Post by Catfood on Jun 26, 2006 22:18:11 GMT -5
The lineup for this years Download looked like being one of the best festival lineups I've seen for years. Add to that the fact that I had made the decision not to try to get Reading tickets this year, this weekend had to be fantastic. So what could be better than 5 days of blistering heat, friendly security, finally getting to see Metallica and a Satanic Curse?
Wednesday/Thursday:
Ok, first things first. The Satanic curse may have been my fault, I was watching the documentary "The Curse of the Omen" and it got to the bit where it was explaining about the plane that the producers of the film were supposed to be on got brought down by a flock of birds. I made a comment to Mark that you would have thought that that the Devil would know which plane to get. Anyway, we are on the way to Donington with Kev driving(possibly not wanting to risk his life after my driving last year) and Mathew in the back and I'm telling Kev about the documentary and I'm about repeat what I said and a pheasant flies out into the road and hits his car. We laughed so much at that, we didn't realize that it was going to last for the entire weekend.
Anyway, we get to Download and prepare ourselves for the walk ahead of us, one of my main complaints about Download 2005 was that the walk from the car park to the campsite was too long. This year, they have made it even longer. It doesn't help that the stewards have ushered us into the campsite furthest away from anywhere, it took us the best part of of 3 hours to set up the tent and get everything we needed, mainly booze, back to it. After we have all recovered from the walk, the bit where we are camped is filling up quickly so we decide to take a walk around the Village, this year there is a whole area dedicated to selling stuff and access to the Myspace/Gibson tent, this adds a bit of a Glastonbury free roaming vibe to the fest, even if it isn't really. There isn't very much going on so we head back to the tent and find that someone has set their tent up right in front of our entrance. So the night is spent getting drunk, an attempt to boil water for noodles is thwarted twice by someone walking past and kicking over the stove and possible pouring boiling water over themselves.
Nothing really happens on Thursday until Vic arrives. The drinking starts at 7am, I go and buy a hat to protect myself from sunstroke. The beer in the tent becomes undrinkably hot, not warm, hot by about 11am, so we head to the Village where they have finally deemed it fit to open the Guinness bar. Which is not as good as last year, for a start its not free pour and it is more expensive than last year. Anyway, we hide in the Gibson/Myspace tent from the heat until Vic calls and meets us. He has come with his friend John. Vic has not had a look around, so we all take another look around and Vic meets some people that he knows from local bands. The bad thing is that Vic has brought a bottle Absinthe with him and me and Mathew have decided that drinking the damned stuff is a good idea. So we all go back to the tent while John goes to get the stuff. Its all going so well, we decide to go and see the Area51 cabaret all the while me and Mathew are taking big gulps of Absinthe. Mathew is the first to fall, literally. We try to carry him back to the tent, until John just scoops him up and carries him in a fireman's carry, for this act, John is a hero to me. Unfortunately everything is blank from there on in, the next thing I know, some people are waking me up and I'm staggering back to the tent. You know, I will go Download without blacking out and making an arse of myself on the Thursday next year.
Friday:
Friday starts at 4am with me wondering where the fuck I am, having collapsed in a corner of Kev's big tent. I crawl into my sleeping bag and try to ignore the pounding headache. I wake up a couple of hours later and go to the bogs, which really weren't that bad, I have a little walk around and go back to the tent. Anyway, having more than a few hours to kill, I decide to read through the crap printed in the booklet until Vic and John turn up and we all decide to head to the arena, stopping for a Guinness on the way of course. The queue for the entrance wasn't too bad, we all got in in a matter of minutes. The first band I want to see is on the Snickers stage, so we head that way grabbing a Brothers Pear Cider, it is vile. Not even Mathew, who drank the rough scrumpy at Reading last year could finish a pint. The apple cider, which became my drink of the weekend was much better. Anyway, we manage to catch the end of The Suns Of The Tundra who were pretty good, sounding like a heavier version of Lodestar, I was very impressed. Vic was not however and after they finished me and Mat went to the bar, bidding our goodbyes to him and John, little did we know that it was the last time we would see John, the guy was playing a bit of football and someone rugby tackled him, which landed him in hospital for the entire weekend. Damn you Satan!
