Download 2014
Donnington Park
June 13th to 15th, 2014
It is that time of the year when we make
our pilgrimage to the daddy of all rock festivals, Download!
This year will be one to remember, not just
for the music but for the fact that it is the first time I have ever been to
Download when it has not rained for the duration. In fact this year we needed the sun cream.
The first band we saw this year was
Powerman 5000 who had a techno rock sound to them and really were not my cup of
tea. They weren't awful but I quickly
left their set and went for a wander around the market until I found someone
else to listen to.
Friday afternoon saw one of my favourite
live bands take to the stage. I have
seen Skindred perform live on many occasions and they never fail to
disappoint. Today was no different. Skindred delivered a high energy set
consisting of crowd favourites such as 'Doomriff', 'Ninja', 'Nobody',
'Pressure' and 'Kill The Power'.
Finishing with 'Warning', front
man Benji Webbe had their now famous Newport Helicopter going all the way up
the hill in front of the main stage.
This really is a sight to see and it must look amazing from the stage.
Once Skindred had left the stage, festival
organiser, Andy Copping took to the
stage to pay tribute to the late Stephen Sutton and Donovan who have both
passed away recently. As a sign of
respect Copping led the crowd gathered by the main stage in a one minute applause.
Next on my list were Rival Sons. These guys
attracted a good turn out even if the heat of the day had left the crowd
slightly subdued, however it did not stop them from delivering a great
set. At one point Buchanan got so
excited that he even managed to break the microphone. They sang a few of their older songs and a
couple of the new songs from their new album which was released earlier this
month. My favourite song of the set had to be 'Electric Man' from their new
album 'Great Western Valkyrie'.
As I went back to meet with my sister and
friend who had decided to see Within Temptation I was able to catch the last
couple of songs of their set. This was
not a band I particularly enjoyed as I found the songs too high pitched for my
liking and was glad that I had seen my choice of band rather than their whole
set.
Following Within Temptation on the main
stage was Rob Zombie. I really enjoyed
this set and found him really entertaining to watch however, as much as I
enjoyed the dramatics of his set I did find myself thinking that it wasn't
quite as 'showy' as I had thought it would be.
This did not take away the enjoyment though and I thoroughly enjoyed the
set. The highlight of this one for me
was 'Dragula'.
Headlining tonight where one of my all time
favourites, Avenged Sevenfold. It is now
quite a few years since I first fell in love with these guys when they
literally stopped me in my tracks as I headed across a festival they were
playing at, but tonight didn't just stop me it took my breath away!
Their set was well planned and executed and
the energy and passion they have for their music really shone through.
However amid the fire and pyrotechnics, for
me it was one of their slower numbers that left me with goosebumps and a tear
in my eye, as they paid tribute to their fallen brother James 'The Rev'
Sullivan with the song 'So Far Away'. It
is a beautiful tribute to Jimmy who died of a drug overdose on 28th December
2009 and the arena came alight as many fans raised their cigarette lighters
(and glowing mobile phones) in memory of The Rev.
Finishing with 'A Little Piece Of Heaven', Avenged
Sevenfold showed Download how it was done and why they deserved to be headlining
the main stage!
First off for us was Bury Tomorrow, a band
that I have tried to see at festivals a couple of times and always failed to catch. Today however I got to hear the majority of their
set and was happy to say that I wasn't disappointed. They gave a high energy set which cannot have
been easy given the noon slot and the midday heat.
Next on the list were my sisters favourite Lawnmower
Deth. These guys have a very heavy metal
sound until you listen to the lyrics. Singing
songs such as 'Weebles Wobble But They Don't Fall Down', 'Flying Killer Cobs
From The Planet Bob' and 'Satan's Trampoline' their set flew by very quickly
and was very enjoyable.
The main attraction for us today was one of
our old favourites, the amazing Bowling For Soup who were playing twice, once
on the main stage and then later on the smaller Jagermeister acoustic
stage.
The set on the main stage was the usual fun
and frolics of a Bowling For Soup show with crowd pleasing sing alongs such as '1985',
'Almost', 'The Bitch Song' and 'Ohio'.
The Bowling For Soup 'musically enhanced
photo opportunity' was also present as the guys posed for photos to a piece of
music written especially for this purpose.
During the performance a knight appeared on
the stage and informed Jaret and the gang that he had been ordered to make a
sacrifice to the gods of rock and that poor Fluffy (the giant inflatable sheep)
was to be the sacrifice. I saw the BFS
set at Download 2011 when Fluffy's mate was 'killed' by Chris after being
defiled by a large inflatable male part and today Fluffy met her death by the
knight's sword (although she did put up a good fight first). Following this Chris sang 'Amazing Grace' in
honour of the sheep in his best preachers voice (which is actually a very good
singing voice).
Then it was back to the fun with renditions
of 'Girls All The Bad Guys Want' and the theme to 'Phineas And Ferb' (not what
you would normally expect at a rock and metal festival but this is Bowling For
Soup after all).
The BFS guys attracted a very large crowd
as this was probably a must see for some fans after BFS announced their
farewell tour last year. Our little
group decided that BFS should be available on prescription as no matter how we are feeling they always make the world a little brighter.
Next I decided to check out Orange Goblin
as I had heard a lot about them and never seen them. These guys had a really heavy sound and vibe,
with some good guitar riffs but I was disappointed that they did not manage to
hold my attention as they should have done.
As BFS were playing the Jagermeister
acoustic stage we decided to check out a couple of acts down there as it is not
usually a stage I would venture to.
The first act we saw was a guy called Toby
Jepson, who sang some really catchy and quirky songs. He announced that he and his colleague were
the only act on the bill for the weekend to involve a saxophone, an accordion
and a pair of crocs! They are not an act
I would rush out to see again but I wouldn't be disappointed if he turned up as
a support act at a show.
