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.

Main Stage
Saturday	Sunday
Iron Maiden Marilyn Manson Deftones Ministry InMe Murderdolls Amen Funeral for a Friend Stampin' Ground Shadows Fall Murder One	Audioslave Zwan Flint Apocalyptica Less Than Jake Disturbed Stone Sour Evanescence Mudvayne Spineshank The Darkness One Minute Silence Raging Speedhorn Instruction

Scuzz Stage
Saturday	Sunday
A Reel Big Fish Taproot Sepultura Reef HIM SOiL The Hellacopters SikTh 3 Colours Red From Autumn to Ashes QueenAdreena Violent Delight Arch Enemy Chimaira	NOFX boysetsfire The Bouncing Souls Strung Out Thrice [Spunge] TSOL Real McKenzies Metallica The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster Brand New Beatsteaks Randy Fabulous Disaster

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. 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.

The full line-up included:

Main Stage
Saturday	Sunday
Linkin Park Sum 41 The Stooges The Hives The Distillers Cradle of Filth Monster Magnet Opeth Dillinger Escape Plan	Metallica Korn Slipknot Slayer Machine Head Damageplan Soulfly Ill Niño Turbonegro Breed 77

Snickers "Game On" Stage
Saturday	Sunday
Pennywise Electric Six Wildboyz (Steve-o and Chris Pontius) Arch Enemy Biffy Clyro Million Dead Instruction 36 Crazyfists Akercocke Viking Skull Powder The Bled	HIM Bowling for Soup Taking Back Sunday Slayer Life of Agony Brides of Destruction Drowning Pool Hatebreed Hoobastank Trapt Silvertide Ricky Warwick Terra Diablo

Barfly Stage
Saturday	Sunday
Peaches International Noise Conspiracy Ikara Colt thisGirl Roxy Saint The Glitterati Surferosa Burst Lowfive Yourcodenameis:Milo Bullet for My Valentine The Holiday Plan Hiding Place Fireapple Red	Suicide Girls Young Heart Attack Span The Sounds Dirty Americans Recover Amplifier Do Me Bad Things Danko Jones The Black Dahlia Murder Mooney Suzuki Gonga Acidtone Hurricane Party Planet of Women

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 Slipknot Korn HIM	Linkin Park Lostprophets The Stooges The Distillers Machine Head

Download 2005

A view of the Main stage at Download Festival 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:

Main Stage
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Feeder Garbage Dinosaur Jr Megadeth Biffy Clyro The Others JJ72 Wednesday 13 Queen Adreena	Black Sabbath Velvet Revolver HIM Anthrax Alter Bridge Bowling For Soup A The Mad Capsule Markets The Dwarves Trivium	System of a Down Slipknot Slayer Nightwish Killswitch Engage Papa Roach Mudvayne Society 1 DV8

Snickers Stage
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Billy Idol The Used My Chemical Romance InMe The Bled Apocalyptica Underøath Lordi Fozzy Flogging Molly	In Flames Chimaira Lamb of God Bullet for My Valentine Meshuggah Unearth Every Time I Die Open Hand American Head Charge The Hurt Process	Motörhead DKT/MC5 Funeral for a Friend Lacuna Coil Mastodon Shadows Fall Helmet Caliban As I Lay Dying Gizmachi Send More Paramedics The Mascara Story

Napster Stage
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Napalm Death Raging Speedhorn Paradise Lost A Change of Pace Hurricane Party Tokyo Dragons Colour Of Fire Slunt Just A Word Crashdiet Planet of Women	Helmet The Lucky Nine Breed 77 The Explosion Towers Of London Johnny Truant The Ga Ga's The Answer Panic Cell Crucified Barbara Diamond Nights Quit Your Day Job City On Fire	Therapy? Team Sleep Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster The Dresden Dolls The Glitterati The Saints Engerica 3 Inches of Blood Still Remains No Hope In New Jersey Acidtone Henry Rollins (Spoken word 'Sermon')

Download 2006

Alice in Chains at Download Festival 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). 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
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Tool Deftones Coheed and Cambria Soulfly Strapping Young Lad SOiL Wicked Wisdom Amplifier	Metallica Korn Trivium Avenged Sevenfold Stone Sour Alice in Chains Arch Enemy Bloodsimple Satyricon Down (Unannounced Set)	Guns N' Roses Funeral for a Friend Bullet for My Valentine Cradle of Filth Lacuna Coil In Flames 36 Crazyfists DragonForce Hatebreed Breed 77

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.

