I went to Download Festival 2018.

Intro – The road to download.

I went to Download Festival 2018; this was my first ever over-night music festival. When I was a teenager I went to the Irish Ozzfest (more on that later) and a few summers ago I went to the Dutch one-day event Festival Zand because my wife’s friends were all going and simply ‘why not?’ but for years and years, I’ve been reading about Downloads and Sonispheres and have been lusting after them, with the podcasts I listen to constantly talking about them and making them seem very important to my culture. Over the years I’ve got more and more determined to go to one. I’ve always been too busy with work or school or university, or been too broke to afford it. Most of all though, I was too afraid to go.

This year I felt more confidence to go and finally took the plunge (well, actually I bought the tickets in a moment of madness related to bereavement that I don’t want to go into right now, but I didn’t cancel as I finally had the confidence to go).

The drive there was pleasant. I made a few mix cds of the best Thrash Metal songs, the sun was out, the excitement was in the air. Traffic was good. I got there in about two hours, singing along to Annihilator and Overkill and Kreator all the way. I stopped in a motorway services to fuel up the car for the drive home and it was full of Metalheads. It was a good vibe. It finally hit me I was actually going to download. I mean, when the tickets arrived it was one thing. When I was buying my first ever tent, it was one thing. But seeing a mob of Metalheads en mass far from home really made it click.

After finally arriving at Donnington ‘the spiritual home of rock‘ Park, getting out of the car, and lumping all my supplies about 15,000 steps to the available space left to camp (I arrived on Friday at about 10.00am, rather than Wednesday like some people so there was now limited space), I then had the task of putting up a tent. Not a big deal, I mean, I’ve worked in hospitals, I had to figure out how to set up morphine pumps and blood warmers for atypical transfusions before without killing anyone, how hard could it be to set up a tent, right?

 

…Close enough.

After setting up a tent and praying it wouldn’t be stolen or fall over, I made my way up the hill, crossing the race track, got my wrist band and finally stepped foot in ‘the arena’ which is the area where the concerts actually take place (another 5,000-10,000 steps away again.)

There were four stages, and a ridiculous number of bands. There were tonnes of familiar bands to see, or new bands to discover. It was like a religious experience. Almost overwhelming. Some people are casual about music. Some people learn instruments, play in bands, read everything they can about it and buy hundreds and hundreds of records. I am in the latter category as if you can’t tell by me being arrogant enough to write a blog about music as if I have any qualification to write about it beyond sheer, blinding love for it. I don’t know what I’m talking about or have any professional or educational authority on it but I love it and it is my biggest thing in life, more like a religion or culture than a mere hobby.

DAY 1 – The Arena.

Stepping foot in the arena was one of the most magical and exciting moments of my whole life. Better than any graduation, better than any birthday party or first drink or first kiss or so many other milestones. (Not better than meeting my wife or my wedding or things like that though, sorry music, but my wife is more awesome than you – but apart from that, this was pretty high up the damn list of best moments in my life).

There was so much options to choose, it was a bit of option paralysis. I mean, on top of concerts on four stages they had fairground attractions, a cinema, medieval fighting, NXT wrestling, and all sorts. Some kind of lightning tricks. Pubs, clubs, all kinds of food. I didn’t come here for any of that here. I came here to, …excuse me, but I came here to rock. Yes, yes I said it. All my waking day was to be spent on music for that is what I care about, not ferris wheels and knights hitting each other with clubs. (Cool as hell they have all that stuff though, for the option. If you drag someone with you who doesn’t like music as much there is still shitloads for them to do).

I made a plan in advance; rather than get overwhelmed trying to dart off between sets to go from one stage to the next and back and miss things, I was going to make a simple plan. Main stage Friday all day. Second stage all day Saturday, except of course running down the hill when the second stage closes in time to see Guns N Roses take to the main stage. Sunday my plan was Main stage all day, with the exception of running to the second stage to catch Kreator before returning back to the main stage for some bands I don’t like but giving me the option to slowly worm my way up closer to the front over time for the ones I do like after them.

DAY 1 – The Bands.

