Download Festival 2009

No sooner have they announced the headliners Download seems to sneak up on you within weeks. The line-ups have varied over the years but this line-up was given the thumbs up, with the site much more packed than at last years Download. With the weather near perfect it was all set to be one hell of a weekend.

Friday:

Starting on the second stage on the opening day were hard rockers Steadlur (7/10). Their take of 80s hard rock mixed with a contemporary heaviness made for a pleasant start. Second band on the main stage was The Blackout (6.5) who seemed to spend half the set and most of the time before the festival expecting a shower of bottles. In truth they weren't as bad as they had expected everyone to think they were. Their screamcore attack was either good enough to listen to or the bottle throwers were at another stage enjoying someone else. Due to some of the stage times on the website being different to those on the official programme we missed In This Moment and caught a bit of Staind (6) instead. Their radio friendly grunge approach may have led to millions of album sales in the early to mid-naughties but today they sounded more like background music except for a few higher tempo tracks from the first two albums. This only made Sylosis (7.5) on the Turborg stage sound even better. Their super charged metalcore had the rammed tent buzzing. After trekking to the second stage, a bit of drink and the unrelenting sun Dir En Grey (6.5) sounded like four bands playing in your bedroom during a nightmare. Their death-goth-hard-rock-metal is in someways refreshing and baffling at the same time. Killswitch Engage (7.5) back on the main stage were in a way the complete opposite. Their relatively straight forward commercial metalcore is perfect for the mainstage and with a enough well known and bone crunching anthems to play with played one of the best sets of the day. Only caught a few tracks from Limp Bizkit (6.5) who got a predictably big crowd. Love them or hate them their childish nu-metal anthems easily whip up a frenzy today but not enough to want to watch or hear the whole set! Lacuna Coil (7) on the second stage have all but forgotten their pre-comalies material of late and today they again concentrate on the more commercial and recent songs. Tracks from the new 'Shallow Life' album are more poppier than ever but the likes of 'Spellbound' and 'Enjoy the silence' still please the majority of the crowd. Back on the Turborg stage Swedish sleaze-punkers Backyard Babies (8) are one of the first bands of the day to really connect with the crowd. By the end of the set the tent is tightly packed and applauding a fine set containing tracks like 'Nomadic', 'Colours' and 'Degenerated'. Only had time to catch part of the sets from Korn (7.5) and Motley Crue (7) before ending the day at the mainstage with Faith No More (8). Their reformation and position at the top of the Download bill was seen as a major coup by the organisers and nearly everyone in the arena. In fact FNM were one of the reasons why many people decided to venture up to Donington after sneering at previous headliners like My Chemical Romance and Lost Prophets. Today FNM show why their alternative metal was so popular during the first part of their career and has been missed ever since. Their albums have always revolved around the vocals of Mike Patton, who today is kitted out in a bright red suit which was good for those at the back of the crowd. From the slow crooner-alt tracks like 'Take This Bottle' and 'Evidence' to the pure insanity of the bungle-esque 'Surprise! You're dead' they managed to hit the extremes of their albums while leaving the more popular tracks like 'From Out of Nowhere', 'Midlife Crisis', 'Epic' and 'Ashes to Ashes' to keep the momentum going. 'We Care a Lot' brought the opening day to a satisfying end.

Saturday:

The Slipknot meets Pantera blast of Five Finger Death Punch (7) sounded okay for a Saturday morning where as Hardcore Superstar (8) over on the second stage really took the bull by the horns. Lead singer Joakim Berg really knows how to control a crowd and today they show their excellent gigs of the past were not confined to small London venues. 'We don't celebrate sundays' being an obvious highlight. In the past some heavier bands such as Job For a Cowboy and Satyricon have struggled on the mainstage but to their credit both Devildriver (7) and Hatebreed (7.5) grab the early morning crowds and shake them into near submission. The weekends first and only visit to the fourth stage saw Forever Never (7.5) filling their thirty minute set with a nice mix of tracks from their two albums. They seem to have a knack of putting on good festival performances after Hellfire earlier this year and today was no different. Steeling the honours for the day back on the mainstage were Down (8.5). Along with Clutch and ZZ Top their music is perfect for hot sweaty afternoons. Phil Alselmo makes the stage his own while the band deliver a wall of southern tinged perfection. 'Stone the crows' was among the gems that not only impressed those in front but showed how Down could return and play much higher on the bill. You don't tour America and Europe with A/DC and come back without picking up a few tips. The Answer (8) have always been a good live band but today frontman Cormac Neeson shows any young band out there how to control the crowd. His voice is in top form and the tracks from latest album 'Everyday Demons' crackle with the bluesy hard rock sound of an Irish band heading even further up the rock ladder. The Turborg stage may have not been as packed as most of the weekend but the reformation of Lawnmower Deth (7) was enough to draw a comendable crowd. The set was as much about entertainment than the music. Mexican waves and fish dancing was the order of the day with a soundtrack of mad early nineties punky thrash. A good time was had by all which led nicely into a festival goodbye for Thunder (7.5). The vocals of Danny Bowes have always been first class and they are again today. The British hard rock act seemed to have chart hits throughout the nineties and it is these tracks that do the business today. They will be missed. Two years back Marilyn Manson (4) delivered a mainstage set of boring, mid-paced goth rock songs which were more likely to send people to sleep than shock them. Today the only difference was that this set had some new tracks from the recently released album. By the time any track bordering on the 'slightly faster' appeared the crowd had either gone elsewhere or nodded off. With old school metal movie stars Anvil (7) unleashing the likes of 'This is thirteen' on the Turborg stage it was up to Slipknot (7.5) to headline the mainstage at Donington for the first time. They have always had enough going on onstage to keep the crowds entertained but they needed the last album 'All Hope Is Gone' to really push the commercial side of the band to headlining capacity. The likes of 'Psychosocial' and 'Gematria' give the band more weaponry alongside their already well known tracks like 'Left behind' and 'Wait and bleed'. Tonight they deliver one of the heaviest headlining sets Donington has ever seen. The real stars are vocalist Corey Taylor who can sing and scream with the best of them and drummer Joey Jordison who not only provides the knot with one of the strongest backbones in modern metal but has also earned his fare share of respect points over the years by drumming with Metallica on this very stage and Satyricon. Saturday ends with a bang thanks to the likes of 'Duality', 'People = Shit', 'Encore', 'Surfacing' and 'Spit It Out'.

Sunday:

Although Sunday was mainly a classic rock affair it was Sacred Mother Tongue (7) who kickstarted proceedings on the second stage. Their rugged metal sound worked well on the recent 'The Ruin of Man' album and worked just as well live. TotalRock bothering track 'Anger on reflection' was the best of the bunch. Meanwhile Tesla (6.5) on the mainstage do their best to bring mature US 80s rock back to the people here today. 'Modern day cowboy' hits the mark while God Forbid (6) thrash out in front of a big youthful crowd on the second stage who seem to be avoiding the more classic leanings of the mainstage. This means they miss one of the best sets of the weekend from the rejuvenated Journey (8.5). The vocal display alone of frontman Arnel Pineda is mesmerising. 'Don't stop believin' didn't prompt the mass sing-a-long as expected but it didn't need to, as the whole of Journeys set was one of the best of the day. Prog-metal overlords Dream Theater (7.5) did what most of the bands over the course of the weekend failed to do in that they started with a bang. 'Pull me under' and 'Constant motion' was a perfect start to a predictably well delivered and technically enhanced set. Things were slightly more upbeat on the Turborg stage where Dear Superstar (6.5) showed everyone that their dirty hard rock can work outside of the tiny venues. Back on the mainstage some of ZZ Tops (7) set made for a perfect soundtrack to a scorching afternoon in the Midlands, with their classic southern hits ranging from 'Gimme All Your Lovin' to 'Cheap Sunglasses'. It all got a bit slow for parts of the crowd though. The tent for the Turborg stage was already heaving way before hair metallers Steel Panther (8) took to the stage. 'Death to all but metal' is only one of their tongue-in-cheek takes of 80s hair metal. The likes of 'Eyes of a panther' managed to slay a crowd bigger than twice the capacity of the tent. As previous headliners of the old Monsters of Rock festival at Donington you always expected Whitesnake (7) to know how to wow the crowd. The glorius closing duo of 'Here I Go Again' and 'Still Of The Night' managed to warm up the crowd for the final headliners of the weekend. Def Leppard (8) are English legends who have never received the warmest reviews from their homelands press. In the US it was always different thanks to their highly polished take of NWOBHM and hard rock on classic albums such as 'High n Dry', 'Pyromania' and mega-smash 'Hysteria'. Tonights set contained some gems, especially the near end of set trio of 'Photograph', 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' and 'Rock Of Ages'. All classics and all lapped up by a burnt and thirsty crowd. Def Leppard ended Download 2009 with 'Let's get rocked' which I think everyone would agree with, was one of the best messages of the weekend.

Overall, it was a mixed weekend. It was good to see others getting the chance to headline as the likes of Metallica and Iron Maiden will not be around forever. The 'classic rock' day was a bit hit and miss. It may have helped sell more day tickets but with so many bands overlapping most people must have been left disappointed on more more than one occasion. Additionally all those 'classic' bands on the same day did made things seem really slow. On the bright side it was good to see the likes of Hardcore Superstar, Def Leppard, Backyard Babies and Buckcherry at the festival as it is usually hard to find more than one band of this type across the whole weekend.

So, another Download Festival has come and gone. See you next year!