Anyway, we go to check out Vic's pick of the day, Throwdown, who are better than I though they would be anyway. We take another trip to the bar and back into the tent for Gojira. Gojira are one of the few heavy metal bands around doing something different and they are brilliant for it. Even if they are a bit confused, they come on and have to wait about a minute for their intro tape to finish and then after their last song, they stand around for a few seconds before the singer goes"Ummm, thats it" and they leave. Then its a mad dash to the main stage to see Strapping Young Lad, well it would be if the bar hadn't got in the way, then there was the ambiguous one way system where you never actually knew where the hell you were going. But with cider in hand, me and Mathew finally managed to make it to the main stage. Strapping Young Lad, what can I say? Devin Townsend is amazed by the amount of people who have come to see them play, this doesn't stop him from spouting some of the most over the top and offensive things he can think off, most of which is very funny. The music is amazing, picking choice tracks off of most of their albums, 'Love?', a bit of a dull track from "Alien" is one of the many highlights live, the new material from forthcoming album "The New Black" sounds great. In all, it was all fantastic, though far too short, Strapping Young Lad are given 40 minutes and 'Detox', 'Underneath The Waves', 'Skeksis', 'Shitstorm' and 'Possessions' would have been great to hear, but I'm not complaining, Strapping Young Lad are the best band of the day. Not by very much though, I head out to the Gibson/Myspace stage to catch Bullets and Octane, only to find out that I've got the times wrong and I'm an hour early. The band I end up walking in on are My Awesome Compilation. My Extreme Pile Of Crap would be a better name for them. Anyway, it gives me a chance to go to the bar and bump into Kev, who I haven't seen since Thursday and am convinced that he is pissed off with me about what happened the night before. He doesn't seem too upset and fills me in on what has happened to John, which kind of kills the good mood I'm in. Kev goes back to the tent and I get another drink and head into the Gibson/Myspace tent to see Bullets and Octane. Bullets and Octane are fantastic, almost better than Strapping Young Lad, opening with "Mine Now", singer Gene Louis is sarcastically funny, making fun of the crowd for not moshing, getting a beer from the crowd, throwing water over himself and generally being a star. "I love this song" he says as the intro to 'Cancer California', a track that wouldn't sound out of place on daytime radio. This band are going to be big. Engerica cannot possibly follow Bullets and Octane, but they then go and shoot themselves in the foot by playing loads of new material that no one is that familiar with. Plus they have someone who looks like Prince Harry playing bass. But tracks like 'Roadkill', 'Arsehole' and 'It Was a Goddamned Suicide' all rock like bastards.
With that, me and Mathew head back to the campsite, missing the Deftones, which to be fair I wasn't too bothered about. After a beer or two, we head back into the arena to catch the last couple of tracks by Backyard Babies. You know you've seen (the end) a good band when you are singing their songs without knowing it a day later. A trip to the bar follows and quick decision that Ginger and The Sonic Circus are the best of a bad bunch of headliners. Just before they start, Mathew notes, "They must be good, all the tall people have turned up." He has a point, though to be fair, the Gibson/Myspace tent is situated on a hill. But there were some freakishly tall people about, I'm no midget myself at about 6ft, but these people were tall. Ginger and the Sonic Circus aren't great truth be told, I counted 10 people on stage and you can only hear about 4 of them, though that may be down to the fact that the sound in the Gibson/Myspace stage is constantly crap. The highlight of the set is a run through of the Wildhearts '29x The Pain' to which the Area51 freaks decide to mutilate each other to.
With the bands out of the way, a trip to the bog and the bar and then I try to see the Area51 show. But the security guy won't let me through, when I ask why, instead of getting arsy, he explains that they are just checking the tent. So I go take another walk around the village and head back half an hour later. The Area51 show is not as good as it was last year, without time constraints some of the acts go on for far too long. Ok, I can watch young girls dance for ages but do we really need to see a bunch of blokes juggling for 20 minutes. I go to the bog and then the bar and head back in to see if the show has got any better, thankfully it has, though there are a lot of tall people about. Trying to get a better view, I bump into Kev, Vic and Mathew. After the show has finished at about 4ish, we head back to the tent for some more beer before bed. We sit up talking shite for an hour, Mathew trying to explain the mysteries of Lost to us, at which point the guy in the tent in front of us gets involved in the conversation and becoming know as the disembodied voice. And then, at about 6 in the morning, its time for bed.
Saturday:
Saturday starts late, around about half nine, which is good as it means we only have to wait about and hour or so before the arena opens. Kev has woken up hungover and tired and is in a foul mood and refuses to communicate with us with sentences that contain more than one or two words. Anyway, after drinking a few beers before they got too hot we take a trip to the arena, grabbing a Guinness on the way. We get to the entrance to the arena and I still have almost a full pint, thinking that they won't let me in with it, I'm trying to drink it as fast as possible before the security person on the gate tells me that I'm ok to go in with it. Anyway, once in the arena I meet up again with Kev and we hear the sound of My Alamo playing in the Gibson/Mystage tent, so we go and check them out. They actually sounded better from outside the tent than they did inside and I think we both walked away wishing we hadn't bothered. With that, we split up and I head towards the Snickers tent, walking by this point has become slightly painful. The boots I took with me, I took because I was expecting typical British summer festival weather, not five days of unrelenting sun and by now the boots have become implements of torture. But for the time being, it is not too bad. The first band I catch on the Snickers stage are Johnny Truant, who I remember nothing about, I think I walked out after a couple of songs to get a pizza that looked and tasted like it had been cooked the day before. After that, a trip to the bar for cider and then back into the tent to see SiKth. I have never been that impressed with SiKth live and today is no exception, their mind bending metal should go great with the mind bending cider, but I can't help but think that they should be one of these bands that stop playing live shows and just release an album every now and then. I was going to see Devildriver when I get sidetracked by the Nintendo DS comedy cafe and a recording of one the comedians from the day before, the comedian is quite funny, especially his bit about deliberately injuring your cat so you can get to know the vet better. After that, its more cider and back into the tent to catch the end of Devildriver who seem to be putting on one hell of a show and I feel slightly annoyed with myself that I missed it. Anyway, next up is Henry Rollins doing his spoken word act and following how good he was last year, I was expecting great things. It starts off well enough but towards the end he gets way too preachy, ok most of the stuff he said I agree with but I didn't go and see him to get talked at, I went to be entertained. Plus the fact that he is down for an hour and a half set and only does 40 minutes at most, it is a bit disappointing. Anyway, slightly fed up with the fact that Saturday looked really promising and so far has yet to deliver, I have another cider and head towards the Gibson/Myspace stage. I decide to go and see Flyleaf who are simply incredible. Ignore the fact that their album is so overproduced and radio friendly and go and see this band live. Their Human Waste Project influenced metal meets Avril Lavigne vocals is so much better in the live setting, singer Lacey Mosley is tiny but she is an amazing singer, even though the crap sound tries its best to smother her for the first few songs, its the first band I can actually say I enjoyed on the Saturday. After that I head back over to the Snickers stage to catch Billy Talent. Billy Talent have a pretty good debut album, but live it becomes painfully obvious that their singer has a really annoying voice which pretty much ruins everything. I stick around long enough for them to play "The River Below" and leave. I was going to see This is Menace, but by this time the heat and the cider had got to me, so I spent the next hour or so sitting in the Nintendo DS Comedy cafe just chilling out and watching a few comedians. Anyway, after a trip to the bar, I decided to go and check out Korn on the mainstage. On the screens on the stage there is the message that Jonathan Davis is ill in hospital and that Korn will be playing with guest vocalists. It sounds like a train wreak in the making and I missed the first half of the show, but the bits I did see, Benji Webb from Skindred doing A.D.I.D.A.S was great and I was even impressed with Cory Taylor from Slipknot/Stone Sour. It seemed like nothing could ruin the moment until the singer from Trivium tries to do "Blind" and it just doesn't work. Maybe because its an untouchable classic, or maybe because Matt Heafy is just a shit singer. Either way, I'm not too bothered as everything has been building up to me seeing Metallica. Having been a Metallica fan since I was 13, things such as school, college, work and simple bad luck(I missed them when they played their secret show at Download 2003, something Mathew has never let me forget) have always got in the way of me seeing them. And its not looking too promising as they are late taking the stage which leads to mass bottle fights in quite possibly the biggest crowd I've ever seen. Then their intro tape starts and everyone goes mental, Lars leaps behind his drumkit as the first bandmember out and Metallica rip into "Creeping Death" any fears that they may be too old and rich to give a good show are instantly dismissed. Though to begin with, the show does seem to be all over the place, the new song they play sounds like a return to form though. Then they leave the stage, then the announcement comes through that they are going to play the entire "Master of Puppets" album to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The entire place goes absolutely nuts. I do feel a bit bad about wishing it was the 20th anniversay of "Ride The Lightning" which to be fair was a better album. That tiny complaint aside, hearing that album played live that I've not listened to in years and still knowing every single word is mind blowing, "Sanitarium(Welcome Home)" is incredible. After the MOP, set there is the slow "Sad But True", the stunning "One" with the fireworks which work great with the planes flying overhead, its all too good. The show ends with "Seek and Destroy" which is a great way to end an amazing headlining set.
With that, I head back to the tent, convinced that I can die happy having seen Metallica live. I get back to the tent, my feet are killing me and Vic is being an annoying drunken arsehole and has taken issue with the fact that our neighbours have branded him an emo. The fact he looks and dresses like an emo might have something to do with it(Vic when he is sober is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet, when he's had a drink however...). He is insisting that we must go out and do stuff, so we head for the Area51 show again, but Vic wants to get into the Aftershock tent, the fact that there is a massive line to get in and I am no mood for queuing leads to to us arguing. Anyway, me, Kev and Mathew head into the Gibson/Myspace stage and watch a little of the act, which seems no different from the night before so we head back and go to sleep.