So on Friday, after a walk down to the stage that took a fair-old-while, the first band I got to see was some band called Avatar. I didn’t get there to catch the opening act Boston Manor due to how long it look me to figure out how to set up a tent, but I did manage to catch the whole of Avatar’s set. I had never hear a second of their music before, but I had previously heard people who I respect’s opinion saying they were a bit crap so wasn’t expecting much. The took the stage, dressed as some kind of Jester-dandies, looking like a cross between when The Libertines wear those red jackets with Jim from Slipknot‘s second mask, only in face paint. Their music was hard to describe. It wasn’t Power Metal, it wasn’t Nu Metal but it sort of sounded like a more commercial version of Marilyn Manson‘s debut album’s deep cuts like ‘Dope Hat’ and ‘Organ Grinder’ being played by Sabaton while trying to get a song on WWE so toning down the Power. No, I don’t know either.

There were a lot of young kids there who absolutely lapped it up though, so I held no ill will towards them. A bit gimmicky, but when I was a kid I got my fix from that Limp Bizkit mix, so I am just happy there are entry points like this keeping the genre alive. They ended their bewildering but inoffensive set with a track called something along the lines of ‘Freakshow‘ which started with a semi-amusing stage speech the gist of which was “they may tell you that you look like a freakshow” and then something about looking and “they might tell you that you sound like a freakshow” and then something about hearing and lastly “ they might tell you that you smell like a freakshow, but I tell them, STEP CLOSER, YOU’RE MISSING THE BEST PART” which did make me crack a smile. The singer reminded me a bit of Wednesday 13 (of Murderdolls fame, among other things). Yeah, not my cup of tea, but a fine warm up. At a real concert you don’t always like all the support bands beforehand either, but they get you warmed up and its good to experience new things.

The kids in the crowd thinned out and I got to walk right up to the front, next but one from the barrier. Then to the stage came Dragonforce. I am not the world’s largest or most knowledgeable Dragonforce fan. I have their first four albums and I hold them in warm regard. I have never heard them since ZP Theart left the band, live or on record. I don’t know why but I felt like maybe I had all the Dragonforce I needed. They appeared to play a lot of material from the post-ZP albums though, which was actually the best material of the set. Marc Hudson is a cracking singer and has fully won my respect. If, like me, you sort of fell away from the band, maybe reevaluate that!

The band were plagued with technical problems and I feel like maybe they would have played more, but Herman’s guitar kept dropping off and he spent a lot of time off stage. The band fully stopped at one time and awkwardly jammed ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ to stop the crowd getting bored while they tried to iron out the technical problems. Shame. Apparently they were filming this gig. Probably won’t be coming out now. Either way, they were pretty on fire this day and if you ignore the afore mentioned issues it was a damn good show and I would’ve been totally satisfied with it if they were the support band to a concert I’d individually paid for.

 

Next came Marmozets. Marmozets are a terrific band and I was really obsessed with their debut album for a few months there. They released a new album recently but I haven’t got it yet due to holding back on music purchases recently to buy a new drum kit, and then to recover from buying it. I really enjoyed the new material they played but felt a bit of a lemon not singing along. When they played material I knew however, like ‘Particle,’ ‘Why Do You Hate Me?’ and especially ‘Captivate You’ I had just, the best time. Their drummer, who I have never seen in real life, is such a fucking rock star. Real Tommy Lee shit. The energy and charisma of the guy was remarkable. I have rarely seen anyone love being on a stage or on a drumkit so much before. It was dripping of him. Absolute raw enthusiasm. He was captivating. I barely looked at the rest of the band. Becca’s voice held up live too which is amazing. She has such a diverse range of growls, screams, screeches and cleans that I would be damn difficult to replicate it live, but boy did she. Overall, an utterly triumphant set from the band. I only wish I’d have known the new material in advance.

The next band were utterly new to me as well, but I’d heard about them for years and years and was excited to try them out. Volbeat have a reputation as being some bizarre hybrid of The Misfits, Elvis, Johnny Cash and Load-era Metallica. I couldn’t even imagine. For years I’ve been hearing podcast hosts bigging them up, jokingly calling them ‘whoah-l beat’ and generally making them sound like an interesting proposition. Oh, and Rob Caggiano, from Anthrax is in them! Yes, I was gonna check that out, you better believe it.

A late-50s woman behind me had been talking to her friend about how they were her favourite band ever and when I turned round she was about half my height so I asked her if she wanted to swap as it wasn’t fair loving them that much and only seeing my butt instead of the band, so she swapped places and I still had the same view as I could see right over her head. I hope all of you do the same thing some day. Karma or whatever. Just like if you catch a drumstick but don’t like the band, give it to a die-hard.

