Download is one of the best festivals in
the UK for alternative music fans, it has had
a yearly slot taking place during the second weekend
of June for a mammoth 9 years now and 6 of which
I have attended and this year the line up was
once again very diverse yet very strong with bands
such as Def Leppard, System Of A Down, Linkin
Park, Rob Zombie, Korn and even the reformed Darkness
rocking out over the weekend.
Friday
We woke up pretty early on the Friday and participated
in a bit of camp site banter whilst waiting for
the time to hurry up for the main arena to open
but before we knew it, it was time to make that
long walk from our tents to the main arena.
CKY (4/5) are the first band
to hit the main stage of the weekend; a band I
have wanted to see since I was 13 years of age
watching the film CKY. They do not even remotely
disappoint me after such a long wait it’s
like being injected with adrenaline in the form
of chunky riffs as they play a great set, the
last 2 songs “96 Quite Bitter Beings”
and “Escape From Hellview” are fine
enough to make my pants a little wet. What an
amazing start to the weekend but the best is yet
to come. (JW)
Puddle Of Mudd (2/5) had 30 minutes
to prove to the Download crowd that they were
still a relevant rock band that should be taken
seriously, but sadly this was not the case as
the band’s 6 song set did nothing at all
to create some early afternoon excitement, the
band played a slight cover of Black Sabbath ‘War
Pigs’ and also a cover of AC/DC ‘TNT’,
granted the covers were alright but when this
is one of year first gigs in the UK in over 5
years you shouldn’t really be pissing about
with covers and should be showing that you have
some fantastic rock songs, the band’s biggest
selling single ‘Blurry’ was left out
of the set which would of caused a massive sing-a-long
and the only saving grace was the set closer ‘She
Hates Me’ which proved Puddle Of Mudd did
too little too late. (T)
Duff Mckagan’s Loaded (3/5)
hit the main stage next and now here my friends,
is a Download Festival veteran. Duff Mckagan is
no stranger to Download and is in damn good shape
for his age! Back with his new band Loaded and
their new album “The Taking” they
easily smash out a 10 song set compromised of
6 new tracks, 2 old ones, a cover of Misfits classic
“Attitude” and finishing off with
a diamond in the rough, a cover of Guns N’
Roses classic “It’s So Easy”
which sets the place alive and see’s the
band heading off stage on a very high note. (JW)
Anti Flag (4/5) showed the Download
crowd what punk is all about with their fast paced
political style punk, opening with the ever so
catchy ‘Press corpse’ and rocking
out all the way until the set closer ‘Cities
Burn’, one of the biggest cheers for Anti
Flag came was when they played a cover of The
Clash ‘Should I Stay Should I Go’,
there was a bit of political banter towards the
middle of their set about Bush and Blair but then
soon passed over people’s heads as Anti
Flag carried on their punk rock pace. (T)
Black Stone Cherry (5/5) are
on freaking fire. Sheer professionalism and confidence
just oozes off lead vocalist Chris Robertson as
it does from the rest of his head banging heavy
rock accomplices. Back at Download again with
their outstanding new album “Between the
Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” they pull a
huge turnout all ready to absolutely lose their
minds; the band produce the tunes allowing them
to do just that almost as a soundtrack to chaos.
Throwing in a cover on “Rolling in the Deep”
by Adele the band show they really can just paint
their style over just about anything and have
the attitude and stage presence to match up to
some of the veterans.(J/W)
The Damned Things (3/5) Now I
had huge expectations for The Damned Things but
I think the fact of just how good Anti Flag were
moments before The Damned Things had a lot of
work on their hands following things up, they
did their best but their 8 song set really did
fail to connect with the crowd in places, the
highlight for me was the set closer ‘We’ve
Got A Situation Here’ which really did rock
the second stage at Download but sadly I still
think the band are more suited to smaller environments.
