Home from home
It’s been a long year, but finally we’re back home. After last year’s four-day marathon, which saw record-breaking numbers and soaring temperatures, Download 2024 offers a little bit of a bump back to earth, with the festival restored to three days, and the crowd limited to 75,000. It’s also the first year, since 2019, where the sky has remained defiantly cloudy, with low temperatures and rain proving to be the order of the weekend.
You’ve probably read a lot about the weather already, and you’ll probably see a whole lot more over the coming days, mostly from people who weren’t within ten miles of the actual festival for, while the weather was undeniably awful, the atmosphere was amazing throughout.
First up, despite the issues that abound, the onsite team do a hell of a lot to keep things moving across the weekend. In 2016, when a freak storm blew in, whole areas of the arena were literally calf-deep in water (the second stage suffered in particular). This year, despite persistent and heavy rain on both Friday and Saturday night, the new drainage systems drew the water away meaning that, while it was surely as muddy as hell, the arena didn’t flood. Meanwhile, with more gravel areas providing paths, and with specialist accessibility ramps found across more of the site than ever before, the best was made of incredibly difficult circumstances. That’s not to say it wasn’t challenging. For those with mobility issues, the sea of mud was difficult to navigate in places, and impossible in others, but the team did as much as was possible, and it certainly didn’t stop people turning out in their droves across all three days.
The Village
This is the first time since the village moved to its new home on a hard surface that the weather has been so brutal, and it made all the difference. The village has always been a haven for campers, but the fact that it is now sat on concrete means that it is the ideal place to refresh after a busy day in the arena.
More stalls, live shows in The Den, classic tunes in the Happy Songs tent, a silent disco, and plenty of food options all serve to make it the place to be, and it’s also much more conveniently placed than formerly. With a lot more seating available, you can usually grab a space to eat, but it could still do with a quiet undercover spot for people needing a calm moment – the only places currently undercover continue the party, which is not always ideal when the elements are so inhospitable. There is a really cool Shisha bar, but a tea or coffee stall offering the same sort of chilled space would go down a storm for future editions. Equally, the Hammer Horror takeover was an awesome idea, but placing it next to the silent disco meant that Dracula was interspersed with snatches of people singing along to Happy Song – mind you, with the rain hammering down, it didn’t get quite the turnout it could have done anyway – but it’s a cool idea and hopefully it’ll be back next year.
All in all, The Village continues to get better, and with a few additional tweaks, it’ll hit its full potential.
The Arena
With most of the stalls now out in The Village (although some remain in the Avalanche field), the arena maintained the more open layout of last year. The accessibility platform has returned to its spot in the centre, and it appears to be larger than previously, although it’s hard to judge from the outside. There’s also more seating scattered about the place, with a pair of bars by the Avalanche stage, and the Welder’s Yard food court providing plenty of picnic benches. It’s much needed too, considering the conditions. That said, despite the muddy conditions, staff do their level best to keep paths clear, and matting down to support mobility across the site. It’s not ideal, and the further down the slope you get, the more impassable the mud becomes, but overall, accessibility appears much improved across the arena.
For everyone else, the churning mud hits peak viscosity around Sunday lunchtime, as the unexpected sun starts to dry things out, but most people simply laugh about it, and carry on having an awesome time. Elsewhere, bars are well managed, with fewer queues, there’s a good choice of food, and the toilets are… well, they’re as toilety as ever. It would still be better to have cubicles and urinals separated, as a bottleneck inevitably transpires as people try to avoid squelching through the worst of it, but otherwise, queues are fairly minimal, excepting the points when a major act has just finished.
As always, individuals will have their own experiences – for better or worse – but for us (and the various people we spoke to over the weekend), the generally terrible weather failed to dampen spirits and the staff deserve considerable praise for keeping things going.
Friday
As we arrive in the arena, US-progressive rockers Polyphia are on the main stage. Sounding somewhat like Gojira covering Joe Satriani, they offer up an instrumental djentish-jazz that is technically proficient, but an odd choice for the main stage. To be fair, the band draw a decent crowd, but it feels like music for a smaller stage and a closer atmosphere. For us, however, the introduction of vocals and an incongruous EDM vibe draws things too far in the wrong direction, and we head off in search of something harder and darker.