Sunday:
I'm first up and decide that I cannot stand another day of wearing the boots, so a trip to the market is in order to buy some sandals. Yes sandals, not quite the look I was after but they actually made the day slightly less miserable for my feet. When I get back to the tent, Mat and Kev are up and have a good giggle at my footwear. A decision is made to go to the arena when we can't stand the heat in the tent anymore, a text from Mark telling us the weather was going to turn bad turns out to be wrong. The days drinking starts not with Guinness, but with Milkshakes, its actually nice to start the day with something non alcoholic, though the drinking is properly started with a tequila slush on the way round to the Snickers tent. The first band on are God Forbid, who quite possibly are the dullest band of the festival. I manage to stand through about 2 of their songs before deciding another slush is needed, so with that I split up with Mat and Kev and headed for the bar. The next band, Zebrahead are much better, starting with a relatively small crowd and having a massive circle pit at the end shows how good this band are, despite having had almost no exposure in the UK, songs like "Falling Apart", "Whiskey Soaked Karma" and "Anthem" make you wonder why and after God Forbid, they make everything seem ok again. Though not for long, one of the bands I had been looking forward to, Soilwork, have pulled out due to their guitarist being ill and even though its Devildriver on again instead, I'm missing Dragonforce. So I head over to the mainstage to catch what is left of their set, I catch "Operation Ground and Pound" and "Through The Fire and Flames" which are great songs which are ruined by shitty sound which seems to be getting blown away by the slight breeze that has picked up. After that there is a huge gap in the bands that I want to see, so I decide to go and see what the Gibson/Myspace stage has to offer. The first band I see are Voodoo 6 who are simply awesome and are nicely warmed up from being Lauren Harris's backing band. The singer has a passing resemblance to Justin Hawkins, though the band are far better than any Darkness copycat band. I got chatting to the guitarist after wards as well, nice bloke, even if he looked slightly insulted when I told him I'd never heard of them. The next band up are The Zico Chain, who are yet another great band. Sounding like Nirvana in their most rocking and discordant moments, though about halfway through their second song, "Rohypnol", the guitarist blows his amp and the singer takes the opportunity to tell us about what the band are up to while the guitarist sorts out his equipment. This kills the momentum of the set and despite their best efforts, the set suffers for it. Anyway, I decide to go and see Lacuna Coil again, even though they weren't that great last year, but I end up missing them due to getting more cider and some food. More cider brings the decision that I can't be arsed to walk around anymore, so I decide to watch Bullet For My Valentine from the hill, they are ok if nothing special. After Bullet For My Valentine I head over the the Gibson/Myspace tent, which is already rammed, you may think this is because a certain Eurovision song contest winning band is on. Nope, the next band on are Skindred. The atmosphere inside the tent is amazing, when an inflatable ball is confiscated by the guy on the sound desk, people start bouncing around an inflatable chair instead. And from the moment Benji Webb steps on stage, he has the crowd in the palm of his hand. Skindred are amazing, taking the already good vibe in the tent and building it into a party with songs like "Pressure", "Selector" "Set It Off" and closing song "Nobody" this is an amazing band that deserve to be bigger than they are. There is a massive crush of people leaving the tent, almost as massive as the people trying to get in, I for one want to get a cider. When I do, I turn around to see if there is anyway to get back into the tent, the crowd is about 3 people deep outside the tent. Someone next to me points that they only half filled the Snickers tent the year before, something tells me their status may have grown since then. Unfortunately, their set is very hit and miss, playing a load of new material before playing the more well known stuff, "Blood Red Sandman" and "The Devil Is A loser" being personal highlights and of course "Hard Rock Hallelujah" is saved for last. With that, I head to the main stage to see Axel Rose and friends. Despite fears that he won't turn up and he will keep everyone waiting, he turns up and on time. And for 4 songs it seems as if this might actually work and they might put on a decent show. Its not to be, Axel stomps off stage citing technical difficulties as a reason, this goes on for ten minutes. Then some guy comes out and plays a guitar solo, that lasts ten minutes. Its a joke and a really unfunny one at that. There are people streaming past me to get out of the arena and to be fair, I've had enough and head back to the tent myself. Once back at the tent I make to vow not to move again until morning. Its one I keep, even though the smoke from the fire in the next field is blowing straight into the tent. So anyway as Download 2006 decends into chaos, its slightly confusing as the last 2 Downloads I'd been to had ended rather quietly, at least nothing involving riot police anyway. Kev and Mat go out to give away the booze we haven't drank and can't be arsed to carry back with us and get turned back at the campsite entrance being told there is a riot happening. For once we are greatful for being so away from the main area, but I'm worried for Vic who is camped where everything is kicking off.
Monday:
Everything seems much worse that it actually is, Mathew, who hasn't been to sleep yet comes back to the tent and says "They burnt the main stage down, you can still see it smouldering" I have a look outside, the smoke looks a lot closer than if it were the main stage. Then Vic turns up, unharmed and still free to walk around. One of my main fears was that he was going to get pissed up and get himself beaten and arrested by the riot police. But he is ok, he went back to his tent and hid, while people around him were saying things like "Lets throw stuff on the Emo's tent" and he spent the night awake incase anything did actually happen. But anyway, he needs help carrying John's stuff so I offer a hand and having a look around at the damage, there is certainly a downbeat atmosphere to the place and it isn't just the Monday morning return to reality blues, the increased Police presence adds to the shitty feeling. I take a look at the "burnt out" main stage and realise that its not been destroyed, it is simply being dismantled. So anyway we take the tent down and head back to the car along that fucking long walk. You remember that curse I mentioned, well it had one more sting in the tail. We got to be about 2 minutes away from the car and there was an flash of lightning, an apocalyptic crash of thunder and the heavens opened, soaking all of us. We chucked everything in the car and piled in on top it. Once the rain had stopped, we got on our way, Vic and Mat sleeping in the back and who could blame them. It was a great weekend, I will definately go next year and now I want to go to Reading damn it.