(T)
Children of Bodom (4/5) take
the prize for most painful moment of Download
2011 with such violent outbursts of brutality
within those out of control mosh pits. Having
seen the band on 2 other occasions I must say
that Alexi Laiho seems most at home in front of
the Download audience showing the most upbeat
and confident side to him that I have ever seen.
After 8 crushingly brutal tracks including “Hate
Me!”, “Blooddrunk” and “In
Your Face” they leave the stage with a mass
of bodies covered in blood, bruises and dust to
then pick themselves up and get to the next band.
(JW)
Thin Lizzy (4/5) was a band I
was really looking forward to ever since they
got announced for the festival and that was due
to me being impressed with them rocking out on
their headline tour back at the start of the year
and tonight’s set was no difference they
played a 9 track greatest hits set which consisted
of sing-a-long songs such as ‘Waiting For
An Alibi’, ‘Jailbreak’, ‘Whiskey
In The Jar, ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’
and a few others and from the moment they took
to the stage the crowd were in their element singing-a-long
whilst you could cleary tell that the band were
loving every moment, Thin Lizzy might not be the
same without Phil Lynott but the new line-up certainly
know how to keep the Phil Lynott spirit running.
(T)
Alter Bridge (4/5) have finally
been given a spot on the main stage that they
absolutely deserve, their music is just some of
the finest in rock music today with such a range
in material and a back catalogue full of classics
they have really earned this spot. They take the
stage to the perfect intro track “Slip to
the Void” which really is just a showcase
song as it shows off Myles Kennedy’s voice
and Mark Tremonti’s guitar skills to the
absolute extreme. After a 10 song set including
a massive duel guitar battle in which Mark just
absolutely kicked Myles’s ass they feel
that their job has been done and left the sea
of satisfied heavy rock fans in awe. (JW)
The Darkness (5/5) sadly played
to quite an empty field as most of the festival
goers were over at the second stage watching Korn
rock out but that did not stop the Darkness playing
the most important 1 hour set of their career
in such a positive style, they had the crowd in
the palm of their hands from the opening track
‘Bareback’ right until the closing
moments of ‘Love On The Rocks With No Ice’,
the set was like a big greatest hits set with
classic songs such as ‘Get Your Hands Off
My Women’, ‘One Way Ticket’,
‘Friday Night’, ‘Black Shuck’,
‘Growing On Me’, ‘I Believe
In A Thing Called Love’ and many others
being unleashed on the ever so excited Download
crowd, the banter between Justin and the crowd
was fantastic with many ladies getting their breasts
out to his delight, and generally everyone was
having a good time like they just landed at a
big 1980’s party with blow up guitars and
wigs on show and people just generally rocking
out with their air guitar. (T)
Def Leppard (4/5) had a tough
job on their hands firstly to back up such a strong
set from The Darkness 30minutes previously and
secondly to prove to the Download crowd that they
are worthy of their headline slot despite only
headlining the festival 2 years previously. Well
from the start the weather was against Def Leppard
as the rain had come and it seemed like it was
in for the night, it was light but still enough
to batter the crowd and leave Def Leppard with
one of the smallest crowds I have ever seen a
headline act have at Download, anyway this did
not damper the spirits of Def Leppard as they
came out and started with their new song ‘Undefeated’
and then continued to play a greatest hits set
with a couple of golden acoustic moments thrown
in and a couple of cover songs. The highlights
of the set were hearing ‘Hysteria’
and ‘Pour some Sugar On Me’ live again.
I will say the set was pretty similar to their
last headline set at Download, the videos played
on stage was the same and some of the in-between
song talk was pretty similar, the only difference
was that the set was put together in a slightly
different order, but overall they proved why they
are one of the best touring British old skool
rock bands. (T)
Saturday
For me (Trigger) the Saturday was a marmite day
for music it came with a lot of fillers in the
afternoon but then had a couple of big guns in
the evening with Avenged Sevenfold and System
Of A Down playing back to back.
Where as for me (James) It was THE day I even
bought a ticket for! All That Remains, Down, Hollywood
Undead, Avenged Sevenfold and SOAD?! This day
should have been renamed “The Day Moshing
Destroyed The Earth” and I’m really
trying hard to resist peeing my pants.
