Download Festival
| Download Festival | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Rock, heavy metal, punk, metalcore, post-hardcore, ska. |
| Dates | Mid-June |
| Location(s) | Donington Park, Leicestershire, England |
| Years active | 2003 - present |
| Website | www.downloadfestival.co.uk |
The Download Festival is a three day music festival held annually at Donington Park (which hosted the Monsters of Rock Festivals between 1980 and 1996, and 2002's Ozzfest). It takes place at the end of spring, and is owned and managed by Live Nation.
Download 2003
The first Download Festival was held in 2003. The headliners were originally Iron Maiden and Limp Bizkit, although Limp Bizkit pulled out and were replaced by Audioslave. Metallica attempted to step in as headliners, but were unable due to already being headliners at that year's Reading and Leeds Festivals. Instead, they played an unannounced "secret slot" in the afternoon on the second stage.
Download 2004
In 2004, another stage was added to the festival, bringing the total to three. Seventy-two bands played over the two days. The 2004 event was also noticeable for several last minute hitches. Firstly, SOiL got lost on the way to Donington and missed their main stage appearance on Saturday (they later joined Drowning Pool on stage to perform Drowning Pool's "Bodies" and their own song "Halo"). Static-X missed their slot due to a bus breakdown. On Sunday, Slayer arrived on time, but their equipment did not, leading to a slot change from the middle of the afternoon on the main stage to a later slot (and longer set) on the second stage. Slayer were replaced on the main stage by Damageplan, who were scheduled to play the second stage. Their setlist ended with a rendition of Damageplan founders Vinnie Paul and Dimebag Darrell's most recognisable song from Pantera, "Walk."
The biggest news came from the headliners Metallica, however, when Lars Ulrich was rushed to hospital.[1] Taking to the stage an hour and a half late, James Hetfield explained the situation with Lars and the show began with Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo playing on "Battery" and "The Four Horsemen." Slipknot's Joey Jordison played the rest of the set apart from Fade to Black which was played by Metallica's drum technician, Flemming Larsen. The set featured no post-"Black Album" songs and was about an hour and ten minutes long: short for a headliner. The set is considered one of the band's most memorable performances.[citation needed]
The full line-up included:
| Snickers "Game On" Stage | |
| Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|
|
Pennywise
|
HIM
|
| Barfly Stage | |
| Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|
|
Peaches
|
Suicide Girls
|
Scotland In June 2004 a two day Download Festival was held on Glasgow Green, several days before the Donington event. This had a limited line up with only nine bands performing over a two day period. However, the bands which did play were similar to those appearing at Donington including the headliners, Metallica and Linkin Park. Download Scotland also saw an appearance from the Welsh rock band Lostprophets who were unique to the event and did not perform at Donington.
Acts which also appeared over the two days at Download Scotland were Korn, Slipknot, Iggy and The Stooges, Machine Head, The Distillers and HIM.
The running order went as follows:
| Day 1 | Day 2 |
|---|---|
|
Metallica
|
Linkin Park
|
Download 2005
Download 2005 was held again at Donington Park, on 10-12 June 2005. This festival was different from previous years as the Saturday was officially dubbed Ozzfest 2005, as well as an "Indie day" on the first day of the festival.
Billy Idol performed on the Snickers stage on the Friday night; his first UK gig after a lengthy hiatus, performing songs such as White Wedding, Rebel Yell and a cover version of Van Halen's anthem, Jump.
Feeder's frontman Grant Nicholas was so relieved the band won the crowd over (there were concerns that they would be received badly by the traditional attendee to the festival), he decided to smash his green Fender Jazzmaster guitar after "Descend" was performed. He later said that he regretted it, but also said he kept the neck and the tremeloes, and might use what was left to make a new guitar. A part of the body was thrown to a member of the crowd.
Lemmy also took to the stage, with former MC5 members, and Gilby Clarke, to perform Back in the USA.
Sleaze Metal band Crashdiet played their first and so far only show in the UK on the Napster Stage
Initially, Bert McCracken of The Used and Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance were asked to perform their cover of Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie, but the former friends refused the offer to perform the cover as they had recently fallen out.
The official line-up included:
| Napster Stage[2] | ||
| Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
|
Napalm Death
|
Helmet
|
Therapy?
|
Download 2006
The 2006 Download Festival was held at Donington Park, England on the 9th, 10th, and 11th of June. Download 2006 boasted the largest selling acts out of all the UK music festivals that year (in terms of the combined total of every act).[citation needed] The three days comprising the headlining acts (Tool, Metallica and Guns N' Roses) have sales of approximately 200-250 million albums between them, more than the entire line up of 2006's V Festival.