Wednesday/Thursday:
Ok, first things first. The Satanic curse may have been my fault, I was watching the documentary "The Curse of the Omen" and it got to the bit where it was explaining about the plane that the producers of the film were supposed to be on got brought down by a flock of birds. I made a comment to Mark that you would have thought that that the Devil would know which plane to get. Anyway, we are on the way to Donington with Kev driving(possibly not wanting to risk his life after my driving last year) and Mathew in the back and I'm telling Kev about the documentary and I'm about repeat what I said and a pheasant flies out into the road and hits his car. We laughed so much at that, we didn't realize that it was going to last for the entire weekend.
Anyway, we get to Download and prepare ourselves for the walk ahead of us, one of my main complaints about Download 2005 was that the walk from the car park to the campsite was too long. This year, they have made it even longer. It doesn't help that the stewards have ushered us into the campsite furthest away from anywhere, it took us the best part of of 3 hours to set up the tent and get everything we needed, mainly booze, back to it. After we have all recovered from the walk, the bit where we are camped is filling up quickly so we decide to take a walk around the Village, this year there is a whole area dedicated to selling stuff and access to the Myspace/Gibson tent, this adds a bit of a Glastonbury free roaming vibe to the fest, even if it isn't really. There isn't very much going on so we head back to the tent and find that someone has set their tent up right in front of our entrance. So the night is spent getting drunk, an attempt to boil water for noodles is thwarted twice by someone walking past and kicking over the stove and possible pouring boiling water over themselves.
Nothing really happens on Thursday until Vic arrives. The drinking starts at 7am, I go and buy a hat to protect myself from sunstroke. The beer in the tent becomes undrinkably hot, not warm, hot by about 11am, so we head to the Village where they have finally deemed it fit to open the Guinness bar. Which is not as good as last year, for a start its not free pour and it is more expensive than last year. Anyway, we hide in the Gibson/Myspace tent from the heat until Vic calls and meets us. He has come with his friend John. Vic has not had a look around, so we all take another look around and Vic meets some people that he knows from local bands. The bad thing is that Vic has brought a bottle Absinthe with him and me and Mathew have decided that drinking the damned stuff is a good idea. So we all go back to the tent while John goes to get the stuff. Its all going so well, we decide to go and see the Area51 cabaret all the while me and Mathew are taking big gulps of Absinthe. Mathew is the first to fall, literally. We try to carry him back to the tent, until John just scoops him up and carries him in a fireman's carry, for this act, John is a hero to me. Unfortunately everything is blank from there on in, the next thing I know, some people are waking me up and I'm staggering back to the tent. You know, I will go Download without blacking out and making an arse of myself on the Thursday next year.
Friday:
Friday starts at 4am with me wondering where the fuck I am, having collapsed in a corner of Kev's big tent. I crawl into my sleeping bag and try to ignore the pounding headache. I wake up a couple of hours later and go to the bogs, which really weren't that bad, I have a little walk around and go back to the tent. Anyway, having more than a few hours to kill, I decide to read through the crap printed in the booklet until Vic and John turn up and we all decide to head to the arena, stopping for a Guinness on the way of course. The queue for the entrance wasn't too bad, we all got in in a matter of minutes. The first band I want to see is on the Snickers stage, so we head that way grabbing a Brothers Pear Cider, it is vile. Not even Mathew, who drank the rough scrumpy at Reading last year could finish a pint. The apple cider, which became my drink of the weekend was much better. Anyway, we manage to catch the end of The Suns Of The Tundra who were pretty good, sounding like a heavier version of Lodestar, I was very impressed. Vic was not however and after they finished me and Mat went to the bar, bidding our goodbyes to him and John, little did we know that it was the last time we would see John, the guy was playing a bit of football and someone rugby tackled him, which landed him in hospital for the entire weekend. Damn you Satan!