Happily, over at the Dogtooth stage, Urne are happy to oblige. Bringing their bruising death metal to Download, they have a great sound that really helps to make their dark groove surge, and it captures the attention of the steadily filling tent. With their obvious love of the festival’s history, the band channel their excitement into delivering a devastating performance, with tracks like The Burden proving to be a slow-burning juggernaut of grinding riffs and shattered screams.
A band with a substantial following, Soft Play draw a large crowd to the Opus Stage and keep them entertained throughout. Unfortunately, while the packed mosh pit dig it, the sound isn’t great, and the vocals are largely buried in the mix for the first few songs, meaning that the audience are rather more audible on songs like Punk’s Dead than Isaac is. Meanwhile, the absence of a bass – not a problem on record – is rather more noticeable live, with the waves of guitar distortion leading to an unbalanced sound that just doesn’t cut through like it should.
Nevertheless, there are great moments to be had, including Act Violently, and Girl Fight – the latter being five minutes of shaggy dog story and ten seconds of grinding hardcore. Meanwhile, recent single Mirror Muscles might just be the band’s heaviest song to date, and it goes down a storm. Overall, it’s an impressive show, but with the sound a tad [ahem] muddy, it’s the band’s natural humour and charisma that carries the day.
Over on the Apex Stage, Black Stone Cherry bring their smooth, southern grooves to a massive audience, and you can tell that these future headliners are having a blast. It’s hard to argue with the quality of tracks like Me And Mary Jane, an evergreen classic from their fourth album (Magic Mountain), and they turn up a number of such singalong moments across their set, including White Trash Millionaire and Blame It On The Boom Boom. The fact that they enjoy a rare moment of sun tells you everything you need to know about these good time rock ‘n’ rollers, and it’s great to see them back at Donnington.
Back over on the Opus stage, something weirdly wicked this way comes, in the form of Mr Bungle. With Scott Ian on guitar and Dave Lombardo behind the kit, the band positioned themselves well to pivot to thrash with The Raging Wrath Of The Easter Bunny Demo and, while there are those who would dearly love to see the band perform an art rock set, right now Mr Bungle are more interested in thrashing till death, something they do fantastically well with tracks such as Speak Spanish Or Die and Eracist.
“We are Mr Bungle and you are… muddy and smelly” announces Mike Patton, cheerfully sidestepping the usual cheer-for-the-festival-name shenanigans. At times fantastically silly (a toy hippo solo being a case in point), the foolishness never detracts from the fact that Mr bungle are a fantastically precise thrash band when the mood takes them, and they absolutely rock the pit for forty glorious minutes. It’s a memorable outing and, let’s face it, any band that Mike Patton chooses to bring to Download will always be welcome.
It’s back to the Apex stage for the hotly anticipated Royal Blood, who are currently riding high on the back of 2023’s Back To The Water Below. Opting for a festival pleasing set, the band air tracks from across their catalogue, with the highlights being those drawn from the excellent Typhoons, including the robo-funk of Trouble’s Coming and a raucous Boilermaker, both of which get the rapidly-filling arena ready for the headliners. With an increasingly strong following, it’s easy to believe that the headline slot is none too far from Royal Blood’s grasp, and there’s no doubting the rapturous response they receive.
And then, before we know it, the light is starting to dim, and it’s time for Queens Of The Stone Age to take their rightful place as festival headliners.
And they absolutely rule.
With a set list to die for, QOTSA tread the fine line between exceptionally tight musicianship and rock ‘n’ roll majesty. They have us right from an opening that juxtaposes the tightly wound Little Sister with the extended jam of Burn The Witch, before taking the audience on a breathless journey through a back catalogue so packed with riches, that it’s only sometime after they’ve finished that we realise just how many classics they didn’t play.
Highlights come thick and fast. There’s an extended Emotion Sickness that sees Josh leading the audience in a mass singalong, followed by an explosive Go With The Flow. There’s the hypnotic Better Living Through Chemistry, here turned into a psychedelic epic that gives Spiritualized a run for their money, set against a razor-sharp Sick, Sick, Sick. And then, just when you think it can’t get any better, there’s the four-way finale of Make It Wit Chu, You Think I Ain’t Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire, No One Knows and, just to ram the point home, an immense Song For The Dead.
