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"Welcome to the Field of Dreams" read
a scrawled message on the main gate of Donington - an analogy to
Hollywood blockbuster about baseball. Donington Park had become
just that for the weekend - Britain's biggest rock festival. "Download".
One colour I'd advise against wearing in the sun
is black... the evidence was clear with plenty of perspiring, smelly
people with sun burn. But that's all part of the fun at a weekend
open air festival.
The event brought in the most diverse age range of fans too.
The reason for this, I expect, was because the young ones were there
for the new up and coming rockers on the scene like Inme, Raging
Speedhorn, and Marilyn Manson; with the older spandex clad, big
buckle wearing 40 plus's waiting to see the grandfathers of rock
- Iron Maiden.
The bands were spread across three stages: which included, on Saturday:
Deftones, A, Sikth, Stampin' Ground, Funeral For A Friend, From
Autumn To Ashes, Shadows Fall, Arch Enemy and Murder One, Reef,
Murder Dolls and Inme.
Sunday's bill had more of an American slant with Spineshank, Evanescence,
Chevelle and Brand New joining One Minute Silence, Raging Speedhorn,
The Blood Brothers, Instruction, Pacifier and headliners - four
scary blokes with Medusa type alien face paint Mudvayne. See Gav's
Download Festival Gallery
From 9.30am, when the first bands arrived on stage,
it was clear Messers Mansun and Maiden would have to be on good
form. The three young lads from Inme paid homage to the Maiden,
with drummer Dave sporting a Bruce Dickinson t-shirt, before the
band launched into a superb, heavy set - wowing fans young and old.
As the sun slowly set, and bands came and went, the excitement and
anticipation grew for the androgynous Mansun... Drunken chants of
"Marilyn", "Marilyn", steadily built around
6.00pm, which left me feeling a tad sorry for the old dogs of rock
- the Deftones - who indeed produced a fine set themselves.
Then he came, 50,000 fans were quiet waiting to hear his greeting.
He duly obliged and breezed through what are now almost classics
"Disposable Teens" and "The Dope Show" before
teasing the audience with snippets of his cover of Soft Cell's "Tainted
Love" and ended with "Mobscene", his new single.
Onto Iron Maiden, and as you'd expect, Bruce Dickinson and his men
took to the stage looking a tad more mature than they did when they
last played (almost 11 years ago) and without the spandex pants
and big belt buckles. At the opening notes of their first song of
the set (666, The Number of the Beast), they received the biggest
cheer of the weekend. Quite right too. As expected they "Rocked".
Aside from the headliners - for me the five extremely ugly, and
slightly scary blokes with black and red hair, white make up and
eye shadow were the band that shone. The new band the Murder Dolls
are a group with my backing. Heavy, yet more melodic than perhaps
a band of a similar vein Slipknot (drummer Joey Jordison - now being
in the aforementioned band). Thoroughly entertaining.
As I passed those main gates on the way out I looked back at the
so called "field of dreams" and felt content that in Iron
Maiden I had experienced the rock equivalent of Babe Ruth.
Have a look at our Download Festival Gallery
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