Next were Anathema, who I really
enjoyed. The lead vocalist had an
amazing voice and their style reminded me very much of Kodaline. After hearing their acoustic set I was a little
disappointed to find that their full set had already been played as I would
have liked to have checked it out to compare the full band set to the acoustic. These guys are on my lookup list for once
the festival is over.
If you thought that a full band BFS set was
crazy then you a were in for a real treat with the acoustic set. Although the acoustic set consisted of just
Jaret and Erik, both Gary and Chris were there to support their brothers. The guys started with 'Two Seater' from their
2004 album 'The Hangover You Don't Deserve'.
However in true BFS style the banter between Jaret and Erik and the
audience was present. Whether it was
Jaret requesting to wear a traffic cone hat from a guy in the audience to the
blow up dinosaur, you cannot help but smile.
Other songs in the acoustic set included a
sing along to 'almost', and two of my favourites 'Turbulence' and 'Circle'.
As the set drew to a close Jaret gave the
crowd the choice of the last song of either '1985' or 'Girl All The Bad Guys
Want', however when a request was shouted out for 'Belgium' he added this to
the list and the audience chose 'Belgium'.
After their set they even made time to sign
autographs and take photos with the crowd that had gathered along the fence with
the hope of meeting their Texan idols and BFS being the great guys that they
are obliged and spent as much time as they could meeting their fans. It was a brilliant set and showed yet again
why BFS are the best punk rock band in the world!
Headlining the main stage tonight was
Linkin Park who played their 2000 album 'Hybrid
Theory' in full. Including songs such as
'Paper Cut', 'A Place For My Head' and 'Crawling' they offered a really high
power high energy set.
Returning for an encore they played crowd
favourites from across their discography including 'Bleeding Out' and 'New
Divide' from the 2010 Transformers soundtrack.
It is easy to see why these guys are still going strong after so long in
the business and why they still attract a large following as the performance
was amazing and really got the whole crowd into the party spirit.
Sunday held a promise of being a great
party day although the weather did decide to switch from sunshine to drizzle
for the most part of the day, however speculation was building as to who would
be the surprise band which has been billed as simply '???' for the last few
weeks.
As we had to leave Download at the end of
the night due to work commitments I unfortunately missed one of the bands that
I really wanted to see as packing the tent away took longer than planned. I'm just hoping that the Graveltones did a
good enough job to be asked back again next year!
I did manage to catch some of the
Buckcherry set on the main stage though which sounded great! Although I didn't catch the whole set I heard
enough to get me in the mood for the day ahead.
New on the bill for this year was Demolition
Download which was hosted by Battle Heritage who are a full combat medieval
combat club. Basically they have real armour
and real weapons and they battle it out to see who wins.
The idea is that when you hit the deck you
have essentially been 'killed'. Although
we watched for a little while we didn't linger there for too long but it was
pretty funny to see a guy in full medieval armour square up at a 7 foot tall
pink Download Dawg!
I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch the
Richie Sambora set as I didn't know if it would be as good as imagined, however
he had a great voice and I enjoyed his set.
I loved his cover of Bon Jovi's dead or alive and was glad that I decided
to watch him.
When the time came for the band billed as
'???' a huge crowd formed at the Pepsi Max Tent to find that the mystery band
was none other than last year's second stage headliner Black Stone Cherry.
I was unable to get in the tent and from my
spot on the hill I could just about make out the silhouette of drummer John
Fred Taylor. However Black Stone Cherry played a great set including 'Rain
Wizard', 'Blind Man', 'White Trash Millionaire' and 'Blame It On The Boom Boom'.
Unfortunately for the people who hadn't managed
to get inside the tent, the set was spoilt by the noise from the fairground
rides close by as they kept their music blaring during the performance. I think it would have been much better if
they could have muted their music for the performance or if the Pepsi Max Tent
had a big screen and speakers outside as this wasn't the only oversubscribed
performance for this stage.
The
idea of a secret set was brilliant although, given the band, maybe it should
have been hosted on one of the bigger stages.
Next on the list for us was Steel Panther! These are another band that I discovered at
Download festival. Over the top and downright
rude they lighten the afternoon with their unique songs such as 'Asian
Hooker',' Gloryhole',' If I Was The King' and 'Death To All But Metal'.
Their unique look and lyrics earned them a
fantastic turn out and everyone on the crowd seemed to be really enjoying the
show.
Last on the must see list for us was
Zebrahead as the Californian punk rockers headlined the red bull stage. Zebrahead were nothing less than brilliant
even if they did only have 30 minutes for their set.
From the opening bars of 'Sirens' to the
closing notes of 'Anthem' the crowd never stood still. Zebrahead had pretty much packed the tent
which was really good considering they were pitted against Aerosmith, and
whether they had you singing the drinking song or helping their tour manager
crowd surf in the 'SS Punk Rock' you can guarantee that we were having more fun
than the guys listening to Aerosmith. 
Zebrahead have quickly become a must see band for me when they are in
town as they are so much fun and (as I found out at their signing in the
Kerrang tent) a real nice bunch of guys.
The end of the set left the crowd shouting for 'one more song' however the Download official for that stage refused to let them play again, which resulted
in resounding boos from the crowd.
As
Aerosmith's set lasted for quite a while following the closing of the
other stages we decided to watch the end
of their set. We caught up with them as
they sang my favourite song 'Dream On', however I can honestly say that in
comparison to Avenged Sevenfold and other headliners that I have seen at
Download over the years, the Aerosmith set was lacking in something. For me it just didn't have that wow factor
that others have given me. Which is a
shame as bands like Aerosmith are ones you don't get the opportunity to see
very often.
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