Led by one of the most charismatic frontmen in rock, backed by the sharply dressed Troy Van Leeuwen (who doesn’t stop dancing throughout), QOTSA absolutely dominated the main stage, delivering an emotionally charged, perfectly paced set that seems to race past in the blink of an eye. As Josh reminds us, tonight is all we have, but if that’s true, I can’t think of better company in which to spend it.
Saturday
It’s an early start to the Saturday, but we’re more than willing to dash in, knowing that Asinhell are leading the charge for old school death metal. Led by Volbeat guitarist Michael Poulson, the band are here to share tracks from their excellent Impii Hora album, and they simply devastate the bleary-eyed, but eager crowd. With tracks like Wolfpack Laws and the album’s title track on display, Asinhell are an early highlight of the day, setting an incredibly high bar for what follows. Hell, they come damn close to owning the day.
In contrast, over on the mainstage The Hunna are airing their brand of indie rock which, while popular, is definitely not for us. Moving swiftly on…
Next up on the Opus stage, Scottish death metal bruisers Bleed From Within are in no mood to take prisoners. Arriving painfully late to the stage thanks to technical issues, they take out their frustration on the audience, setting off a wall of death during their very first song (Sovereign), and tearing through Stand Down with a sense of purpose that is undeniable. By the time they thrown themselves into a crushing Levitate, they’ve more than made up for the late start, and the mosh pit has been churned into a frenzy. With an impressive back catalogue to their name, Bleed For Within really deserved a better set, but with the audience going off throughout, it’s easy to imagine them returning (and higher up the bill), in years to come.
It’s back to the Apex stage for Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, who deliver a variable set. While tracks like Self Love don’t really connect, by the time the band flatten the audience with the aptly titled Juggernaut, the pit has come fully to life. Devil Inside Me is similarly engaging, although its central riff cleaves close to the Foo Fighters at their heaviest, yet there’s something impossibly cool about seeing Frank taking on a sea of muddy urchins in a fluorescent pink jacket as his band rages behind him.
Considering just how much fun they are, The Offspring are surprisingly infrequent guests at UK festivals, which is a shame, because they draw a huge crowd on the Saturday afternoon. With the sun breaking through the clouds (despite the promise of more rain looming), they bring good time vibes to a flagging field, and the energy levels suddenly shoot up several notches.
From the moment the band kick off with Come out And Play, we’re transported back to the mid 90s, and the band just tear through hit after hit, Noodles and Dexter keeping up endless banter in between tracks, playfully arguing over how many people are in attendance (millions, Noodles thinks), and which side of the massive crowd are loudest. Highlights include a rocked-up Hit That, the rather more straight-forward punk of Staring At the Sun and Can’t get My Head Around You, and the Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da aping Why Don’t You Get A Job (complete with on-stage gorilla and bouncy balls). Meanwhile, hearing an entire field singing along to Pretty Fly For A White Guy is something special, leaving the audience with massive smiles on their faces.
With an encore of You’re Going To Go Far Kid and Self Esteem sealing the deal, The Offspring were a festival highlight and, with a new album already in the offing, we have to hope they’ll return to these shores soon, because live is where they belong. As Noodles would say, FUCK YEAH!
Next up, it’s a race to the Opus stage for the monstrously oversubscribed Pantera. Despite a handful of net-based idiots mouthing off about how this isn’t Pantera, the band – comprising Phil Anselmo, Rex Brown, Anthrax’s Charlie Benante, and Zakk Wylde give zero fucks – they’re here to honour their legacy, and they do it with undisputed attitude. Phil Anselmo comes across as genuinely grateful to have the opportunity to sing the songs that he had such a strong hand in creating, and from front to back of the ludicrously packed field, grown men can be seen hugging, crying, throwing the horns, and banging their goddamned heads.
And it is emotional hearing these songs played live once again. Tracks like Becoming, I’m Broken, and Five Minutes Alone have become so much a part of metal’s DNA, that it’s hard to believe that we’re actually seeing them being delivered live. With Rex and Phil in their element, it’s Phil who shines – his vocals sound better than ever, and his presence and energy is such a huge part of the Pantera experience that you can close your eyes and it’s 1994 all over again.
With just over an hour on stage, the band stick to the hits, giving us an epic This Love and an emotional Floods (with video footage of the Darrell brothers in happier times), before decimating the field with Walk. As Phil says, you hear the riff and you’re mesmerised, losing control of yourself for six minutes of heavy metal perfection. It’s a powerful moment, and you have to pity the bands playing elsewhere, because the whole of Donnington rings with that simple imperative. It ends with the double header of Cowboys From Hell andFucking Hostile. And then, the band are gone, leaving behind a field of emotional and exhausted metal heads, with only the promise of their return in 2025 to console us.