All That Remains (4/5) bring
the metalcore to Donnington Park very early on
in the day. They play a set at 1pm and Phil Labonte
extends the question “You guys drunk yet?
What a stupid question you guys are all alcoholics
just like I am!” then picking up a bottle
of whiskey and just pouring it down his throat
like a trooper. Smashing the eardrums of thousands
in front of them with their heavy as shit set
including “Some of the People all of the
Time”, “Six” and “The
Air That I Breathe”. It’s a big start
to the day of metal here on the main stage. (JW)
Rise to Remain (4/5) have a promising
slot for them on the second stage this year 2
up from the spot they were in last year. Debuting
tracks from their upcoming as yet unnamed album
and the first single “The Serpent”
before playing their set out with tracks from
their EP “Bridges Will Burn”. Previous
reviews I have criticised Austin Dickinson’s
voice and onstage behaviour but today no such
complaints; voice is spot on, not too over the
top and he’s begging to fit the part a great
front man. (JW)
Skindred (5/5) are on freaking
fire. Benji Webbe is a man of no fear; you could
put the biggest crowd in the world in front of
him and he’d never even flinch. Getting
thousands of people to do the robot, take their
clothes off and then swing around such clothing
in the air is no easy thing to do but this man
manages it effortlessly. Pulling out the old classics
and the new rockers as well as a mash up of Tinie
Tempah’s “Pass Out” and their
own song “Selector”, there is just
no fear and no flaw in their performance. The
bands reputation as one of the strongest live
bands in the world still stands and this performance
won’t be forgotten for a very long time.(JW)
VersaEmerge (3/5) had a massive
crowd which saw the Pepsi Max stage packed out
but sadly the stage and crowd was far too big
for VersaEmerge today as I did not get that same
positive vibe from the band which I got a couple
of weeks ago when they played to a mere 80 people
at the Academy 2 in Bristol, however this did
not stop Sierra and co from trying to put on an
energetic show, the highlights of the set were
when they played ‘Figure It Out’ and
the set closer ‘Fixed At Zero’ which
saw Sierra take a big dive into the crowd for
the closing moments of the song. (T)
Hollywood Undead (3/5) have just
replaced their clean singer Deuce with American
Idol contestant Danny, now Danny’s voice
is quite different to that of Deuce’s as
displayed with their new album so when they got
announced for Download I was terrified that he
was going to murder the old classics; I needn’t
have worried because he does them complete justice
and is note for note perfect on every song. Jonny
3 tears however is having a bad day because his
voice isn’t reaching some of the notes that
he really should be however the songs are saved
by the amazing performance Charlie Scene gives,
now he’s a true performer. Mostly new material
and 4 of the best tracks from the debut album
too, great set and an amazing showcase. (JW)
Down (4/5) is a hefty mans band,
always have been always will be. Their pits weren’t
even countable as pits they were more like street
brawls filled with enormous biker guys. Phil Anselmo
is a legend in his own right; the arrogance and
sheer authority of the man is just a great thing
to watch however this year whilst still having
the arrogance he’s found a little soft spot
in his heart for his fans “Now quit staring
at me and get to it! But in all seriousness we
do love you guys”. Playing the chorus from
“Walk” dedicated to Dimebag Darrell
was a bit controversial but to be fair he did
help write it and it is a fitting tribute. After
10 tracks of pure stoner southern rock and a mass
of devils lettuce smoke fresh in the air the band
take off. (JW)
Skunk Anasie (3/5) are a band
who have been touring heavily since they have
come back and seem to make a few appearances at
festivals each year with Sonisphere being the
big one for them last year and Download the big
one for them this year. As the band played their
hits such as ‘Yes Its Fucking Political’,
‘Charlie Big Potatoe’, ‘Weak’,
‘Twisted’ etc they were on top form
but sadly there was a lot of filler material included
into the bands 17 track set and even the crazy
ways of front women Skin could not stop the band
from getting boring in places. (T)
Bowling For Soup (4/5) played
a short acoustic set over at the Jagermeister
stage and my god was the field packed for this,
the only problem was if you were near the back
of the crowd the sound bled from the main stage
and the Red Ball stage and made the whole Jagermeister
stage sound quite unbearable as you had too much
to concentrate on, anyway Bowling For Soup played
a few of their hits in acoustic form such as ‘High
School Never Ends’ , ‘Wena’,
‘1984’ and not to forget a whole unique
Jagermeister song. (T)
Avenged Sevenfold (5/5) brought
exactly the same stage show with them as they
had in their co-headline tour with Stone Sour
late last year and it went down a bloody storm
with the Download crowd especially when the fire
canisters took over the stage with fire popping
up from everywhere warming up the main stage field.