Anyway, the band seriously impressed me. It was very good fun. I didn’t hear much of the Metallica influence, but they played some gorgeous melodic hard rock with seriously fun catchy choruses and superb guitar solos. They played up to the Cash and Elvis influences talking about them in the stage banter and doing impressions. Some of their songs were irresistible, one track, which is presumably a big hit was introduced as ‘About a shady lady called Lola’ really grabbed me. I think I’m going to buy that when I am back to buying music again. Another song was ‘Burn It To The Ground’ by Nickleback; oh wait, no it wasn’t… but do me a favour and go listen to ‘The Devil’s Bleeding Crown’ and tell me that aint influenced by ‘Burn It To The Ground.’

They got the acoustics out at one stage and they had a lot of ‘wey-oh’ sing alongs gong on. Their singer Michael is very endearing, I don’t know if its the accent or the look or what, but he just has a very lovable vibe like Kai Hansen of Gamma Ray has.

Now there was a downside to my ‘not too much movement between stages’ plan. I fucking love Tesseract and Napalm Death were such a big thing in my teenage years, but my plan would see me miss both. They clashed with Avenged, and we all know who’s going to put on the better show. Napalm Death are always punk in ethos and last time I saw them they just showed up and played like they were your cousin Jeff’s band rehearsing in your living room unannounced. No inflatable skeletons in sight. And Tesseract I’ve seen three times before, while I’d only seen Avenged once. The maths made it seem the best sense to stick to the minimal movement plan. Luckily, Barney Greenway showed up on stage with Volbeat to sing a song with them, and I got a little bit of Napalm Death after all! Nice.

Next up was BFMV. You can see my review of Bullet For My Valentine‘s last Concert DVD or the time I saw them live to see my thoughts on that band. They were just as good here, although like Marmozets their was a fair bit of new material I didn’t know. When they played the trashier stuff like ‘Waking The Demon’ and ‘Scream Aim Fire’ though, it came across really powerfully live. The band may have a wimpy reputation but you can’t fuck with a live version of ‘Four Words To Choke Upon.’ The amount of crowd surfers the generated was pretty impressive. Marmozets had asked for it. Volbeat had encouraged it, but for Bullet, it was like a magnet to a set of iron filings. I got kicked in the face a lot.

It always surprises me how good Matt Tuck’s voice is live. I always envision him as some Pro Tools processed pretty boy, but the guy is so good live there is not questioning his talent whatsoever. I feel like an idiot for how many years I wrote this band off as kiddy music. They are champions of their scene and deservedly so. I feel like Matt’s new short hair & sunglasses vibe and how much he’s been hitting the gym might be an attempt to become Matt Shadows visually, but that’s just an aside. Musically that was a terrific concert. I heard a few fans comment afterwards that they’d seen the band numerous times and that this was the best one yet. The download website review agrees (although that might be for marketing purposes, so pinch of salt and all that). Apart from maybe not having enough time due to festival time slots, I pretty much agree that it was hard to fault this performance at all. I’d gotten my money’s worth already and the first day wasn’t even over yet.

The Volbeat fan was gone and I was right up front, one or two from the barrier again, and Friday’s Headliners, Avenged Sevenfold arrived on stage, opening up funnily enough with their recent single ‘The Stage’ and blew the fucking roof off the place, except there was no roof as it was a festival, but I’m running out of hyperbole here so work with me.

Like Bullet, I’d also seen Avenged live at a headliner show in Manchester before. Like Bullet, this was also just as good. Last time I saw Avenged’ however I was up in the rafters in a seat very far from the action. This time I saw close enough to spit on them, if I’d wanted to. Which I don’t. This isn’t the late 70s punk scene. Anyway; I was close. So close I could feel the heat on my face when the pyro went off.

Boy did Avenged put on a show. As well as all the video-screens and visualisations, there were bombs, fireworks and pyroblasts. There was a giant inflatable king for ‘Hail To The King’ and a giant inflatable astronaut for the new album like they’re Iron bloody Maiden or something. There was sooooo much fire for ‘Sheppard Of Fire.’

