Anna Hyams

As the now decidedly smelly arena fills up with people for the final day of Download, the welcome sight of SUNSHINE nearly brings a tear to the tired moshers eye. Yes it’s true, there’s a little bit of sun and a little bit is clearly enough as we can already see a couple of lobster-coloured faces and it’s only been about half an hour.

A welcome snarl sees DevilDriver’s pit-carnage churning out limp bodies, and August Burns Red do their very best to see that no-one is left un-moshed whilst smashing out popular ‘Back Burner’. NYC metalheads Anthrax are thrash-tastic over on the main stage with a massive crowd going wild to ‘Fight ‘em till you can’t’ and ‘I am the Law’, but in the jam-packed Pepsi Max stage German power-metallers Edguy are giving it all the passion they can muster and a loud, melodic ‘King of Fools’ sees Edguy fans come out grinning all over.

Black Label Society’s mainstage set is heart-thumpingly loud, with the wailing fret-wankery of Zakk Wylde (who comes to the fore wearing a giant Indian headdress) who plays through a gratuitous 10 minute guitar solo and a host of hair-windmilling songs. They’re good solid metal and you can’t fail to enjoy it. Lamb of God draw a similar sized crowd who are already creating a cattle-rodeo-like circle pit before the band even reach the stage. Their guitars are a little bit lost in the wind but the rolling drums are clear as frontman Randy Blythe shrieks “You might be from England but you’re all just a bunch of fuckin’ REDNECKS!” and they drop into ‘Redneck’. The circle pit might have now become some sort of messy conga line, but everyone seems to be having a great time.

Megadeth must be pleased at their ability to still entice the ladies out of their bras, but then again it might just be because the sun is out and the cameras are on. I’m sure those ladies mum’s are going to be awful proud when they see the highlights!  The melodic guitar duets and chants of ‘MEG-A-DETH’ are piercingly loud around the arena and fans go absolutely mental for Guitar-Hero favourite, ‘Symphony of Destruction’.

Soundgarden’s return to English soil was heralded by many when the announcement came, but to be honest they come off a little stale. They’re the Bjork of metal. You know that it’s clever but it’s all a bit too experimental to be something you really enjoy romping in a field to. ‘Black Hole Sun’ goes down a treat as expected, but there’s a tinge of boredom to the rest of the set. On the second stage Dropkick Murphys are nothing of the sort. Despite some pretty shoddy sound at the beginning they punk the hell out of ‘The Irish Rover’ and ‘Take ‘em Down’, sparking jigs galore and more than a few catastrophic attempts at leprechaun style heel clicks. The incredibly drunk and incredibly Irish man in front of us was having the time of his life, as he bellowed along to ‘Sunday Hardcore Matinee’.

The main event, the big one – Black Sabbath at Download, loud and proud. These guys MADE metal, and seeing them live is something you could never forget. They might be sans-Ward in the drums department, but Tony Clufetos is a great replacement choice and Sabbath open their Sunday reign with dark namesake ‘Black Sabbath’. A veritable hit-parade (how could it not be?) of tracks such as ‘Snowblind’, ‘War Pigs’ and ‘Fairies Wear Boots’ keep the party going, and Tony Iommi “The real Iron Man” according to Ozzy, absolutely demolishes the guitar solos in ‘Iron Man’ and closer ‘Paranoid’. Ozzy is as mad as ever, legging it around stage like a man half his age and half his lifetime drug and alcohol intake. He’s nuts but we love him. Though you couldn’t say that they were at their musical peak anymore, there’s something ethereal about a Black Sabbath show. You know you’re witnessing something great that will stay with you forever, and those guys still rock harder than most of the bands in this world, so we salute them.

Download may be over for another year, but this 10 year anniversary sure is a memorable one. Hideous weather, controversial bookings, arena issues and camping equipment casualties, whatever else you remember this year’s festival for – the moshing good time you had should be top of the list.

After a drier night, the arena is looking decidedly less slippy (good) but quite a lot stickier (gross) and the feeling of being sucked into the depths of hell pervades ones’ thoughts if you stand still for any length of time. A dusting of woodchip and a dumping of hay around site has matted most areas into a lumpy farmyard but hey, it’s a little less perilous than yesterday so we’re not complaining.

Norwegian deathpunk glamsters Turbonegro, wake up the second stage sleepyheads with enigmatic newbie Tony Sylvester emerging in a sparkly Union flag cape and regal crown for a roaring ‘All my friends are Dead’. Over on the main stage Steel Panther steal the hearts of the ladies in the crowd with their 80’s rock personas and hip-thrusting action. The arena is rammed with lookalikes in bouffant wigs and zebra print lycra, screaming along to the likes of ‘Asian Hooker’ and ‘Supersonic Sex Machine’. It’s kitsch, it’s corny, but it’s all good humour and behind the filthily funny lyrics they are actually a fairly talented bunch.

However, it’s the stand out comedy-meets-rock performance of Tenacious D that gains the real respect of the crowd, even if you don’t much favour Jack Black, you’ve got to admire their story telling ability and straight up phallus-worship (in the form of a giant blow up cock and balls, made out to be the head of a colossal firey phoenix – in reference to their new album ‘Rize of the Fenix’). Fan favourites ‘Fuck Her Gently’ and ‘Kickapoo’ are mere warm-ups to the arena-wide exultation of band epic ‘Tribute’ and a chorus of “Nay, we are but men… ROCK”, as the D put it – they “made love to our ear-canals” and gave us “eargasms”. Jack Black declares Download was on their list, the “Last one before the world explodes” referring to the Mayan calendar ending in December and Tenacious D leave the stage to a confetti ejacuation emanating from the head of the ‘phoenix’.

Skindred’s second stage set is met with unfortunate sound problems – largely due to the wind, but once gold-suited Benji Webbe exploded into heavy ‘Doom Riff’ any fears of a failure were well and truly gone, and their skit of ‘All the single ladies’ (with proper bogling) was extremely giggle-worthy. Wild crowd love for ‘Game Over’ and ‘Trouble’ as well as ‘Nobody’ see the band going mental and it’s tshirts off for the Newport Helicopter during ‘Warning’. If you were anywhere else in the world – you were missing out. Even the security guards at the side of the stage had their phones out videoing the mania.

Biffy Clyro go off with thousands of dedicated fans, and the return of Killswitch Engage provides raw power with ‘Life to Lifeless’ (circle pits galore) and an extremely memorable cover of Dio’s ‘Holy Diver’. Main stage monsters Metallica are greeted by an arena FULL, front to back, side to side, of sardine-canned-fans. What it must feel like to look across that sort of a crowd one can only guess, but ripping into an intro set including ‘Master of Puppets’ and ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ – they prove why they’re such a Download stalwart and deserve to top the bill. The reverence of The Black Album is felt like shivers down the spine of the collective crowd as the band begin to play it in reverse order, and an epic singalong (and lighter swaying) for ‘Nothing Else Matters’ may well have been heard by low-flying planes. Following up with the likes of ‘Battery’ and ‘Seek and Destroy’, Metallica detonate well before the pyrotechnics do. This is their 7^th Donington performance, and despite some dodgy sound at the back – it’s one you’ll tell your kids about, for all the right reasons.

Once upon a time there was muddy swamp seated in the backwaters of the Bayou… oh wait a second, sorry, scratch that… it’s Drownload Festival 2012!

For early birds in the campsite on Wednesday, crowing over their favourable release from the workplace, it may have seemed like a rock-filled dream… until Thursday. The heavens opened and smite was heaped from on high with almost constant downpour from the get-up. Campsites quickly turned into duck ponds with many having to evacuate tents in favour of sleeping in the car or even leaving the festival entirely, and going to the portaloos was practically a mud-slalom event worthy of the Olympics. Welfare tents overrun with various ailments and incidents, fallen victims staggering about like bilge-monsters from the deep, and forlorn looking metallers with sodden dreadlocks were the scenes of Thursday and Friday morning.

But wait, this is Britain and these are The British. This nation was practically built on the ability to keep calm and carry on, or in the average Download goer’s case – get wasted and rock on. However, spirits aren’t exactly lifted with a two hour pushback for the arena opening, forcing some bands off the bill entirely and others to play later slots, as well as having ‘cleverly’ closed off nearly every available motorway junction to the event, creating great backlog for folks trying to get into the site. Those caught in the hours long traffic included Swedish rock legends Europe, presumably doing the final countdown to missing their slot completely. As sludge-ridden fans waited for the absent band a huge karaoke Final Countdown was paid in homage.

