Download Festival 2022
Donington Park, Castle Donington
Legends return, legends say goodbye and legends are made when the UK’s loudest major festival returns. FRIDAY
Three years since Download Festival last hosted its (usually) annual full-scale rock’n’roll blow-out and there’s no small sense of triumph seeing 80,000-plus fans return to Donington Park. The sun is shining, and riffs blow on the wind as bodies press through the gates, adding an extra strut to the step that will surely be reduced to a hobble by the end of three days’ celebration.
Under baking sun, the
– frontman Barras must be at least 85 per cent tattoo – secure a raft of new fans, with the likes of blues-rock stomper Hail Mary
hitting with conviction.
might have one of rock’s finest voices, but it means little if his backing band are reduced to a tinny, indistinguishable garble by poor sound on the Opus Stage. Brief flickers of southern-inflected guitar twangs can be detected that suggest the promise of a good time, albeit in another time and another place.
A remixed Imperial March can mean only one thing. No one owns the sun-soaked mid-evening slot like Welsh ragga-rockers
There’s a superbly daft energy about Pressure and That’s My Jam, with their bouncy, jagged riffs, and frontman Benji Webbe conducts with his usual zeal. Are they a novelty band? To an extent. But they always top the fun stakes.
Whether going hell for leather on Ready To Rock and Breakin’ Outta Hell or the leviathan stomp of Back In The Game and Boneshaker, are just what the doctor ordered to get the blood pumping in the Opus Stage audience. “You’re worth waiting two years for – you’d be worth waiting two million,” vocalist Joel O’Keeffe says breathlessly, the huge grin on his face reflecting the sentiment.
“Let’s have a moment of silence for all the other bands… who we just murdered.”
might be cocksure, but that swagger is exactly why they headlined last year’s Pilot. Juggernaut, Devil Inside Me and Crowbar are exhilarating, delivered with all the piss and vinegar a growing punk phenom needs, while the cover Drain The Blood pays respectful tribute to planned Opus headliners The Distillers.
Despite certain face-painted men taking over the Apex Stage, Swedish band
pull an admirably large audience in the Dogtooth tent. Singer Elin Larsson is a real live wire, crowd surfing and pogoing around in equal measure. Her huge vocal range is well complemented with bluesy stabs and rollicking riffs. A particularly manic Low Road
earns the loudest cheers.
headline set kicks off with a squall of abyssal noise, the perfect antidote to the painted-up glitz of Kiss. This is ugly music with uglier lyrics, Return Trip and Satanic Rites Of Dragula so punishing it feels like we’ll witness the heat-death of the universe before the end of a song, while psychedelic imagery flashing on screens behind the band enhances the overall apocalyptic effect. By the time the band get to closer Funeralopolis, the audience has descended into a bacchanal frenzy of colliding bodies and writhing flesh.
Meanwhile, there’s all manner of explosions at the other end of the field.
Main Stage headliners kick off their swansong UK performance with a pyrocharged Detroit Rock City. Presumably, the End Of The Road moniker was a reference to the band’s impending retirement, and not fair warning that their gratuitous use of fire and flame is going to consume everyone present. Lick It Up gets a zesty airing before Gene Simmons shoves that tongue in poor Tommy Thayer’s unsuspecting face. After all these years, Simmons’s blood-soaked bass solo is still terrifying, while an awesome, swaggering God Of Thunder more than lives up to its hyperbolic title. Paul Stanley’s squawks of “Hey, Download!” are somehow increasingly endearing. He flies across the field during a triumphant Love Gun – more a victory zip-wire than a victory lap. They will be missed, but the hottest band in the world are going out with a hell of a bang.
SATURDAY
The spooky crow caws and tolling bells don’t quite have the intended effect on a glorious afternoon, but Welsh quintet
impress with their muscular hardrock hooks. Who Did It is a potent rocker, while Send The Reaper gets sore heads banging. Although likeable, singer Shane Greenhall sounds oddly American for a bloke from Bridgend.
During set, rain falls for the first time all weekend, but it doesn’t matter. Opening with Don’t Tell Me How To Live, the Canadian band go down a storm with their bluesy, feelgood bluster. Live Free also chugs along nicely. The Truck have a mighty sound for a one-guitar band, and they’re outrageously tight.
Everything seems to get a lot louder for
Zakk Wylde keeps audience interaction to a minimum, and earth-shaking metal at a maximum. A Love Unreal drenches the field with hulking riffs and blazing guitar solos, Fire It Up’s main-riff crunch gets thousands of faces gurning.