2006 was the first time the festival was mirrored in the Republic of Ireland, as Download Festival Ireland.
One memorable moment of the festival was the announcement that Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis had been rushed to hospital. Similar to 2004's Metallica set, Munky, Fieldy and David Silveria arrived and explained to the fans why Jonathan couldn't make it and played with guest vocalists Corey Taylor from Slipknot, Dez Fafara from DevilDriver, Jesse Hasek from 10 Years, Benji Webbe from Skindred, M. Shadows from Avenged Sevenfold, and Matt Heafy from Trivium. Lyrics from from the song "Blind" were displayed on the screen because Matt Heafy is a tosser and did could not remember all the words. Another talking point of the festival was Metallica playing the album Master of Puppets in its entirety in honour of its twentieth anniversary. Guns N' Roses also performed material from the long forthcoming Chinese Democracy album which was received quite well by the crowd.
Main Stage The main stage was situated in the centre of the arena with crowd control moving around it, and was the largest of all three stages, the safety barriers used at this stage were in a T shape so as to avoid crowd crush in the middle. The stage was open-air and named in honour of the 25th anniversary of Kerrang! magazine.
| Main Stage[4] | ||
| Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
|
Tool
|
Metallica
|
Guns N' Roses
|
Snickers Stage The Snickers Stage was situated in a tent, behind the main stage and was the second largest stage at the festival. Access to the stage was via a one-way system which attempted to spread people around the site, rather than all attempting to push through a rather small space.
Gibson/Myspace Stage The Myspace stage was the smallest of the three and under a smaller tent. It was positioned across from the front of the main stage.
| Gibson/Myspace Stage[4] | ||
| Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
|
Art of Dying
|
Killing Joke
|
Sick Of It All
|
| Snickers Bowl Stage[4] | ||
| Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
|
Gay for Johnny Depp
|
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly
|
|
Controversy
On the Saturday, Main Stage act Korn lost lead singer Jonathan Davis after he was hospitalised over concerns for bruises on his body. After observation, it was discovered that Davis had contracted a rare blood disease and could not perform at the event. Several different acts contributed singers to fill in for Davis, who each appeared with the rest of the band for a shorter set.[7]
In addition to high temperatures and long queues for water, throughout most of the festival, bottles were thrown around the crowd, mostly in a harmless manner. However, during the Sunday headline set of Guns N' Roses, one or more bottles landed on the stage. This caused problems after the band's lead singer, Axl Rose, slipped on the wet surface and a bottle hit bassist Tommy Stinson. Stinson threw his bass, accidentally hitting one of the cameramen, and left the stage. He returned after the song and apologized, but warned the crowd that if this activity continued, he would leave for good. There were some disturbances but they eventually died down, and later in the set Rose commented "I'm actually having quite a good time now! I couldn't have said that an hour ago!"[8]
On the final night, fires were started by some festival goers and police were called, arresting twelve people.[9]. At around 4am, the fire brigade arrived to put out a large fire at the gold campsite. A number of people had taken the railings that had been used to separate the campsite area from the path and used them to barricade the road to prevent the fire engines from reaching the main fire. At this point a number of police assembled in riot gear, and proceeded to stop the troublemakers. The festival director, Stuart Galbraith, posted a message on the official website stating that "About 150 people spoiled the end of what had been a great weekend for over 75,000 of us." [10]
Download 2007
The 2007 Download Festival took place on June 8-10 2007.[11]
The three bands that headlined the 2007 festival were My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park and Iron Maiden. My Chemical Romance's announcement as headliners caused much disappointment with fans looking forward to a heavier lineup.
Through February, March and the beginning of April, more bands were announced in small groups of five or six,[12] and on 17 April this lineup was arranged into days and stages on the official website.[13] A further announcement of fifteen bands on 24 April added to this lineup, and announced the names of the second and third stages - The Dimebag Darrell Stage, and The Tuborg Stage.[14]
Korn's Jonathan Davis stated that the reason for the band returning this year, was because of his absence due to illness last year. He states on the official Download Festival website, "I am so looking forward to coming to the Download Festival this year. I was heartbroken to pull out last time. So this time I am very happy to be coming back and we promise to rock the place! I will definitely make-up for missing the last one. You can expect an amazing Korn show!"[15]
Download 2007 was Dimmu Borgir's first ever festival appearance in England. Hardcore Superstar pulled out of their slot on the Tuborg stage on the Sunday because their tour bus broke down in Germany.