Snickers Stage
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
The All-American Rejects Atreyu InMe Clutch Fishbone Dredg Bleeding Through Gojira Throwdown Suns of the Tundra	Alter Bridge Opeth Within Temptation Secret Machines Billy Talent Henry Rollins DevilDriver SikTh Johnny Truant Khoma	The Prodigy Alexisonfire Eighteen Visions Hundred Reasons Aiden Fightstar From First to Last DevilDriver (Instead of Soilwork) Zebrahead God Forbid

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
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Art of Dying Ginger & The Sonic Circus Backyard Babies Cathedral Engerica Bullets & Octane My Awesome Compilation Animal Alpha The Audition Enter Shikari Kitty Hudson	Killing Joke Reuben Mondo Generator Louie This Is Menace 10 Years Flyleaf Manic It Dies Today Living Things Exit Ten Colon Open Bracket Stonegard My Alamo	Sick Of It All Lordi Skindred Moneen Darkest Hour Blindside Mendeed Bring Me the Horizon The Zico Chain Voodoo Six Lauren Harris Winterville Streetlight Youth I-Def-I

Snickers Bowl Stage
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Gay for Johnny Depp Keiko SinTuition	Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly getAmped The Hedrons	Viking Skull Betty curse Evergrey

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.

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!"

On the final night, fires were started by some festival goers and police were called, arresting twelve people.. 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."

Download 2007

Stone Sour playing the main stage at Download Festival 2007

The 2007 Download Festival took place on June 8-10 2007.

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, and on 17 April this lineup was arranged into days and stages on the official website. 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.

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!"

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.

Lamb Of God's DVD Walk With Me In Hell features the band's full performance at the festival.

Main Stage
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
My Chemical Romance Velvet Revolver Wolfmother DragonForce Megadeth Hinder Buckcherry Zico Chain	Linkin Park Marilyn Manson Slayer Machine Head Bowling for Soup 30 Seconds to Mars Aiden Shadows Fall HELLYEAH Turisas	Iron Maiden Evanescence Killswitch Engage Stone Sour Lamb of God Mastodon Papa Roach Chimaira Reuben Parikrama

Dimebag Darrell Stage
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Korn Enter Shikari Paramore Porcupine Tree Saosin From Autumn to Ashes Turbonegro Ill Niño ANJ	Mötley Crüe Satellite Party Biffy Clyro My Vitriol My Dying Bride Gallows Anathema As I Lay Dying Bring Me The Horizon Bloodsimple Elliot Minor Cat the Dog	Billy Talent Dream Theater Dimmu Borgir Within Temptation Napalm Death Paradise Lost Orange Goblin DevilDriver Unearth Cancer Bats After Forever Eyelash

Tuborg Stage
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Suicidal Tendencies Hayseed Dixie yourcodenameis:milo Job for a Cowboy The Hedrons Sanctity I Was a Cub Scout The Scare This Et Al Fortune Drive Drive-by Argument	Head Automatica Necro The Answer Silverstein Lez Zeppelin Architects Priestess Panic Cell Beyond All Reason My Alamo Damone Army of Freshmen Malpractice	Reel Big Fish Fastway Cult of Luna Lauren Harris Fair to Midland Kids in Glass Houses Between the Trees Flood of Red Hardcore Superstar Lights. Action! In This Moment The Ghost of a Thousand LostAlone

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. 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. This allowed the two bands, Disturbed and Judas Priest, to have longer sets.

Main Stage
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Kiss Judas Priest Motorhead Disturbed Kid Rock (cancelled) Seether Beat Union Black Tide	The Offspring Incubus Bullet For My Valentine Biffy Clyro Alter Bridge Madina Lake 36 Crazyfists Job for a Cowboy Skindred Sign	Lostprophets Jimmy Eat World Coheed & Cambria In Flames Within Temptation Apocalyptica Black Stone Cherry Fightstar From First to Last Glamour Of The Kill

Tuborg Stage
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Simple Plan Rise Against Rival Schools The Subways The Fall of Troy Comeback Kid The Black Dahlia Murder Stone Gods Zebrahead	HIM Ash Pendulum Ace Frehley Amon Amarth Bleeding Through Throwdown A Day to Remember The Devil Wears Prada Alesana Annotations of an Autopsy Malefice	Cavalera Conspiracy Children Of Bodom The Wildhearts Elliot Minor Kids In Glass Houses Chiodos Airbourne Rose Tattoo Lethal Bizzle Municipal Waste Animal Alpha Cry For Silence

Gibson Stage
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
The Dillinger Escape Plan Kill Hannah Slaves to Gravity High on Fire In Case of Fire Blackhole Hostile Firewind Caimbo Rolo Tomassi Lovvers	Testament Saxon Johnny Truant Fighting With Wire Brigade Army of Freshmen The Haze Big Linda The Last Supper Trigger the Bloodshed Mexicolas Go:Audio Rise to Remain Verra Cruz	Jonathan Davis Valient Thorr Haunts August Burns Red Voodoo Six Between the Buried and Me Ted Maul Canterbury Exit Ten The Galvatrons Sons of Albion Devil Sold His Soul Invasion

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:

Main Stage
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
TBC	Slipknot The Prodigy Pendulum	Def Leppard Whitesnake

Unkown Day/Stage

Mötley Crüe Korn DragonForce DevilDriver Killswitch Engage Limp Bizkit Trivium

See also

• Monsters of Rock
• List of Donington Park Festivals

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

Exclusive Interview with Lauren Harris