M Shadows and co wasted no time at all and kicked
straight off with the title track from their current
album ‘Nightmare’ and played a set
which consisted on mainly new material but a few
old favourites were thrown into the mix such as
‘Bat Country’, ‘Afterlife’
and also ‘A Little Piece Of Heaven’
which was dedicated to The Rev, The show that
Avenged Sevenfold put on was fantastic and there
was nothing more they could of done and this left
me wondering how the hell System Of A Down could
follow this up. (T)
System Of A Down (5/5) from the
moment System Of A Down took to the stage and
blasted off into ‘Prision Song’ I
just knew that System were going to follow on
from Avenged Sevenfold perfectly, the stage show
that System had was pretty basic with only a big
banner situated at the back of the stage with
the band’s name on but they proved that
if you have the songs, sound and stage presence
then you don’t need a stage show as System
took it to a whole new level tonight and played
a mammoth 26 song set which was better than any
band I have ever seen headline Download before.
The dual vocals from Serj and Daron worked perfectly
together tonight and the band appeared tighter
than ever like a band that has never had any problems,
you could certainly tell that the short hiatus
was worth it, highlights of the set were ‘B.Y.O.B’,
‘Chop Suey!’, ‘Ciagro’,
‘Toxcity’ and not to forget the men
bouncing like mad in the toilets to ‘Bounce’
which I am sure ended in quite a messy situation.
The set closed with ‘Sugar’ and a
mad flurry of fireworks as everyone headed back
to the village and their tents just witnessing
one of the most perfect rock and roll sets of
the year. (T)
Sunday
Today was the day that everyone had been looking
forward to the most but also dreading at the same
time and that was because some amazing bands were
on like Rob Zombie, Linkin Park, Black Veil Brides,
Disturbed and many others but the downer on the
day was the weather where heavy rain was predicted
from 10am and in for the rest of the day and for
the one day you want the weather men to get things
wrong it didn’t happen as the rain came
down in buckets but luckily most people were ready
with water proofs on and 10 hours of musical fun
to be had.
Madina Lake (3/5) it was good
to see the Leone brothers back on stage together
playing the music they love as last summer Matthew
Leone suffered a major beating whilst trying to
help a random girl out in the street, now many
people feared for his life and judging by the
hospital bed pictures that were realised Matthew
is on lucky man to be back on stage especially
only a year after the incident. As for the set
Madina Lake played it was just more of the same
old, it featured some of their biggest songs like
‘House Of Cards’ and ‘Here I
Stand’ but overall Madina Lake really don’t
have what it takes to please the Download crowd.
Bowling For Soup (5/5) were bloody
fantastic from the start and helped bright a smile
on people’s faces during this wet Sunday
afternoon, Jaret was on time form with his between
song banter especially when it stopped raining
and he said “It’s stopped raining
because we are god’s favourite band”,
other between song banter had Jaret saying “We
have just released a new album called ‘Fishin
For Woos’ and this song is not off it”,
A blow up penis was also spotted in the crowd
and soon ended up on stage with Chris inserting
it into the female blow up sheep situated on stage
which soon ended up out of air and dead. The set
Bowling For Soup played was great with ‘High
School Never Ends’, ‘Punk Rock 101’,
‘1985’ and ‘Girl all The Bad
Guys Want’ being the main highlights but
not to forget their ever so fast cover of the
Phineas And Ferb cartoon theme song.
Gwar (4/5) The rain quickly returned
for Gwar a band who I have always wanted to see
live but have never had the chance until now and
my god these guys surly know how to have a crowd
watching on with their mouths open wondering what
is going to happen next, the stage show featured
fighting robots, the queen having her boobs ripped
off, a near real looking dead dog and all of these
stage props resulted in fake blood being squirted
on stage and into the crowd, the set they played
was short and sweet and ‘Let Us Slay’
was the main highlight, I for one will be sure
to check out Gwar when they next return to the
UK.
Turisas (3/5) only managed 4
songs in their set as well due to cleaning up
after Gwar and tremendous amounts of crowd interaction.
It’s like Turisas are poking a hungry bear
with a stick wearing barbeque sauce if you can
imagine as the crowd is hungry for their songs
and the pits are a sight for sore eyes, fake Vikings
smacking one another with plastic sticks effectively.
So you would think due to time already being lost
by the cleaning that they would just get on stage
and spit out as many tracks as they could but
that’s just not the Turisas way; instead
they play 4 tracks and between “Rasputin”
and “Battle Metal” split the crowd
in half and have a sing off which seems to go
on forever. They played terrifically and if they
had more time it wouldn’t be so bad, 4 songs
thought I just can’t get over its like you
needn’t have seen them.(JW)
The Gaslight Anthem (4/5) are
a band that I have a lot of time for and it seemed
like today that they were pleased to be playing
Download as Brian Fallon had a huge smile on his
face from start to finish hopefully this wasn’t
his way of laughing at the crowd because he was
dry and they were wet. The set they played was
a mixture of songs from both albums and the songs
went down a treat as The Gaslight Anthem write
music to be played to arena and festival style
crowds just like their idol Bruce Springsteen.
(T)
Disturbed (4/5) are a rock band
like no other, they are a serious rock band who
take everything seriously from their stage show
to their look and right down to the nitty gritty
bits of their music and today’s entrance
featured the same introduction video that has
been playing at all Disturbed shows for the past
6 months or so and it was the perfect introduction
for the band and they took to the stage looking
pretty smooth and played a solid 12 track set
which the crowd new all the words to right down
to the random sounds that frontman David Draiman
is well known for, and as soon as the set closer
‘Down With The Sickness’ was played
you could tell that the greedy crowd wanted even
more. (T)
Black Veil Brides (3/5) are one
of my favourite new bands, they totally blew me
away when they supported the Murderdolls back
in February and they are now back in the UK for
the second time and for what on paper would of
been their biggest and most important show so
far but sadly the rain had hugely effected the
numbers of people in the main arena today and
there was a mere 300 people crowded around the
second stage waiting for the Black Veil Brides,
the band took to the stage in the same hyperactive
confident way as when I saw them back in February
but as the set went on you could tell that frontman
Andy Biersack was not fully happy and his anger
clearly showed as before they played ‘Knives
In Pens’ he said “Sing a long if you
know the word, if you don’t then you can
shove it up your arse”, which really is
not the best thing to say to a festival crowd
especially when there are some potential new fans
listening in. Overall the songs were there, the
faced paced action was there but sadly the weather
and crowd turnout was not on their side today
and slightly affected their performance. (T)
Silverstein (2/5) spent their
whole set digging themselves a grave saying that
this is the last time we will ever see them in
the UK as they are never coming back and if we
want to see them again we have to head to Germany,
now from looking around the majority of the people
in the tent was just there to stay dry and couldn’t
give a shit about Silverstein but there was some
hardcore fans at the front who looked confused
and still to this day I don’t know if Silverstein
were joking or telling the truth but either way
it is a shit way to treat your dedicated UK fans,
could this be the beginning of the end for Silverstein?
(T)
Bullet for my Valentine (4/5) the
reason that they may not have as big a turn out
is their overexposure over the past year; they
headlined the second stage at Download last year,
did a huge arena tour in December and now their
back again. And to be fair they are a band that
has to play certain songs because their fan base
wouldn’t forgive them if they didn’t,
they however play “Say Good Night”
which nobody really gets onboard with as everybody
wants “Hearts Burst Into Fire” but
I think it’s good to mix things up. Matt
Truck tries to get around as much of the stage
as he can because being a front man constrained
by a guitar making him unable to carry a microphone
around with him is hard to really get into it
but he does his best. Their pyro show is pretty
good too not just your standard random bursts
of fire it’s all symmetrical and exciting.
(JW)
Rob Zombie (5/5) however is the
master of the live show, no band has ever in my
experience (and I’ve seen over 400 bands
in my time) lived up to what this man produces.
Even if he wasn’t trying he could obliterate
most acts and on his UK tour in February in academy
venues he played a toned down version of his live
show which was still the best I’d ever seen.
So when the promise that for download festival
he would bring his entire stage show AND buy more
stuff to add to it I was more excited than I’ve
ever been in my life. He’s very late on
stage but I forgive him for 3 reasons; 1 he’s
given us Johnny cash to listen to whilst we wait,
2 I appreciate how long his show takes to setup
and 3 he’s Rob freaking Zombie! He bursts
out of a robots chest when he comes onto “Jesus
Frankenstein” followed by 3 huge classics
“Superbeast”, “Scum of the Earth”
and “Living Dead Girl”. The screens
accompanying his set show lots of boobs, gore
and assorted trippy patterns including lyrics
on some occasions. The dancing robots are back
as well as the bigheaded dudes and the Jesus Frankenstein.
It’s like he feeds on large audiences as
compared to the February show it looks like the
man’s on speed or something because he’s
jumping all over the place running around and
absolutely beaming. After a set of truly amazing
tracks like “Mars Needs Women”, “Pussy
Liquor” and “Demonoid Phenomenon”
mixed along with White Zombie classics “More
Human Than Human”, “Super-Charger
Heaven” and “Thunder Kiss ‘65”
which see’s John 5 perform one of the greatest
guitar solos I have ever witnessed. He retreats
backstage, but not for long before bringing out
the podium dressing in a “Union Black”
suit and performing his last song of the night
“Dragula”. Just his presence was enough
to send me off into orbit he’s just a legend
on all accounts and I could not have been happier.
(JW)
Linkin Park (4/5) are on for
a good half an hour after Rob Zombie so I figure
I can go and catch the last few classics which
I do. I managed to catch “In The End”
which is my favourite song and they perform it
terrifically along with “Bleed It Out”
which they then turn into a medley including the
tracks “Burning in the Skies” and
“A Place for My Head” which pleases
me oh so much. The last 2 tracks of the night
“Faint” and “One Step Closer”
are what I always imagined a Linkin Park performance
to be just like full of energy and passion which
after all these years is good to see that Chester’s
voice is still absolutely spot on. Triumphant
end to a rain filled day which luckily stopped
before rob zombie and yet another tremendous weekend
held at Donnington Park. (JW)
Overall
Overall Download 2011 featured many highs and
lows with Rob Zombie, System OF A Down, Gwar,
Disturbed, Bowling For Soup, The Darkness, Def
Leppard, Bullet For My Valentine all hitting that
high bracket and the Saturday afternoon filler
section and Sunday weather hitting that low bracket.
Next year will see Download hit its tenth anniversary
mark and judging by some of the mindless idiots
who plaster the Download facebook page and Andy
Copping’s personal twitter page the only
way to stop the mindless moaning is to book either
Metallica or Iron Maiden as where either these
two play the fans are happy, I personally think
both bands are over toured in the UK at the moment
but if it pleases the majority then it needs to
be done.
Review By Trigger And James Webb
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