Download Festival 2012

(this will be a long post)
Right, so last week I went to Download Festival for five days. The first two days consisted of our group miserably setting up tents in the rain. The three days of music that followed however.... WOW they were good. Rather than going through each day in detail, I'll pick out my favourite moments.

The first band I saw on Friday I had never actually heard of. My friend dragged me to see 'Silent Descent', a trance-metal band that turned out to be amazing.

After that I saw a few different bands such as 'NOFX' and 'Nightwish', but the highlights of the day were 'Machine Head' and 'The Prodigy'. Machine Head were simply BRUTAL. They produced some of the best mosh pits of the festival and 60000 people head banging to Halo was a sight to behold.

The Prodigy was a bittersweet moment however: I loved every minute of it, but nearly all the songs they played were remixed versions. 'Thunder' for example was played as a sort of dubstep remix, which was good, but not brilliant as the original is. To be honest though, I was intoxicated at this point, so I didn't really care.

I saw more bands on Saturday, due to there being no delay in getting in like on Friday. The mud was also clearing up. The day started with a laugh seeing 'Black Veil Brides'. Seeing them getting bottled and booed brought a tear (of laughter) to my eyes, as did the legions of Pre-pubescent fans telling us to 'stop'!

'Trivium' was an honour to see. Although they have a place in my mind as being 'a brilliantly average' metal band, seeing them live showed that they were better than that. I had honestly only gone for the song 'In Waves' to see Matt's face when he screamed, but the whole set proved to be solid.

'Corey Taylor' was another laugh, but this time in a good way. He played a particularly inspiring version of 'spit it out', and instead of 'JUMP THE F**K UP', it was 'HOP ON ONE LEG'. I went to see the new stone sour song, which was as depressing and radio-friendly as I expected, but a masterpiece nonetheless.


There were three disappointments for me on the Saturday: these were 'Metallica' and not being able to see 'Killswitch Engage' and 'Steel Panther'.

The reason for missing the latter two was that I didn't even know that they were playing (despite the poster everywhere and stuff, yes I'm an idiot). Metallica, for me, are a good band in studio, but not very engaging live. Yes it's all very good to have pryos at that point in 'Enter Sandman' where it all goes heavy, but that's all they really have. The only crowd interaction Hetfield does is to check whether Metallica fans are still there. Their choices for their setlists will always baffle me, as they play the hits, but no songs from 'Death Magnetic', an album which is up there with their best. The 'Black Album' is also not a very good one: sure, there are songs like 'Sad but True' and 'The Unforgiven', but the middle of the album is a bit stale, and you could hear it in the audience as everyone simply muttered the words to 'My Friend of Misery' and so on.

Sunday kicked off with a guy giving us about 30 cans of cider and me getting completely drunk (I'm an extreme lightweight). It was in this state that I went to see 'DevilDriver', and went into every circle pit. They definitely should've been higher on the bill.

'Lamb of God' was the band I wanted to see most during the whole festival, and see them I did. 'Redneck' and 'Black Label' were brutal and energetic and 'Desolation' was simply a brilliant opener; it was like driving at full speed into a brick wall (+ Randy looks so metal with dreadlocks!)

The 'Dropkick Murphys' were a real treat, and it was as sweaty and Celtic as I expected (no connection between the two).

I missed 'Black Sabbath' (Yes I know, I'm annoyed too) due to... reasons.

All in all, the festival was a real experience and I met loads of nice people throughout and discovered lots of new bands. My shoes are also encrusted in mud and my face is burnt and bright red. :P