Anyway, we go to check out Vic's pick of the day, Throwdown, who are better than I though they would be anyway. We take another trip to the bar and back into the tent for Gojira. Gojira are one of the few heavy metal bands around doing something different and they are brilliant for it. Even if they are a bit confused, they come on and have to wait about a minute for their intro tape to finish and then after their last song, they stand around for a few seconds before the singer goes"Ummm, thats it" and they leave. Then its a mad dash to the main stage to see Strapping Young Lad, well it would be if the bar hadn't got in the way, then there was the ambiguous one way system where you never actually knew where the hell you were going. But with cider in hand, me and Mathew finally managed to make it to the main stage. Strapping Young Lad, what can I say? Devin Townsend is amazed by the amount of people who have come to see them play, this doesn't stop him from spouting some of the most over the top and offensive things he can think off, most of which is very funny. The music is amazing, picking choice tracks off of most of their albums, 'Love?', a bit of a dull track from "Alien" is one of the many highlights live, the new material from forthcoming album "The New Black" sounds great. In all, it was all fantastic, though far too short, Strapping Young Lad are given 40 minutes and 'Detox', 'Underneath The Waves', 'Skeksis', 'Shitstorm' and 'Possessions' would have been great to hear, but I'm not complaining, Strapping Young Lad are the best band of the day. Not by very much though, I head out to the Gibson/Myspace stage to catch Bullets and Octane, only to find out that I've got the times wrong and I'm an hour early. The band I end up walking in on are My Awesome Compilation. My Extreme Pile Of Crap would be a better name for them. Anyway, it gives me a chance to go to the bar and bump into Kev, who I haven't seen since Thursday and am convinced that he is pissed off with me about what happened the night before. He doesn't seem too upset and fills me in on what has happened to John, which kind of kills the good mood I'm in. Kev goes back to the tent and I get another drink and head into the Gibson/Myspace tent to see Bullets and Octane. Bullets and Octane are fantastic, almost better than Strapping Young Lad, opening with "Mine Now", singer Gene Louis is sarcastically funny, making fun of the crowd for not moshing, getting a beer from the crowd, throwing water over himself and generally being a star. "I love this song" he says as the intro to 'Cancer California', a track that wouldn't sound out of place on daytime radio. This band are going to be big. Engerica cannot possibly follow Bullets and Octane, but they then go and shoot themselves in the foot by playing loads of new material that no one is that familiar with. Plus they have someone who looks like Prince Harry playing bass. But tracks like 'Roadkill', 'Arsehole' and 'It Was a Goddamned Suicide' all rock like bastards.
With that, me and Mathew head back to the campsite, missing the Deftones, which to be fair I wasn't too bothered about. After a beer or two, we head back into the arena to catch the last couple of tracks by Backyard Babies. You know you've seen (the end) a good band when you are singing their songs without knowing it a day later. A trip to the bar follows and quick decision that Ginger and The Sonic Circus are the best of a bad bunch of headliners. Just before they start, Mathew notes, "They must be good, all the tall people have turned up." He has a point, though to be fair, the Gibson/Myspace tent is situated on a hill. But there were some freakishly tall people about, I'm no midget myself at about 6ft, but these people were tall. Ginger and the Sonic Circus aren't great truth be told, I counted 10 people on stage and you can only hear about 4 of them, though that may be down to the fact that the sound in the Gibson/Myspace stage is constantly crap. The highlight of the set is a run through of the Wildhearts '29x The Pain' to which the Area51 freaks decide to mutilate each other to.
With the bands out of the way, a trip to the bog and the bar and then I try to see the Area51 show. But the security guy won't let me through, when I ask why, instead of getting arsy, he explains that they are just checking the tent. So I go take another walk around the village and head back half an hour later. The Area51 show is not as good as it was last year, without time constraints some of the acts go on for far too long. Ok, I can watch young girls dance for ages but do we really need to see a bunch of blokes juggling for 20 minutes. I go to the bog and then the bar and head back in to see if the show has got any better, thankfully it has, though there are a lot of tall people about. Trying to get a better view, I bump into Kev, Vic and Mathew. After the show has finished at about 4ish, we head back to the tent for some more beer before bed. We sit up talking shite for an hour, Mathew trying to explain the mysteries of Lost to us, at which point the guy in the tent in front of us gets involved in the conversation and becoming know as the disembodied voice. And then, at about 6 in the morning, its time for bed.
Saturday:
Saturday starts late, around about half nine, which is good as it means we only have to wait about and hour or so before the arena opens. Kev has woken up hungover and tired and is in a foul mood and refuses to communicate with us with sentences that contain more than one or two words. Anyway, after drinking a few beers before they got too hot we take a trip to the arena, grabbing a Guinness on the way. We get to the entrance to the arena and I still have almost a full pint, thinking that they won't let me in with it, I'm trying to drink it as fast as possible before the security person on the gate tells me that I'm ok to go in with it. Anyway, once in the arena I meet up again with Kev and we hear the sound of My Alamo playing in the Gibson/Mystage tent, so we go and check them out. They actually sounded better from outside the tent than they did inside and I think we both walked away wishing we hadn't bothered. With that, we split up and I head towards the Snickers tent, walking by this point has become slightly painful. The boots I took with me, I took because I was expecting typical British summer festival weather, not five days of unrelenting sun and by now the boots have become implements of torture. But for the time being, it is not too bad. The first band I catch on the Snickers stage are Johnny Truant, who I remember nothing about, I think I walked out after a couple of songs to get a pizza that looked and tasted like it had been cooked the day before. After that, a trip to the bar for cider and then back into the tent to see SiKth. I have never been that impressed with SiKth live and today is no exception, their mind bending metal should go great with the mind bending cider, but I can't help but think that they should be one of these bands that stop playing live shows and just release an album every now and then. I was going to see Devildriver when I get sidetracked by the Nintendo DS comedy cafe and a recording of one the comedians from the day before, the comedian is quite funny, especially his bit about deliberately injuring your cat so you can get to know the vet better. After that, its more cider and back into the tent to catch the end of Devildriver who seem to be putting on one hell of a show and I feel slightly annoyed with myself that I missed it. Anyway, next up is Henry Rollins doing his spoken word act and following how good he was last year, I was expecting great things. It starts off well enough but towards the end he gets way too preachy, ok most of the stuff he said I agree with but I didn't go and see him to get talked at, I went to be entertained. Plus the fact that he is down for an hour and a half set and only does 40 minutes at most, it is a bit disappointing. Anyway, slightly fed up with the fact that Saturday looked really promising and so far has yet to deliver, I have another cider and head towards the Gibson/Myspace stage. I decide to go and see Flyleaf who are simply incredible. Ignore the fact that their album is so overproduced and radio friendly and go and see this band live. Their Human Waste Project influenced metal meets Avril Lavigne vocals is so much better in the live setting, singer Lacey Mosley is tiny but she is an amazing singer, even though the crap sound tries its best to smother her for the first few songs, its the first band I can actually say I enjoyed on the Saturday. After that I head back over to the Snickers stage to catch Billy Talent. Billy Talent have a pretty good debut album, but live it becomes painfully obvious that their singer has a really annoying voice which pretty much ruins everything. I stick around long enough for them to play "The River Below" and leave. I was going to see This is Menace, but by this time the heat and the cider had got to me, so I spent the next hour or so sitting in the Nintendo DS Comedy cafe just chilling out and watching a few comedians. Anyway, after a trip to the bar, I decided to go and check out Korn on the mainstage. On the screens on the stage there is the message that Jonathan Davis is ill in hospital and that Korn will be playing with guest vocalists. It sounds like a train wreak in the making and I missed the first half of the show, but the bits I did see, Benji Webb from Skindred doing A.D.I.D.A.S was great and I was even impressed with Cory Taylor from Slipknot/Stone Sour. It seemed like nothing could ruin the moment until the singer from Trivium tries to do "Blind" and it just doesn't work. Maybe because its an untouchable classic, or maybe because Matt Heafy is just a shit singer. Either way, I'm not too bothered as everything has been building up to me seeing Metallica. Having been a Metallica fan since I was 13, things such as school, college, work and simple bad luck(I missed them when they played their secret show at Download 2003, something Mathew has never let me forget) have always got in the way of me seeing them. And its not looking too promising as they are late taking the stage which leads to mass bottle fights in quite possibly the biggest crowd I've ever seen. Then their intro tape starts and everyone goes mental, Lars leaps behind his drumkit as the first bandmember out and Metallica rip into "Creeping Death" any fears that they may be too old and rich to give a good show are instantly dismissed. Though to begin with, the show does seem to be all over the place, the new song they play sounds like a return to form though. Then they leave the stage, then the announcement comes through that they are going to play the entire "Master of Puppets" album to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The entire place goes absolutely nuts. I do feel a bit bad about wishing it was the 20th anniversay of "Ride The Lightning" which to be fair was a better album. That tiny complaint aside, hearing that album played live that I've not listened to in years and still knowing every single word is mind blowing, "Sanitarium(Welcome Home)" is incredible. After the MOP, set there is the slow "Sad But True", the stunning "One" with the fireworks which work great with the planes flying overhead, its all too good. The show ends with "Seek and Destroy" which is a great way to end an amazing headlining set.
With that, I head back to the tent, convinced that I can die happy having seen Metallica live. I get back to the tent, my feet are killing me and Vic is being an annoying drunken arsehole and has taken issue with the fact that our neighbours have branded him an emo. The fact he looks and dresses like an emo might have something to do with it(Vic when he is sober is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet, when he's had a drink however...). He is insisting that we must go out and do stuff, so we head for the Area51 show again, but Vic wants to get into the Aftershock tent, the fact that there is a massive line to get in and I am no mood for queuing leads to to us arguing. Anyway, me, Kev and Mathew head into the Gibson/Myspace stage and watch a little of the act, which seems no different from the night before so we head back and go to sleep.
Sunday:
I'm first up and decide that I cannot stand another day of wearing the boots, so a trip to the market is in order to buy some sandals. Yes sandals, not quite the look I was after but they actually made the day slightly less miserable for my feet. When I get back to the tent, Mat and Kev are up and have a good giggle at my footwear. A decision is made to go to the arena when we can't stand the heat in the tent anymore, a text from Mark telling us the weather was going to turn bad turns out to be wrong. The days drinking starts not with Guinness, but with Milkshakes, its actually nice to start the day with something non alcoholic, though the drinking is properly started with a tequila slush on the way round to the Snickers tent. The first band on are God Forbid, who quite possibly are the dullest band of the festival. I manage to stand through about 2 of their songs before deciding another slush is needed, so with that I split up with Mat and Kev and headed for the bar. The next band, Zebrahead are much better, starting with a relatively small crowd and having a massive circle pit at the end shows how good this band are, despite having had almost no exposure in the UK, songs like "Falling Apart", "Whiskey Soaked Karma" and "Anthem" make you wonder why and after God Forbid, they make everything seem ok again. Though not for long, one of the bands I had been looking forward to, Soilwork, have pulled out due to their guitarist being ill and even though its Devildriver on again instead, I'm missing Dragonforce. So I head over to the mainstage to catch what is left of their set, I catch "Operation Ground and Pound" and "Through The Fire and Flames" which are great songs which are ruined by shitty sound which seems to be getting blown away by the slight breeze that has picked up. After that there is a huge gap in the bands that I want to see, so I decide to go and see what the Gibson/Myspace stage has to offer. The first band I see are Voodoo 6 who are simply awesome and are nicely warmed up from being Lauren Harris's backing band. The singer has a passing resemblance to Justin Hawkins, though the band are far better than any Darkness copycat band. I got chatting to the guitarist after wards as well, nice bloke, even if he looked slightly insulted when I told him I'd never heard of them. The next band up are The Zico Chain, who are yet another great band. Sounding like Nirvana in their most rocking and discordant moments, though about halfway through their second song, "Rohypnol", the guitarist blows his amp and the singer takes the opportunity to tell us about what the band are up to while the guitarist sorts out his equipment. This kills the momentum of the set and despite their best efforts, the set suffers for it. Anyway, I decide to go and see Lacuna Coil again, even though they weren't that great last year, but I end up missing them due to getting more cider and some food. More cider brings the decision that I can't be arsed to walk around anymore, so I decide to watch Bullet For My Valentine from the hill, they are ok if nothing special. After Bullet For My Valentine I head over the the Gibson/Myspace tent, which is already rammed, you may think this is because a certain Eurovision song contest winning band is on. Nope, the next band on are Skindred. The atmosphere inside the tent is amazing, when an inflatable ball is confiscated by the guy on the sound desk, people start bouncing around an inflatable chair instead. And from the moment Benji Webb steps on stage, he has the crowd in the palm of his hand. Skindred are amazing, taking the already good vibe in the tent and building it into a party with songs like "Pressure", "Selector" "Set It Off" and closing song "Nobody" this is an amazing band that deserve to be bigger than they are. There is a massive crush of people leaving the tent, almost as massive as the people trying to get in, I for one want to get a cider. When I do, I turn around to see if there is anyway to get back into the tent, the crowd is about 3 people deep outside the tent. Someone next to me points that they only half filled the Snickers tent the year before, something tells me their status may have grown since then. Unfortunately, their set is very hit and miss, playing a load of new material before playing the more well known stuff, "Blood Red Sandman" and "The Devil Is A loser" being personal highlights and of course "Hard Rock Hallelujah" is saved for last. With that, I head to the main stage to see Axel Rose and friends. Despite fears that he won't turn up and he will keep everyone waiting, he turns up and on time. And for 4 songs it seems as if this might actually work and they might put on a decent show. Its not to be, Axel stomps off stage citing technical difficulties as a reason, this goes on for ten minutes. Then some guy comes out and plays a guitar solo, that lasts ten minutes. Its a joke and a really unfunny one at that. There are people streaming past me to get out of the arena and to be fair, I've had enough and head back to the tent myself. Once back at the tent I make to vow not to move again until morning. Its one I keep, even though the smoke from the fire in the next field is blowing straight into the tent. So anyway as Download 2006 decends into chaos, its slightly confusing as the last 2 Downloads I'd been to had ended rather quietly, at least nothing involving riot police anyway. Kev and Mat go out to give away the booze we haven't drank and can't be arsed to carry back with us and get turned back at the campsite entrance being told there is a riot happening. For once we are greatful for being so away from the main area, but I'm worried for Vic who is camped where everything is kicking off.
Monday:
Everything seems much worse that it actually is, Mathew, who hasn't been to sleep yet comes back to the tent and says "They burnt the main stage down, you can still see it smouldering" I have a look outside, the smoke looks a lot closer than if it were the main stage. Then Vic turns up, unharmed and still free to walk around. One of my main fears was that he was going to get pissed up and get himself beaten and arrested by the riot police. But he is ok, he went back to his tent and hid, while people around him were saying things like "Lets throw stuff on the Emo's tent" and he spent the night awake incase anything did actually happen. But anyway, he needs help carrying John's stuff so I offer a hand and having a look around at the damage, there is certainly a downbeat atmosphere to the place and it isn't just the Monday morning return to reality blues, the increased Police presence adds to the shitty feeling. I take a look at the "burnt out" main stage and realise that its not been destroyed, it is simply being dismantled. So anyway we take the tent down and head back to the car along that fucking long walk. You remember that curse I mentioned, well it had one more sting in the tail. We got to be about 2 minutes away from the car and there was an flash of lightning, an apocalyptic crash of thunder and the heavens opened, soaking all of us. We chucked everything in the car and piled in on top it. Once the rain had stopped, we got on our way, Vic and Mat sleeping in the back and who could blame them. It was a great weekend, I will definately go next year and now I want to go to Reading damn it.