It’s testament to 2020’s The Kingdom that
new material feels vibrant and vital, but it’s their older songs Machinehead,
Everything Zen and closer Comedown that generate the biggest buzz (a snippet of Children Of The Grave notwithstanding), rolling the clocks back to the glory days of plaid-clad rockers.
struggle to follow, with their earnest, radio-ready hard rock. When they release the shackles, such as with Devil and Enemies, they can bang like the best of them, but today the set-list is all wrong. Schlocky ballads Unity and Second Chance soon disrupt any momentum the band had built up.
have never really ‘got’ festivals, often sidestepping all discernible hits in favour of deep cuts and intricate instrumentals. Thankfully it works today, with Pain With An Anchor, Megaladon and The Crux all showing just why the band are so revered. There are even a couple of discernible singalongs, Teardrinker, Black
Tongue and Blood And Thunder showing just how easily they can conjure massive festival anthems. Still no Show
Yourself or Curl Of The Burl though, lads?
With recent events – a split with long-time bassist Sergio Vega, and founding guitarist Stephen Carpenter’s decision not to tour – first UK show in four years could have been a damp squib. But it’s not. There’s no lack of the Californians’ spectacular, doomy gloss, and they deliver genredefining bangers Be Quiet And Drive and My Own Summer with jaw-dropping nonchalance. When Chino Moreno isn’t wrestling with his unnecessarily long microphone lead, he hurls himself around the stage, screaming almost to the point of combustion.
Short, if not necessarily sweet, suits just fine, and the West Midlanders scorch their way through a 35-minute set in the Dogtooth tent. Thirtyfive years after their debut album, the band’s sound and message remains as potent as ever, and is summarised perfectly by closer Nazi Punks Fuck Off.
On the Opus Stage, are a less chaotic affair, their pinpoint, neck-breaking thrash honed over several decades. Dave Mustaine and co. delve deep for a boisterous Dread And The Fugitive Mind, deeper still for black-magic-themed The Conjuring; Mustaine
SUNDAY
From singing about curries to covering snippets of Peter Andre and Bob Marley,
elicit broad smiles from start to finish. It doesn’t hurt that the songs are so infectious; Bangin’ In Your Stereo, In It
Together and new song Fuck The Haters are all perfect party starters.
There have been loads of Alter Bridge
T-shirts on display all weekend, and plenty of wearers congregate at the Opus Stage for
If Not For You sounds enormous with its cinematic samples, as do A Dying
Machine’s beefy riffs. Mark Tremonti’s guitar-god status is common knowledge, but these days he’s an accomplished singer as well.
Almost like a house band, there are no surprises from Danish rockabilly metallers Still, they’re hugely enjoyable. “You look happy!” remarks frontman Michael Poulsen. The heavy Shotgun Blues
is exactly what it says on the tin, while Rob Caggiano’s electrifying, immaculately performed guitar solos light up Seal The Deal.
Jonathan Davis is clearly in high spirits, and that reflects well on the band’s set. They entertain a packed audience that could make some headliners jealous, treating them to just about every hit a Korn fan could want, including a bagpipe-enhanced Shoots And Ladders, profanity-laden Y’all Want A Single, and a colossal Coming Undone complete with a We Will Rock You snippet. Korn remind everyone how they became nu-metal superstars in the first place.
“Regard!” Justin Hawkins shouts. He introduces Stuck In A Rut as “the greatest riff in the band’s history”. It’s up there. Now into their third decade, the Lowestoft legends are creeping towards ‘classic band’ territory. Whether it’s the way deadpan bassist Frankie Poullain plays the cowbell on One Way Ticket like his life depends on it, or Hawkins’s ankleclapping headstand on Get Your Hands Off My Woman, their live-show quirks are becoming the stuff of legend. They close with Christmas Time (really), and the buggers only go and pull it off.
The Avalanche tent is woefully empty for punk legends Not that the band care. Their lightning brand of hardcore punk shaped everyone from The Offspring to Green Day and is still as potent now. Everything Sux gets things off to a blistering start, and the band give Napalm Death a run for hyperactive sub-minute blasts of noise. Anthems Hope, I’m The One and Suburban Home assert their status.
Following them, are an entirely different proposition in 2022. Their X-rated, glam-metal-spoof shtick isn’t aging well, but the self-deprecating exchanges between singer Michael Starr and guitarist Satchel are genuinely funny, and the latter is undeniably a blinding player. Tens of thousands still remember every word to 2009’s Community Property
– the band’s ode to infidelity – and a fieldwide singalong to Weenie Ride (with at least two blow-up dolls floating around) is certainly a sight, but the standout performer is the British Sign Language interpreter. It’s either the best or worst night of their career. What’s the sign for ‘gloryhole’ again?
“Scream for us, Donington!” No, Iron Maiden aren’t on again, frontman Simon Neil is drawling the line before admitting he’s “always wanted to ask that”. Biffy’s audience don’t need much encouragement when the band are on such phenomenal form. Pyro, kaleidoscopic visuals, acoustic numbers with violins… Biffy have it all, delivering a master class in what it takes to become a Download headliner. Mountains, Bubbles and Cop Syrup are as huge as anything from Maiden or Kiss. Biffy’s set is a reminder that Donington’s capability for crowning new legends remains its most magical element: a once-in-a-lifetime invitation to watch history made in the flesh.
Words: Photos: