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YOUTUBE LIVE Britain’s flagship metal festival hosts a three-day, mud-free memory feast
FRIDAY
2020 is the first year since 2003 without the annual trip to stand in the rain and watch our your favourite metal bands. To compensate, the good folk who run Download Festival have gone to the effort to make sure we don’t have to go completely cold turkey, setting up a weekend of exclusive goodies spread across their various social media platforms. It’s a lovely gesture, but the first day struggles to find its groove. It begins with an hour of yoga, which is nice enough, but it’s hardly the massive statement of intent that you’d expect from a festival of this size. We’re then ‘treated’ to some banal interviews with the likes of Arejay from HALESTORM and former BFMV drummer Moose that wouldn’t seem out of place on a pre-school Cbeebies broadcast.
Things reach a nadir when we’re forced to sit through an excruciating Zoom call from Dinosaur Pile Up talking about their Download memories (one of them ran out of battery on his phone one year and didn’t get the text telling him where to meet the others! Classic!) Mercifully it takes an upward turn when BLACK FUTURES perform a stunning live stream, 20-minute set that reminds you why you tuned in. The evening broadcast still suffers from more of the same awkward interviews, but at least we get some footage from KISS’S 2015 headlining slot, a look at FRANK CARTER AND THE RATTLESNAKES
tearing up Download Paris last year, complete with huge circlepit, a bizarre amount of coverage of BIFFY CLYRO
(considering they weren’t playing this year) and, best of all, an awe-inspiring look at GOJIRA’S recent Red Rocks set, which, even if you’re watching on a phone, is so powerful it could singe your eyebrows. It took a while to get going, but hopefully the kinks will be ironed out for the rest of the weekend.
SATURDAY
After a daytime schedule that sees metallic hardcore mob EMPLOYED TO SERVE cover Lamb Of God’s Laid To Rest, and SKINDRED’S Benji Webbe lead the Newport Helicopter with a tea towel in his kitchen, Saturday evening kicks off with LOATHE showcasing their ability to switch unnervingly between twisted aggression and Deftones-ian shimmer.
HOLDING ABSENCE’S Lucas Woodland has one of those elastic band-type voices that induces euphoric catharsis on emotive post-hardcore anthems You Are Everything and Like A Shadow. One of the best things about virtual Download has been trawling through the archives to see bands climb up through the stages. Over the years, MASTODON have honed their mighty ruckus, and during performances in 2007, 2013 and 2017, we see the barbarians flourish into one of metal’s hardest hitters.
Metalcore vets KILLSWITCH ENGAGE have a never-ending supply of juice in the tank and an arsenal of anthems that seem impervious to time and age. No matter how many times you hear Jesse Leach power through them, songs like My Last Serenade and Always rouse even the weariest of crowds. They’ll never be the most electric band on a bill, but
ALTER BRIDGE have got proficiency and buckets of melodic charm, and it’s propelled them to the penultimate rung of the Download ladder. With fan faves Blackbird and Metalingus, they’ve made their case for a headline slot.
“It’s home. It’s always going to be special,” says IRON MAIDEN manager Rod Smallwood of their many times at Donington. Over the years, Maiden have created epic memories on the hallowed turf: their 1988 Monsters Of Rock set that included some of the best songs in our genre; bringing a huge tank onstage in 2007; flying a Spitfire over our heads before launching into Moonchild in 2013. Those memories are all here in a trip down memory lane with one of the best bands to ever bestride the planet.
SUNDAY
Sunday’s daytime highlight is TWIN TEMPLE’S Satanic doo-wop weaving a diabolical blood spell over a bewitched Paris congregation, but the coverage begins in earnest with BABYMETAL. If there’s anyone out there still doubting their power, they need only watch the Kawaii metallers win over Kaiju-sized Download crowds with their bonkers pop-metal and Duracell bunny energy. Tech metal is a rare bird in these parts and PERIPHERY captivate the nerds with their euphoric, progressive djentblend on Make Total Destroy and The Scourge. KORN are greeted by a soggy crowd for their 2017 set, but there’s nothing like a Shoots And Ladders and an indestructible Freak On A Leash to make you pine for a muddy welly in the face.
POWERWOLF play to Download-sized crowds regularly in Europe and it’s time the UK woke up to their bloodstained romp. Footage of their flamboyant, moonlit metal mass shows that when they inevitably return, they’re not to be missed. ALESTORM are the perfect festival band. The pirate metallers have come armed with a Fray Bentos pie-emblazoned drumkit, inspiring the crowd into a jolly row-along to Brexit anthem-in-waiting, Fucked With An Anchor. “We have the music. We just can’t get out of our own way,” says
SYSTEM OF A DOWN drummer John Dolmayan, confirming we won’t be seeing a new album anytime soon. There’s plenty of fire on show during their first Download performance in 2005, but that inter-band impasse is plastered all over the footage of their 2017 headline slot – the pogoing crowd are going batty but the band look bored to fuck, bringing the weekend’s virtual shenanigans to a strangely flat end.
Roll on the real Download deal in 2021. STEPHEN HILL/DANNII LEIVERS