It is the warm/violent embrace of a circle pit that welcomes the first mainstage band Fear Factory (due to Cancer Bats and Rise to Remain being shimmied around) who proceed to rip through to closing favourite ‘Replica’ with gusto and Fat Mike of NOFX brings a little comedy to the mix whilst they roll out the likes of ‘Dinosaurs Will Die’ and ‘Perfect Government’. Billy Talent invite Cancer Bats on stage for a collaborative effort on ‘Hail Destroyer’ and over on the Jägermeister acoustic stage Skindred’s Benji Webbe is showing off his Michael Jackson dance moves and singing whole songs in ‘little kid crying’ style… just for the craic. Oh and he forgot the words for Doom Riff. Call it a warm up for tomorrow.

Machine Head’s explosive performance was foretold by reports of their not-so-secret Ten Ton Hammer gig in London earlier in the week but there’s something utterly great about seeing a band thrash it out in the open like wild things and the huge sweaty mosh pits tell a tale of a ruddy good show. ‘Imperium’ is received in exactly the manner it’s intended – a war anthem with the cry of thousands of fans going berserk.

Controversial dnb booking Chase & Status are hands down a triumph, the thumping basslines of ‘Eastern Jam’ and ‘Hypest Hype’ can not only be heard, but felt all around the arena, and Nightwish’s ‘Amaranth’ on the Encore stage is completely overshadowed by the London duo’s ‘Pieces’. The rest of Nightwish’s set though pretty, is largely uninspiring. Sure ‘Last of the Wilds’ is a beautifully haunting piece, but vocalist Anette Olzon doesn’t stack up to axed band member Tarja Turunen’s operatic style in old tracks ‘Wish I had an Angel’ and ‘Nemo’. It’s not that she’s bad, it’s just that if you already own the albums – it’s a bit disappointing. The pyrotechnics and Tuomas’ giant Phantom-esque pipe organ is interesting but they just don’t have the spark that their Tarja fronted Download appearance in 2005 did.

Encore headliner Slash wails like no-one else on earth and the second stage arena is awash with shred-fans for GnR song ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ and Velvet Revolver’s ‘Slither’. Friday’s mainstage headliner The Prodigy finally get underway 30 minutes late, opening with ‘World’s On Fire’ and enough decibels to reanimate the dead. Super hits ‘Breathe’ and newest album tracks ‘Thunder’ and ‘Omen’ are instant fodder for rave hungry revellers, but classic ‘Firestarter’ is the body-thrashing anthem everyone has been waiting for. ‘Smack my bitch up’, ‘Diesel Power’ and ‘Take me to the Hospital’ are as firey as expected and The Prodigy go out with an almighty bang. That’s one flame the rain couldn’t dampen.

Review by Anna Hyams

Better late than never, sunshine graces the Download Arena as the stage screens go black in anticipation of the Godfathers of metal, Black Sabbath, headlining and closing out the 10 year anniversary of the festival.

An intro video of highlights is played, shamelessly thin on clips of Bill Ward who is not  performing with the band tonight due to a public online spat over 'contractual issues'. It is Ozzy's tour drummer Tony Clufetos who is to take his place.

As the skies begin to darken, the maniacal signature laughter of Ozzy Osbourne can be heard behind a black curtain across the stage, which is lifted to reveal the band with huge screens featuring a flaming backdrop of the Black Sabbath logo, straight into namesake track 'Black Sabbath'.

Whilst Ozzy appears to have an abundance of energy, playing harmonica and careering about during 'The Wizard' there is a zombie-like quality to his movements these days, which is sort of disturbing, yet sort of endearing and as the band launch into 'Snowblind' Ozzy's sweat beaded brow and crazy eyes are projected on screen whilst he screams for everyone to jump.

Ozzy's second-puberty voice is crackling as he gets more excited and screams "I can't fucking hear you" repeatedly, and the stage goes black once more for the air-raid sirens of the iconic 'War Pigs'. Thousands yelling out the lyrics "Generals gathered in their masses" is a spine-tingling thing to witness and Black Sabbath absolutely blast it out. Despite Iommi's public battle with illness he is shredding as hard as ever with Geezer Butler providing the signature Sabbath rhythm to the sound.

A massive Tony Clufetos fuck-you-BW drum solo makes the crowd roar as they drop into 'Iron Man' after Ozzy laments on Iommi being "The real Iron Man" and then into 'Fairies Wear Boots'. Ozzy gets down on his knees and praises the crowd, and the band encore with the inevitable 'Paranoid' and a bombardment of fireworks for a sensational finish. You might be forgiven for saying Ozzy's voice isn't quite there anymore, or that it wasn't the fast-paced go-nuts finisher of a festival, but, this is original metal, in the original home of metal, with the Prince of Darkness. It's metal cubed, and everyone loved it.