Haters be damned, Pantera fucking owned Download on the Saturday.
Closing out our Saturday is another legendary band from the mid 90s in the form of Fear Factory. Playing to a rammed Dogtooth tent, the band (now fronted by Milo Silvestro) are out for blood, and they launch into the set as if their lives depend upon it. Opening with What Will Become and New Breed, they immediately set the pulse racing, but it’s the unholy pairing of shock and Edgecrusher (from the band’s remarkable Obsolete) that really set things off. It’s a too-short set from a newly re-energised band, but it provides a strong introduction to Milo for those who missed the band on their last tour, and he proves to be a remarkable find. Inevitably, Fear Factory come with a lot of baggage, but if the band can carry this form over into a new album (and the news today suggests that’s just what they’re doing), it’s clear that this gleaming death machine has plenty of life left in it.
Sunday
With heavy rain throughout Saturday night, Sunday morning sees Download wake up to intensely muddy conditions. The new drainage systems seem to be handling things well, and there are few puddles to navigate, but the arena is nonetheless transformed into a giant, quivering pit of oozing mud. It serves to slow things down, with the majority of stages having to move sets back and, in some cases shorten them, but the crew do the best job they can in difficult circumstances to bring off an immensely successful final day.
Taking to the Opus stage, Swedish loons Royal Republic are out to give the festival a good time, and that’s precisely what they do. Kicking off with My House, which sounds like a 21st century take on Kiss’ I Was Made For Loving You, they promptly change tack to incorporate Dire Straits on Love Cop, and the whole field is implicated in their disco-rock shenanigans. A great festival band. Royal Republic get the party started, and as Getting Along rings out across the field, few people are left without smiles on their faces.
Over on the Apex stage, the mighty Kerry King is set to unleash hell with his new band. Joined by Mark Osegueda (Death Angel), Phil Demmel (ex-Machine Head), Kyle Sanders (hellyeah), and Paul Bostaph (ex-Slayer), Kerry may have dropped down the bill compared to Slayer’s lofty placements, but that only adds to the intensity he brings, and the band unleash a short, awesome display of old school thrash. Predominantly airing tracks from the excellent From Hell I Rise album, Kerry sets the stage alight with killer cuts including Where I Reign, Toxic, Residue and Shrapnel. While Raining Blood and an unexpected Black Magic may get the biggest cheers, it’s notable that the new cuts do not sound out of place in their august company, and the band make a firm mark on the festival. Next time, expect to see them far higher up the bill, but for today, Kerry King demonstrated just what a potent force he remains.
It’s something of a change of pace for the Apex stage, as Bowling For Soup are up next. Celebrating 30 years of delivering fun-loving pop punk, the band look like they’re having a blast on stage and the audience cheerfully reciprocate. Hell, Bowling For Soup even bring out Brendan Brown to jam on Teenage Dirtbag in the midst of Ohio (Come Back To Texas), while tracks like High School Never Ends, Out The Window, and 1985prove to be evergreen blasts that perfectly suit the sunshine that has appeared, almost miraculously, to dry out the soggy audience.
Unfortunately, an urgent need for cocktails brings us within earshot of the ghastly Elvana. An unfunny joke that has somehow gained stature by dint of novelty, Elvana are a waste of the oxygen necessary for survival and the electricity needed to amplify them across the field. We scurry away as quickly as possible, but not quickly enough to avoid hearing them massacring Rape Me. If their levels of suckage had literal force, the entire field would have been transported and spat out somewhere past Uranus.
Speaking of Uranus… Sum 41 bring the sunshine as they launch themselves at the stage for their final UK festival set. From the moment they detonate Motivation, the crowd are going nuts, and you just know that the band will leave no stone unturned to ensure their legacy is left intact. As such, whether they’re belting out Landmines, In Too Deep, or Fat Lip, the audience is transported into a living, heaving, Tony Hawk soundtrack – the band waving goodbye with typical punk rock attitude. For many, Sum 41 are the sound of their teenage years, and it’s with no small amount of emotion that the band take their leave. They go out on a high, however, with an epic set that hits all the right notes. Thanks for the good times, guys!
