Download 2011

Yes, it's the obligatory festival review! I hadn't actually planned on going to Download but got offered a ticket at the last minute (thanks Lou!) so headed on up. As is tradition, Regan boarded a plane to France so as to maintain a rock equilibrium in the Midlands. Due to lack of planning I only set off after work on Friday, hence had already missed most of the awesome bands that were scheduled. Luckily 2 nights before I'd seen The Darkness in Shepherd's Bush so all was not lost. The plan was to arrive in time for Def Leppard's headlining slot. Then 20 minutes before they were due to being, this happened:


So we did the sensible thing and absconded to dry old Beeston for a few Harvest Pales with R-Man and T-Fran. I'd caught Def Lep a couple of years ago so it wasn't too much of a shame to miss them and stay dry for a night, especially since we'd have missed half the set by the time we arrived anyway.

So clean and dry, Saturday kicked off with Rise to Remain. I'm not down with the kidz enough to know anything about them but there was some satisfactory widdling involved. I'm a sucker for bands that look scary, so Ghost were good to look at but unfortunately the mix in the tent didn't let me find out if they were actually any good. So a giant Yorkshire pudding later, we headed over to check out Royal Republic's acoustic set. Sadly by the time we found the Jagermeister tent (secreted down a hidden pathway) we'd missed most of their set. I'm going to go ahead and recommend you watch their excellent Shazam session, even though Great Men have been shunned by the Shazamers now.


Skunk Anansie are always good, but chose a very poor setlist for a festival slot: far too much new material. Cheap Trick were very accomplished for "a brand new band from the United States"... And I was pleasantly surprised by Avenged Sevenfold, they put on a top notch show on the main stage.

At this point I was faced with a tough call. On the main stage was System of a Down, the very first band I ever saw at Rock City. But on the second stage was Alice Cooper, who is guaranteed to put a massive smile on my face. I got in position for Alice and was not disappointed. My advice to you, dear reader, is not to make my mistake of nearly not watching Alice Cooper. Always watch Alice Cooper. There was an especially great vibe in the crowd as clearly most people had never seen Alice before and were totally blown away. A python, 20 foot monster and guillotine, not to mention riffs and solos galore, later, grins and a buzz of excitement abound. I then managed to catch the last 40 minutes of System of a Down, who were excellent (on a sub-Alice plane of course), and as my friend pointed out, probably mentally ill.



The rain held off all night, but just as we contemplated leaving the tent at 10am, the heavens opened. And stayed open. We braved the elements for a cheeseburger and watch Sworn Amongst, who satisfied the 3 main requirements of metal:

1. Riffs
2. Solos
3. Growling silly things. (example lyric: "Die! Die! Die! ... we f**k the system every day"

We then had the misfortune to witness My Darkest Days (apt name), who must have taken a wrong turn on the way to the X Factor auditions. They were so bad that we decided to just leave the whole festival immediately.