chat to the crowd, where he was also joined by Rob for a while.
It was nice to see some familiar faces in
the crowd as a few members of the 'UK Second Family' had travelled to Download
for the day specially see them.
Next on the agenda were nu metal band Papa
Roach on the main stage. Papa Roach
delivered an energy packed set singing favourites and hits including 'Last
Resort' and 'Still Swinging'
As Download attract so many great bands I
quite often find that the ones I want to see clash so I either have to choose
my favourite or see half sets while running between stages.
Unfortunately one of these clashes was Papa
Roach and DragonForce, so I watched part of Papa Roach before hitting the Zippo
stage for part of DragonForce's performance.
I only really got to hear two songs by DragonForce , but the two songs I
did hear really impressed me, especially as one was my favourite of theirs, 'Cry
Thunder'. The songs I heard were catchy
and fast paced with great guitar riffs that made great listening for any rock
or metal fan.
Making my way back to the main stage for nu
metallers Korn, I caught a glimpse of Jamie Nicholls from Fort Hope, who were
not playing at the festival this year but obviously still wanted to be there.
I have seen Korn numerous times before and
they have never failed to impress me so I was really looking forward to their
set especially as it marked the first UK show since the return of Brian 'Head'
Welch. Korn unleashed hits from across
their career including 'Blind',' Falling Away From Me' and 'Freak On A Leash'. Jonathan Davies even brought his bagpipes
with him!
Korn packed the area in front of the main
stage and gave an excellent performance.
Next band on the main stage were welsh
rockers Bullet For My Valentine, who like Korn commanded a large crowd. Singing songs such as 'The Last Fight', 'Your
Betrayal', 'Temper Temper' and 'Scream Aim fire!', they showed why they are
still going strong so many years on.
After the Bullet set I was lucky enough to
get the chance to have a quick catch up with Rob from Patent Pending who was on
his way to watch Him on the Pepsi stage.
Unfortunately another clash came at 9pm
when headliners of the main stage clashed with Fearless Vampire Killers who
were headlining the Red Bull Stage. I
love Fearless Vampire Killers but as I had seen them three times already this
year I opted for Slipknot.
It was obvious how many people where there
to see Friday's headliners by the number of Slipknot shirts you could see
around the arena, as people waited with anticipation for the first show at Download since 2009 for Iowa's
finest.
Having seen Slipknot before I had a fair
idea of the chaos that I was about to witness and as usual they did not let us
down.
Singing songs from all of their albums they
treated us to 'Wait And Bleed', 'Dead Memories', 'Left Behind' and 'Eyeless',
as well as treating the Maggot Army to their anthem 'Pulse Of The Maggots'. Add to this hydraulic powered drums and
enough pyrotechnics to warm up the now cold and wet crowd and you have a real recipe
for fun!
The audience were taken by surprise halfway
through 'Left Behind' as Slipknot suddenly stopped playing and announced to the crowd that everyone need
to take a step back as people at the front were being squashed against the
barrier and it had broken. Once the
barrier was fixed and they were happy that everyone was safe they continued
where they left off.
Finishing their set with 'Spit It Out' they
had the 90,000 strong crowd crouched on the damp floor waiting for the command
from masked front man Corey Taylor.
Hearing Corey say those words that won them the Golden God award
following their 2009 set brings a major case of goosebumps. As Corey sang the final verse and shouted the
immortal words 'jump da f#@k up!' the whole crowd bounced up in unison. Getting 90,000 people to jump up at exactly the
same time really takes some doing but Corey manages it every time.
Slipknot did return for an encore finishing
with 'Surfacing' and a whole load more pyrotechnics.
For a UK Slipknot fan it was the perfect
end to a fantastic day!
On Saturday morning we set off to the arena
with the intention of seeing I Divide, but unfortunately we misjudged and
missed them. However, we did manage to
catch the end of UFO, who although they have been going for years still sound
great.
Heavens Basement caught my eye on Scuzz TV
a couple of months ago with their song 'Fire Fire', so we went to check them
out. Heavens Basement are a four piece
rock/metal band from England and they were the best Saturday wakeup call I have
ever had. They had far too much energy
for so early on a Saturday and extremely catchy riffs and choruses. They knocked my socks off and I can honestly
say that I would happily go to see them again.
Young Guns have been around for a few years
now but this is the first chance I have had to see them live. Singing all their hits from 'Bones' to
'Dearly Departed' the men in white took over the main stage and showed
Donnington why they were worthy of main stage status.
Next up were the Black Star Riders, the
reformation of Thin Lizzy. I've seen
Thin Lizzy on numerous occasions before and they have never failed to blow me
away and today was no different. Singing
classics such as 'Jailbreak', 'Whiskey In The Jar' and 'The Boys Are Back In
Town', even the heavy rain shower didn't disperse the crowd.
Following them were Mastodon, a metal band
from Atlanta. We only stayed for a
couple of songs before heading off to explore.
Not because they were no good because they are, but because I had seen
them before and wanted to check out Walking Papers. Unfortunately I didn't get chance to as the
Pepsi Max tent was overflowing, however
I'm not sure if this was down to the draw of former Guns n' Roses bassist, Duff
McKagen or the heavy shower of rain.
Next up was Lit, a pop punk band from the
US. Lit had a good energy and sang their
well known hit 'My Own Worst Enemy'.
Although a side wind distorted the sound quality slightly they were
still very enjoyable and I even spotted Rob Damiani of Don Broco watching from
the crowd.
Being a Terrorvision fan for the last 20
years I had to go and check out Acoustic TV, which comprised of Tony Wright and
Milton Evans. They did a short set of
their well known hits such as 'Middleman',
'Alice What's the Matter' and 'Babylon'.
As a devoted fan who has seen them many
times it is with a heavy heart that I write this, but for me it was just not as
good as usual. There was something
missing and that something that was Mark, Leigh and Cameron. They did not have the usual chemistry and it
reflected in their performance. Hopefully next year they will be back again but
as the whole package.
Unfortunately I was also disappointed with
QOTSA. Firstly because of the
unexplained absence of Dave Grohl and secondly because of the their lack of
energy and presence. They played all of their
hits including 'No One Knows' and 'Even Flow' but something was missing and I
didn't enjoy their performance.
Enter Shikari headlined the second stage
and had a great energy and crowd pleasing set.
The drum and bass band headed by Rou Reynolds had the crowds dancing and
bouncing in the mud. Unfortunately there was still a bit of a problem with the
wind distorting the sound if you were not directly in front of the stage but it
did not stop them from giving a great performance. Their set included 'Quelle Surprise' and 'Destabilise'
and they proved why they had been chosen as a worthy headliner.
At ten to nine 90,000 people gathered in
front of the main stage to see tonight's headliners Iron Maiden.
We heard the aeroplane before we saw it as
a Spitfire flew through the clouds and preceded to fly over the crowd. It circled above and flew as low as it
possibly could without getting caught in the zip wire that stretched across the
arena before disappearing back into the grey clouds above the main stage.
A short video build up followed and maiden
sprang to life.
My initial intention had been to listen to
them from my tent as I was very disappointed when I saw them at Sonisphere in
2010, but I decided to give them a chance to redeem themselves. When I saw them at Sonisphere they were
promoting their latest album 'The Final Frontier' and did an entire set of
songs that had not yet been released so there was no atmosphere and they had
lost half of their audience within the first five songs. As they went off before the encore I remember
saying to my husband that I had never seen a band play a full set and not play
any of the songs that they were famous for.
Luckily this time they did. I
didn't stay for the whole set but I did get to hear classics such as 'Two Minutes
To Midnight', 'Can I Play With Madness' and 'Number of the Beast'. For me Iron Maiden were a pleasant surprise
this time around, and it proves that new songs can be good but the old ones are
always the best!
Talking of surprises, I'm sure Slipknot
front man Corey Taylor got a shock when he went to his book signing in the Kerrang!
signing tent, as the queue to see him reached right up to the top of the hill
and around the corner. Unfortunately he
had only been granted an hour slot so a lot of fans went away disappointed, me
included.
The highlight of my Saturday came in the
form of two bands who were not on this year's line up. As I
made my way across to the main stage for Queens of the Stone Age I was lucky
enough to bump into Harry Radford and Connor Macleod from the Yashin and 'Tiger'
Si Atkinson, Andy 'Ozzy' Lister and Mark Thomas from the Black Spiders, who
were enjoying a weekend of music and fun.
All five of the guys were lovely to talk to and more than happy to chat
and pose for pictures, making me one very happy fangirl.
The last day of Download this year has some
really big names, all of which I really wanted to see, and Download had a wake up alarm like no
other.....
Starting the day with Cancer Bats, (as I
missed the Blitz Kids), meant the day started at top volume, energy and
madness. Liam Cromier lead the madness
and certainly gave me a good start to the day.
Next up was sneaky peak at Hellyeah as I
had never had the pleasure of seeing them until now. Mixing strong guitar riffs with loud vocals
they made sure that I was wide awake for the rest of the day.
Unfortunately Coal Chamber clashed with the
Graveltones, so in order to get the best of both worlds I watched the first two
songs of Coal Chamber before running to the Jagermeister stage to catch the
Graveltones' set, and then running back to the main stage for the end of Coal
Chamber.
Coal Chamber started their set with my favourite
'Loco', which Dez Fafara sang through a loud hailer and had the mosh pits going
crazy. They kept the craziness going
throughout the parts of their set that I saw and made sure that no one got a Sunday
lie in!
The Graveltones set however was a little
more placid although it still packed one hell of a punch. Singing their blues rock, the Graveltones
commanded quite a large audience for the small stage that they were
playing. Their enthusiasm and enjoyment
showed throughout the performance and they were an absolute pleasure to
watch. It would not surprise me if we
saw them on the Zippo stage in the next couple of years.
Next
on my wish list was Five Finger Death Punch.
Whilst waiting for 5FDP to hit the stage I was fortunate enough to run
into Kier Kemp from the Fearless Vampire Killers who was also waiting for the
set to start. Kier was absolutely lovely and chatted to us until 5FDP came on stage.
Five finger death punch are a sextet of
guys who if you met them in a dark alley you would run as fast as you could in
the opposite direction. Lead by Ivan L
Moody they started as they meant to continue by whipping the audience up into a frenzy. Ivan announced that he was not allowed to
encourage people to crowd surf but he did however want to meet us all.
Moody also got all of the children from the
front of the pits on stage with him (obviously so they would be out of harm's
way) as he encouraged the crowd to open the pits up and go crazy.
It also showed that Moody is not a big fan
of security as he threatened to break the nose of one of the security staff if
he saw him man handle a kid badly again, as the crowd surfers (and there were
lots) were getting high fives from Moody as they got to the stage, much to the
annoyance of security.
The 5FDP set consisted of favourites such
as 'Bad Company', 'Never Enough' and 'Hard To See'. The kids on stage got to head bang along with
the band and got an experience that they will never forget!
Next up were Aussie metal band Parkway Drive,
who kept the audience bouncing. Whether
they were playing catchy riffs, melting your face with their lyrics or
unleashing their crowd surfing dingo, they certainly produced a set to
remember.
It was obvious that the Stone Sour set was
getting closer at this point as the crowd pretty much doubled in size. Corey and crew burst onto the stage in a way
that only Taylor can and proceeded to show Download how it was done! Singing songs from all of their albums including
'Mission Statement', 'Say You'll Haunt Me', 'Absolute Zero' and '30/30 150'
they had the whole audience on a high.
Mid way through the set Taylor slowed
things down a little when he played 'Bother' and 'Through Glass' which had the
whole audience singing along with him.
Not many people have done a double shift on
the main stage at Download but if anyone was going to do it, it would be Corey
Taylor!
Next on my list were another Aussie group,
Airbourne. Airbourne brought their usual
brand of craziness . Lead singer Joel
O'Keefe was on his top game and sounded great.
They brought a real energy to the Zippo stage but unfortunately if he
did his usual stunt of climbing up the side of the stage to play from the top I
did not see it as I wanted to catch the next set on the main stage. I did however get to enjoy 'Live It Up' and 'Too
Much Too Young Too Fast'.
30 Seconds to Mars are a band like no
other. Headed by film star Jared Leto they
not only treat the crowd to some of the catchiest songs in history but you also
get treated to masses of giant balloons and blow up animals. Leto is every security officials nightmare as
he spends as much time in the crowd as he does on the stage, and when he is on
the stage he has a habit of getting as many members of his audience on stage as
is physically possible. 30 Seconds to Mars gave a great performance and I would
love to see them again.
The last three bands I wanted to see all
clashed, so to make sure I saw all of them I had to compromise and worked out
that I would be able to see a couple of songs from each band, starting with
Glamour of the Kill in the Red Bull tent.
Glamour of the Kill are a four piece band from
York and once they start playing you know about it! They have a good strong
vibe and sound great but I couldn't understand why they were playing the Red Bull
tent and not one of the bigger stages. Again, these are a band I would love to
see play again.
Headlining the Zippo stage was Limp Bizkit. Fred durst and crew attracted a large
audience at the second stage and entertained the audience with not only their
songs but a cover version of Rage Against The Machines, 'Killing In The Name'. Durst is yet another security nightmare as he
too spent time stood down at the barrier interacting with the crowd while he
sang.
Sporting a beard and his trade mark track
suit Durst kept the party going even though headliners Rammstein had taken to
the main stage for the closing set. He
even quipped that we had better go 'check out Rammstein as we may miss
something', but even the explosions from the next stage did not deter him and
it was easy to see why they are still going strong.
Last band of Download 2013 were German
metallers Rammstein, who are famous for 'setting things on fire'. It is safe to say that wherever you were
stood at the main stage you could feel the heat from their pyrotechnics and I'm
sure those stood at the front would have left with no eyebrows!
They had flames shooting from everywhere!
They had a keyboardist who was constantly walking on a treadmill whilst
playing. they had wearable flamethrowers
and a large cannon that shot foam into the audience. Whether they were setting fire to the stage,
themselves or just making pretty explosions above the stage it is safe to say
that health and safety were probably quaking in their boots.
As someone who doesn't speak German I could
not tell you what any of the songs were about but I am pretty sure that they
are professional arsonists. Whether I
understood them or not they put on one hell of a show!
Rammstein certainly ended Download with a
bang.............. I just hope they left
enough of the stage unscorched for next year!
Tonight's set was made up of all four
tracks from the EP (Hometown, Burning Out, Contender and Let It Go) and another new song, 'Reset To Zero', which I instantly
fell in love with. 