Download 2007 also featured the first band to officially perform on the Thursday of the festival. Scumface played on the Tuborg Stage during the boardie barbecue.[16]
Lamb Of God's DVD Walk With Me In Hell features the band's full performance at the festival.[17]
| Dimebag Darrell Stage[13] | ||
| Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
|
Korn
|
Mötley Crüe
|
Billy Talent
|
| Tuborg Stage[13] | ||
| Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
|
Suicidal Tendencies
|
Head Automatica
|
Reel Big Fish
|
Download 2008
The 2008 Download festival took place on June 13 to June 15. The 2008 festival had a significantly different layout to that of the previous years in that the festival arena area was situated in land to the west of the race track instead of the traditional venue of the race track infield area. Notable amongst numerous changes is that the second, 'Tuborg', stage became larger and moved from a marquee to an open-air format, located on a tarmac car park.[18] Chris Cornell was originally scheduled to play the festival, but he cancelled his European tour so he could focus on a new album. Twin Method and Finger Eleven were announced to play but were removed from the official websites lineup. On the Friday of the festival, Kid Rock was meant to appear between Seether and Disturbed on the Main Stage but pulled out at the last minute. At first it was announced that this was due to illness, but it was later revealed he left the festival grounds after becoming dissatisfied with the amenities.[19] This allowed the two bands, Disturbed and Judas Priest, to have longer sets.
| Tuborg Stage | ||
| Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
|
Simple Plan
|
HIM
|
Cavalera Conspiracy
|
| Gibson Stage | ||
| Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
|
The Dillinger Escape Plan
|
Testament
|
Jonathan Davis
|
Download 2009
The 2009 Download Festival is due to take place on the 12-14th of June at Donington Park. Confirmed to headline are Slipknot, Def Leppard and a yet to be confirmed third band.
The line up so far looks as follows[21]
:
| Main Stage | ||
| Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
|
TBC |
||
| Unkown Day/Stage |
|
Mötley Crüe |
See also
References
- ^ "Metallica's Ulrich breakdown on plane". contactmusic.com. 2005-02-24. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
- ^ a b c "Download Festival 2005 / LINE UP". Download Festival website. Retrieved 2007-02-13.
- ^ "Explosive Finish to Download on Sunday". Download Festival website. 2005-06-12. Retrieved 2007-02-13.
- ^ a b c d "Download Festival 2006 / LINEUP". Download Festival website. Retrieved 2007-02-13.
- ^ Steve Jenner (2006-06-10). "Download 2006 Blog - Saturday". Virtual Festivals. Retrieved 2007-02-13.
- ^ Steve Jenner (2006-06-11). "Download 2006 Blog - Sunday". Virtual Festivals. Retrieved 2007-02-13.
- ^ Chris Harris (2006-06-12). "Korn's Jonathan Davis Hospitalized With Blood Ailment; Tour Canceled". MTV News. Retrieved 2007-01-27.
- ^ "Axl Rose trips up at Download". Virtual Festivals. 2006-06-12. Retrieved 2007-01-27.
- ^ "Twelve held after rock festival". BBC News. 2006-06-12. Retrieved 2007-01-27.
- ^ Stuart Galbraith (2006-06-13). "Message from Stuart Galbraith, Festival Director". Retrieved 2007-01-27.
- ^ "DOWNLOAD 2007". Retrieved 2007-01-27.
- ^ "Download Festival News". Download Festival official website. Retrieved 2007-04-24.
- ^ a b c d "Download Festival 2007 Lineup". Retrieved 2008-03-01.
- ^ "Announcement 24th April". Download Festival forums. Retrieved 2007-04-24.
- ^ "Six New Bands Added With Just 100 Days To Go". Retrieved 2007-02-28.
- ^ "Download 2007 boardie barbecue pictures". Retrieved 2007-12-01.
- ^ "Lamb Of God official site". Retrieved 2008-06-11.
- ^ Download 2008 Map | http://www.downloadfestival.co.uk/_Resources/img/pix_dlmap.jpg
- ^ "Festival bosses lied about real reason for scrapped show". Retrieved 2008-08-27.
- ^ Line Up | http://www.downloadfestival.co.uk/lineup/index.aspx
- ^ http://www.downloadfestival.co.uk/lineup/index.aspx
- ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/events/download09.shtml
External links
- Official Website
- Official Myspace
- Unofficial Download Festival Flickr Group
- Nokia's Rock up & Play Play live at this year’s music festivals, including the Download Festival
- UK Music Festival Info and Forum