overview

This year’s Download festival once again got the festival season off to a pulverising start. Still in its early infancy (this was the fifth Download at Donington Park), Download is proving more than able to take on all the well-established festivals such as Leeds/Reading and V festivals. Admittedly it will never match the mighty Big G (Glastonbury Festival).

Looking back at the weekends events and trying to write an overview of what the festival was like... immediately the thing that springs into mind is how awfully tropically warm the weather was. Some people love the sunshine, but then being baked alive is not my idea of fun.



It only took a few hours of being at Download to have the classic red lobster look emblazoned on every bit of visible skin that I had left uncovered. So apart from the obscene heat there was plenty of things to keep the punters occupied.

Once again the organisers had provided a Village with stalls and fair rides, as well as introducing a new initiative to keep the venue tidy. If you collected cups and took them to the recycling centre on site- you would’ve given money in return for your efforts. One person spent all weekend collecting cups to fund his trip to the USA for the Ozzfest.

As with every festival, this one suffers with traffic problems so I’m not going to moan too much about that as you have to expect a fair amount of traffic at these events.

However after trawling around to find a parking space, the queues to get into the main arena were so unorganised that you have to wonder what skills/qualifications are needed to be part of the security team on the perimeter gates- because common sense doesn’t seem to be a required skill with the security staff on the main gates!!!



Once inside I sat back and enjoyed three whole days of superb music. Admittedly I did get a nasty shock when I saw that an ice cream now costs £3 at a festival and burgers and other junk food costs nearer the five pounds mark. Shocking!!!

My personal highlights of the festival (that I can remember) were seeing Velvet Revolver live, musically they have that special gift which made them stand out from the rest of the bands on the bill.



Seeing fans practically destroy the tent that Korn played in was memorable for the wrong reasons. Also catching a glimpse of some old men who were once famous in a band called Motley Crue was more nostalgic than anything else.

Usually at Download nothing surprises me, so I made a special effort to try and catch some bands that I wouldn’t usually watch- admittedly this did mean missing bands I love to watch live because of the way the stage times run.


Surprisingly a couple of bands called Dragonforce and Hinder really impressed me, So I will be going to purchase some of their material soon. As for the rest of the bands it was just routine stuff for them, they didn’t really do anything special except for Bowling For Soup. They had decided to spend an incredible amount of money on bringing the biggest inflatable sheep you could possibly imagine, one on either side of the stage with anatomically correct parts, anyway I wont spoil the surprise if you have never seen these guys live before, needless to say they were thoroughly enjoyable to watch and certainly as memorable as Velvet Revolver.



Evanescence were interesting to watch because its now turned into the Amy Lee show, the band members (whoever it is this week) didn’t come towards the front of the stage during the set, I can only assume they were under orders not to take any of the limelight from the diva known as Amy Lee.


The headline bands weren’t spectacular. My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park just seemed to be going through the motions rather than trying to make the punters feel like they had got value for money. The festival was closed on Sunday night by Iron Maiden, returning to the festival for the third time in five years.


The most impressive thing that I witnessed at this years Download surprisingly enough wasn’t any of the talented bands but instead the Red Bull X Fighters, these are motor cross stunt riders, every time I watched them perform their stunts, they just took my breath away, their backflips and superman stunts whilst flying through the air were Incredible!



So as I sat here nursing my arms with aftersun lotion, I look back and think what a great weekend. Which other festival can boast such great rock bands? - none!

Despite the blistering sun, there is that part of me that is just counting down the days to the next Download, which will be held on 13/14/15 June 2008. Hope to see you there!

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