The setlist was much the same as I’d seen the last time with a few omissions for Festival timing (no ‘Planets’ for example) and a few additions from their recent Stage add-on content, like their cover of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here which they dedicated to all the people they’d been bereaved of, including amongst others their previous drummer Jimmy ‘The Rev’ Sullivan. They also dedicated their popular ballad ‘So Far Away’ to him and had a whole Rev Video on the screens like Lynyrd Skynyrd do with ‘Travlin Man.’ Sullivan’s death was in a roundabout way what got me into the band. Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater replaced him for their album Nightmare, and one of my friends from Uni who also played the drums gave me a copy of Nightmare after we had been discussing Mike Portnoy. Nightmare remains my favourite Avenged album to this day, and it was great to hear tracks from it live tonight like The Title Track, ‘Burried Alive’ and ‘Welcome To The Family.’ You can’t beat hearing 7,000 people scream ‘It’s Your Fucking Nightmare’ in unison! And that bit on ‘Burried Alive’ when it stops sounding like a ballad and starts sounding like Black Album-era Metallica with that chunky-as-fuck riff comes in is spine-tingling live.

The band played an utter corker of a show and it was a real brilliant end to the evening. If I had just got a day ticket, I’d have been satisfied. Marmozets, Bullet and Avenged are all worthy of me going to see them on their own, so together it was fantastic, and I really enjoyed Dragonforce and was very happy to discover Volbeat. (As I’ve been writing this I’ve been streaming ‘Lola Montez’ on repeat a few times after fondly remembering it in the above section).

 

NIGHT ONE – Would the tent stay up?

I got back to the camp after a confusing walk past a horizon full of more amusement park stuff and music despite that being in the opposite direction of the arena. What the hell was that? Oh well, too tired to worry about it. Time to get some sleep. Finding the correct tent was a bit of a mission in the dark, but I got it done eventually then memorized it for future reference.

Luckily, the thing was still in situ and looking vaguely habitable, so I climbed in. I opened my sleeping mat, got in my sleeping bag and closed my eyes for some much needed rest.

‘Alan!’

Huh?

‘ALAAAAAAAAN!’

What?!

‘AAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLAN’ ‘Alan,’ ‘ALAN’ ‘Alaaaan.’

It seems the good folks at Yellow campsite had taken to screaming the word ‘Alan’ as loud and often as they could and not to be outdone, dozens of the fine people down the hill responded in kind. One person would scream ‘Alan’ ‘Steve’ or ‘Pickle Rick’ as hard as they could and then you’d hear it echo around the park. It was sort of funny once.

Smash cut to three hours later, not a wink of sleep, and ‘Alan’ is still an ongoing regular sound. Oh well, can’t begrudge these people their fun. CUNTS CUNTS CUNTS. I mean they paid the same as me to have some fun. THE UTTER BASTARDS. And after all, we’re all here to have a good time. MUTHAFUCKERS. And who needs sleep anyway, its rock n roll. I HATE EVERY ONE OF THEM. If Lemmy was here, I’m sure he’d shout ‘alan’ too.

Ok; that one did it. I did in the end get about three hours sleep, and all jokes aside, did accept the alan noise and not too seriously begrudge it. Sort of. I don’t want to be that guy who rains on other people’s parade.

I woke up to piss and found a snail in my tent above my head. I named him Alan.

I went back to sleep for about another twenty minutes and my alarm went off, it was time to get up and get ready for day two.

DAY 2 – The bands.

Remember the guy who got me into Avenged about a decade ago. Guess who came up to me in the que for the breakfast truck? Only him! Nice one. It was great catching up. Didn’t expect this. We had a good conversation about how the festival had obviously blown all the money on Guns N’ Roses and how the rest of Saturday was a bit of a dud compared to Friday and Sunday. I didn’t recognize a single band on the main stage except Blackstone Cherry who aren’t my cup of tea and Monster Truck who’s first EP I have, but nothing else.

My plan was to hang out on the second stage on Saturday, ostensibly to see Parkway Drive who the podcasts I listen to always call the best live band of our generation, and who’s most recent two albums have both been in constant rotation in my listening schedule since release, as was their masterpiece Deep Blue when I first discovered them. I had almost got to see them twice before but missed the first one when an old girlfriend was sick and couldn’t go the the second one because of work.

Opening were a band I hadn’t heard of before called Powerflo. I walked to the near the front after a song or two and hey, those are some familiar faces. Billy from Biohazard was there. Hey, wasn’t that guy in Downset?. Holy shit, that’s Christian from Fear Factory! Some kind of supergroup then. Also their singer was in Cypress Hill. It was like a heavier version of Prophets Of Rage I guess. Their material was very clearly Biohazard influenced which was just what I needed to get me energized in the morning. They did an introduction bit where they teased music from Downset, Fear Factor, Cypress Hill and Biohazard, such as playing about 10 seconds of ‘Replica’ for example. There was frig all people in the crowd as they were presumably resting up from staying up too late shouting ‘alan’ (not bitter!) and hadn’t gotten into the arena yet. Shame, the band were very good and deserved more eyes on them.

Then came a band I hadn’t heard of before. I asked a guy in the crowd who was next and he enthusiastically announced it was Von Hertzen Brothers and I asked him what type of music it was and he said melodic Swedish Rock. That had me imagining Europe. What it actually was, was more like Riverside. More driving and more cheerful, but they had proggy vibes and it was key-heavy. They had no show to speak of, like Powerflo they were just sat in front of a banner playing songs like it was a club, but they had great music and they were damn charming. They inspired a heck of a lot of clap-alongs. I was very impressed. One more added to my to-look-into list.

The Von Hertzen’ fan left and a lady took his place and really excitedly told everyone who would listen that they would really love the next act, and oh my god there they were look up there! and oh my god there was the lawnmower!

You heard that right. Lawnmower. It was ’80s Comedy Thrash band Lawnmower Deth suspiciously high up the bill on a suspiciously large stage. Not the fourth stage, the second. Not opening, but third from the start. How did they swing this?

…and then they played. Now; if you have any chance of seeing them live I almost don’t want you to read this, so skip down to the next photo to avoid spoilers if you are going to see them any time soon.

Go on skip if you are going to see em.

No? Ok; So they took the stage, playing Hardcore sounding Thrash with a sort of DRI vibe but way more British. They had about five or six back up characters running around the stage dressed as the devil or a sheep or an old lady with dodgy stag-party-esque costumes from a cheap costume shop. They had home made cardboard trains and had them running around the stage like a fancy dress party. They also had a quite professionally built giant smoking killer comedy lawnmower with a shark like mouth that opened and closed. A helper chased the old woman character around the stage with it until ‘she’ (a fifty year old bloke with a full stubbly beard) fell down and actually got run over by it and crawled inside like a magic trick, only done slowly and obviously on purpose for comedic effect. They also tossed dozens of inflatables into the crowd for us to play beach ball with and they lured the sheep character into their ‘Deth Shed’ which was made to look like an (again though, on a Halloween party budget) execution chamber and they pulled it and it sprayed blood all over the sheep and he acted dead. It was very amusing. It was like a very elaborate prom-posal or something. The band were very humble and grateful and got festival organiser Andy Copping on stage to thank him. I really enjoyed the show. Not something I would have ever sought out, but a very nice surprise and combined with the first two surprises of Powerflo and Von Hertzen Brothers, made Saturday not seem such a wash-out after all.

Now one of my favourite bands, ever, period, is Corrosion Of Conformity. Their reunion gig was utterly superb for me and I had been looking forward all month to catching them. They got up there and I sang every word. They did their intro which was part of Bottom Feeder, then they had new song ‘The Luddite,’ and they did ‘Broken Man’ and they did the hits ‘Albatross’ and an extended version of ‘Clean My Wounds’ and then…nothing.

I know there are limited times, but man, I would have loved more C.O.C. I was screaming my heart out along with them while surrounded by bemused Baby Metal fans who didn’t get the love they were inspiring. There was just so much more they could have played. Big hits, fan favourites, new singles. I’d been chomping at the bit all week to hear ‘Wolf Named Crow’ and ‘ Cast The First Stone’ live. Shame they didn’t get more time. Festival-high banter, strongbow cider reference, and then they were gone. One of my utter favourite bands. Oh well, they announced they’d be playing the UK soon headlining and I can hopefully catch them then for more.

Bury Tomorrow came next. I don’t know them but the podcasts always spoke highly of them. Their dynamic front man really whipped the crowd into shape and if you knew the material it must have been one hell of a concert. I was pretty spellbound as a newcomer. The crowd surfers where out in full force. The singer gave a good speech about supporting music and keeping it alive in a non-cheesy way. They pretty much destroyed the place and I wish I knew them in advance as it seemed to be a superb show. Another one on the to-look-into list. This download shenanigan is a good way to find new music as well as see lots of bands in one go, even if some of them COUGH, C.O.C, COUGH don’t get enough time.

L7 got a surprisingly high slot next. Does anyone care about L7 in 2018? I know I am too young, but all I know them as are a one hit wonder who once got in trouble for showing their bush on TV. They had a bit of an underdog factor as their drummer had broken her arm and they had a drummer in with only one day’s practice so that was endearing, but I wasn’t much interested nor impressed by them. It was serviceable Bleach-era Nirvana style grunge, only a bit more repetitive and with not much going on musically. Nothing wrong with it, but not for me. It passed the time. Me personally, I would have given that time to C.O.C, but I don’t know or understand all the complexities of festival organisation and there is presumably a good reasons for L7 being that high. Maybe they’re quite big or maybe its a reunion year or something. The crowd wasn’t as into it as they had been for Bury Tomorrow. A bit of a non-event for me. Not in a mean way, just, the first miss of the day.

Asking Alexandria, a less offensive version of Bring Me The Horizon with more ballads and less aggression followed them and all the girls in the crowd went utterly mental. I saw crowd surfers in skirts and dresses with their legs wide open flashing the band. Hey, maybe its because L7 had just been on!? Dated reference. The 15-year olds around me all fought eachother to get closer to the stage. (I was anchored their for Parkway after having enjoyed it so much with C.O.C and didn’t feel as charitable with giving it up as yesterday due to the selfish competitive way they were behaving amongst each other). They got some of the biggest sing-alongs of the weekend so far and seemed to inspire utter devotion in their fan-base. One girl near me was nearly in tears. It wasn’t for me but I thought they put on a very good show and they were a damn sight less dull than L7. I remember their singer tried to hop onto a raised part of the stage and stumbled, then made a joke about feeling foolish. I don’t remember their songs anymore, but to their fans it was seemingly breathtaking so they were entertaining enough.

Now, I have never checked out Baby Metal. I chalked them up to a Youtube sensation gimmick like Gangham-style for Metal fans and never much thought about them again. I might have listened to half of ‘Gimmie Chocolate’ once and thought yeah, I can see how it would appeal to the weeaboos and sailor moon fans but I’ve got limited time and money and I’ll spend it listening to something else. I also thought it was a bit creepy how they leaned into the schoolgirl thing a bit too hard.

Now they are older and on a new album cycle however, they had some kind of space aged Egyptian mythology theme and were dressed like sort of sci-fi bondage pharaohs. Apparently one of the main singers is mysteriously absent so they replaced here with two back-up dancers. I knew they had some choreography from previous reviews, and I knew they were more popular than I’d expect, but I wasn’t prepared for the utter hysteria that followed. My ears were battered by 19 year old video-game programming students that love hentai going utterly apeshit in every direction from me, bouncing along and screaming every word like I had for C.O.C. only 10 times harder and while doing the dance moves! I really came to respect them. That is impressive. The same thing Anthrax might inspire in a comic book fan when they do ‘I Am The Law,’ the parallels are clear and it was cool to see how they were appealing to this new demographic. These people fucking loved it. I got talking to one guy who’d seen them 10 times. I heard another 60 year old Japanese man who had flown all the way here to England and bought the whole festival ticket just for this one show. Man, I really respect this band now. And as much as I find the choreography distasteful and Britney Spears-esque in principal, there is no denying either what a good show it makes for or how much effort and training it must have required. It isn’t just show up and tease some gullible virgins with our slutty outfits, music be damned, like the cynic in me initially thought. No, it is some very impressive and difficult work, with really talented guitarists and drummers augmenting the spectacle. And hey, I like Powerman 5,000. I can sort of relate to the whole Sci Fi introductions and outros thing. The voice talking about the fox god reminded me of the intro track to Tonight The Stars Revolt. And when I was a kid and PM5K were new, cynics probably said they were gimmiky shite too while they waited for Y&T or UFO.

Now; I would never have dreamed of seeing Baby Metal of my own volition, but the cool thing about Download is you get to sample a whole bunch of different stuff between the bands you wanted, for less money than a ticket to each of the bands you wanted in the first place would be combined, and if there is nothing at all you want to see then you can skip the bands for half an hour and get food or do any one of the dozens of other things they have, like get a tattoo or watch a magician, or drive a motorbike around a ‘wall of death.’

When I was a teenager I would sometimes look at festival line-ups and think they weren’t worth going to because I didn’t like every single band, but now I see there’s a bigger plan afoot.

Oh well, not such a boring wait for Parkway Drive and Guns N’ Roses after all.

END OF PART ONE.
To be continued in part two. (…as if ‘end of part one’ wasn’t a clue. Now I know how Rush felt after the end of Cygnus)