After a brief glimpse of sunshine and a compacting of mud, the Download site seems to be in much better spirits as the main stage is set for the return of Metallica to it's hallowed ground. As Download veterans they pretty well have the home-team advantage with anything they play, but this year sees Metallica revisit their 'do a whole album' idea (having performed Master of Puppets in its entirety at Download 2006) with a complete run through of The Black Album. Backwards.

As the sky darkens and the arena fills up with expectant fans, Metallica arrive with all the collected-calm you'd expect of rock legends, and hammer out some taster tracks to the tune of 'Master of Puppets' and 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' with the accompaniment of thousands of voices from the crowd. Despite the fact that Metallica are clearly absolutely smashing it, taking a walk around the arena shows a very different picture. Go ever so slightly up the hill from the sound desk and suddenly you're in Metalli-karaoke land. The sound is so low and tinny you could be forgiven for thinking Download were using ipod speakers down there, and a lot of people are upset – made ever more apparent as song by song, irked fans get up and leave. Hetfield's shouts of "Are you with us Download?" are unfortunately met with cries of "We can't fucking hear you". Is it to do with the fact that the speaker stacks were lowered because of windy conditions? Did they have to turn it down because of the other stages? Given that The Prodigy's set last night was clear as bell around the whole site, it would seem something is amiss.

As Metallica take a breather, a making-of video is screened about The Black Album, lamenting the incredible 300 tour dates the band made when it came out and various other insane statistics (as well as a lot of very bouffant mullets, both from fans AND the band) and Metallica begin the album with gusto, from 'The Struggle Within' and backwards through The Black Album from there. It's 'Nothing Else Matters' that really takes the prize for most-crooned though, a sea of lighter flames ripples toward the stage where Hetfield's face, eyes closed, is plastered onto a giant back screen.

With crowd-pleasers 'Wherever I may roam', 'The Unforgiven' and monster smash hit 'Enter Sandman' Metallica close out The Black Album in style, with ear-busting fireworks and a thank you to the Download family. The inevitable encore is a scorcher, 'Battery' is followed by 'One' complete with fireworks used to project wartime missiles and 'Seek and Destroy' which is accompanied by huge black blow up beach-balls thrown into the thrashing crowd, as huge fireworks fired from the top of the stage crown the performance. Metallica were undeniably spectacular and clearly a Download favourite, it's just a shame that not everyone got to experience them at their epic, amazing best.

Despite the day's earlier setbacks – road closures, 6-hour traffic waits to get into the site, the arena opening being pushed back 2 hours, bands missing their slots entirely (Europe) and all the campsites looking more like the bog of eternal stench than a home away from home, it's Friday night, the day has been full of rawk and it's time for a bit of a rave yeah?

Like mudcrabs scrabbling in a swamp the main stage arena is filled with dirty Downloaders heading towards the front for Friday headliners The Prodigy. 30 minutes late, the band ignite the stage with 'World's On Fire' and Keith's red trouser/white leather jacket combo can be seen jerking around a mile off.

With a cosmic ripple from the front, Breathe drops with all the force of a clubland superhit, there's no doubt The Prodigy deserve to be here – the crowd is loving it. Hits from their most recent album, the aptly named for the weather 'Thunder', and 'Omen' go down a storm with fans glow-stick dancing in a 90's rave fashion, but it's still the iconic 'Firestarter' which gains the biggest roar from the crowd.

Over on the Encore stage Slash is ripping it up with the obligatory 'Paradise City' and a shred-tastic version of 'God Save The Queen' to an absolutely rammed arena. I mean like, people standing shoulder to shoulder right up to the food stands kind of rammed. The kind of rammed where you can not only smell, but taste the person next to you. Oh and every single hand is up in the air saluting the rock.

However, The Prodigy's hit parade of 'Smack My Bitch Up', 'Diesel Power' and an encore including 'Take Me To The Hospital' is the full force finisher to the night, with lasers strong enough to bring down the East Midlands Airport planes and a barrage of strobe lighting, swampy Download goers have clearly forgotten that it's cold and wet and are just having a fucking great time.

Review by Anna Hyams

Photo courtesy of Jessica Gilbert