Donington Park. 14th-16th June 2019
Download Festival returned to Donington Park for 3 days of pure rock music. This mammoth extravaganza now in its 17th year is a highlight in the festival calendar, boasting a line-up that included Slipknot, Def Leppard and Tool as headliners, you would be hard pushed to find any other festival with such established names.
Unlike other festivals where they rely on just the headliners to pull in the punters, Download Festival also ensure that the non headliners are just as appealing. Acts such as legendary guitarist Slash playing with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, Smashing Pumpkins, Trivium, and Whitesnake all worthy of catching live on their own, let alone together at one event.
As always Download try to put on little gems just to add that extra sparkle to their rock music crown. These are bands that are formed by individuals from other famous bands and if you don’t do your research you might miss them.
One band that could be considered a gem, were the main stage opening act Last in
Line. Created from the former members of Dio, surprisingly even Vivian Campbell (guitarist) managed to be awake early enough to ensure that the band was ready to go on time, despite also performing as part of the headline act Def Leppard later in the evening.
One other such band on Friday was Deadland Ritual. Comprising of Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath) Matt Sorum (ex-Guns N Roses) Steve Stevens (Billy Idol guitarist) and vocalist Franky Perez (Apocalyptica) they impressed the crowd with their brand of rock on the Zippo Encore stage.
Over the weekend there were numerous issues with the merchandise stalls accepting card payments, some punters waiting over an hour to get to the front of the queue just to be told that the card machines weren’t working. Better communication would have been appreciated. A hoodie would have set you back £45. Drinks such as Pepsi were £3.50 for their version of a large size. Alcohol prices started at £4.50 all the way to over £16 for a bottle of wine. Tea and coffee were around £2. There was a whole variety of food stalls, ranging from £5 for doughnuts up to £9.50 for Filled Yorkshire puddings.
Unfortunately, despite Download having a stellar line up, the weather was not playing ball. Biblical downpours and endless mud were the conditions for this festival. Occasionally, the sun would make appearance to tease the rock fans to remind them of what could have been. As the saying goes “Julia Cesar and the Roman Empire couldn’t conquer the blue skies” neither could the organisers of Download.
Whitesnake managed to create one of the biggest responses from the crowd, with their blend of tongue in cheek sing-along anthems. Although it was hard to tell if it was Whitesnake material or the fleeting appearance of sunshine that sparked the audience into life. Vocalist David Coverdale tried to get the audience to sing a long and at times it fell flat. However musically the band are still a tour de force when it comes to playing live, although it did feel like most people watching were just waiting for the classic hit “Here I Go Again” rather than all of the other material that they did back in the 80’s such as “Still of the Night”.
There were plenty of highlights throughout the weekend, with so many bands it would be hard not to find something to like, in summary some of my personal highlights were Slash with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators performing a setlist that wasn’t heavily reliant on Guns N Roses tracks. (Ok so they did slip in ‘Night Train’, but they can be forgiven for that one).
Seeing Def Leppard perform the album “Hysteria” in its entirety brought back lots of memories and appeared to be well received by the rain-soaked crowd.
Bad Wolves performing their version of “Zombie” was probably one of the more poignant highlights of the weekend. Dedicating it to Delores O’ Riordan.
Slipknot were another phenomenal highlight, a performance that was high octane from the opening notes of “People=S##t” to the dying notes of their final song “Surfacing”. It was a masterclass in taking the music to the fans.
Also, Slayer performing what has been widely publicised as their last ever UK appearance was a set list designed to please the fans one last time. Songs such as “Raining Blood” and “South of Heaven” sent the crowd into a frenzy. Fingers crossed that it isn’t the last time Slayer play live in the UK.
Another amazing Download Festival, albeit a muddy one. The only issue the organisers have now, is how do they make 2020 even more rocktastic!!
Written by Luke Seagrave.