Perennial festival favourites, it’s long gone past the point where it’s cool to hate Limp Bizkit, largely because the band are so much damn fun. Taking the stage with an easy attitude, the simmering tensions that once lurked beneath the surface seem to have been replaced by a genuine love of seeing the pit explode. Led by the irrepressible Fred Durst, the band deal out a mix of old favourites, covers, and random, between-song interludes that seem to be born out of a desire to ensure that things don’t get too out of hand.
The band kick things into gear with Break Stuff, a track so popular the band play it twice. They follow it up with Chocolate Starfish opener Hot Dog, which has the entire field singing along. A cheeky nod to Wonderwall (courtesy of DJ Lethal) also has the field singing along, and then (as predicted), we get to see the entire arena miming along to Rollin’. Elsewhere, we find My Generation, My Way and, surprisingly, Behind Blue Eyes all gracing the stage, and the crowd just don’t want to let it go. Fred Durst comes across as genuinely humble, even stopping the set while security sort out a minor fracas in the crowd, but that doesn’t stop exhorting the massive pit to jump like its 99 whenever the band set off another hit. Via a weird interlude with covers (both Come As you Are and Master Of Puppets are riffed on), we get Mission Impossible monster hit Take A Look Around, before the band kick out Break Stuff one final time.
While Fred may joke about the band not having any songs left, the sheer size of the crowd, along with the number of red hats in the audience, suggest that Limp Bizkit could easily have headlined the stage and had the heaving pit registering on a seismometer. As it is, Limp Bizkit delivered a fun set that kept security busy for the full hour, although it would be good to see them dial back the cheeky interludes and covers when you consider just how much of their catalogue was left untouched. Here’s hoping for headliner status next time around.
No such breathing room was found over at Machine Head, who delivered a performance by which all others should be judged. Led by the redoubtable Robb Flynn, who remains one of the most genuine, heart-on-their-sleeve metallers out there, Machine Head simply decimate Download, tearing through a mix of classic cuts and current anthems, with a passion and precision that is breathtaking.
The band open with Imperium, a dynamic masterclass that most other bands would save for an encore. Not Machine Head, they have an arsenal of riffs, and they’re out to stun the audience into submission. They race back to The More Things Change for a monstrous Ten Ton Hammer (complete with inflatable hammers in the moshpit), and then switch things up with the epic Choke On The Ashes Of Your Hate, from their stunning new album Of Kingdom And Crown. With bassist Jared MacEachern adding death growls to the mix, it’s a sign that this line up of Machine Head is shockingly potent in their ability to blitzkrieg the audience. The Blood, The Sweat, the Tears (or is it beers?) tears through the field like an old friend, and then No Gods, No Masters Is followed by an emotionally charged Is There Anybody Out There, which serves to remind us that Robb has one of the best clean vocals in this field, when he chooses to deploy it.
With the crowd sweltering and steam pouring form the pit, Robb shows no mercy, and unleashes a blistering Locust, only to immediately eclipse it with Burning Red highlight From This Day, which sees an astonishing proportion of the crowd bellowing the lyrics at the tops of their voices. It’s a powerful moment, and we’re still not quite done because, in a veritable firestorm, Machine Head unleash Davidian – one of the best metal songs written and still an absolute monster live.
As the applause mounts, the band come back out for one last singalong in the form of Halo. With fists aloft, the audience match Machine Head every step of the way, and across the field you can see people moshing, headbanging, and hugging in sheer joy at the strength of the band’s set. It’s a breathless finale to a set delivered at breakneck pace, and you can only marvel at how much sheer emotion Machine Head packed into so adrenaline-charged a set. For many, it provided the weekend with a flawless conclusion, leaving fans to wander in the direction of their tents somewhat dazed at what they’d just witnessed.
Home again
Download remains one of the UK’s largest and most-respected rock festivals. Over the years, we’ve seen a range of changes, and its recent pivot to incorporate a wider range of bands, while infuriating for some, has lent it the potential for growth that a misty-eyed focus on the past would ignore.
And that’s really the joy of Download. With four stages, and a range of tastes catered to, were you to come solely for the heaviest of metal, you’d still have enjoyed a festival boasting Biohazard (sadly for us clashing with QOTSA), Fear Factory, Machine Head, Pantera, Bleed From Within, Urne, Dying Fetus, Kerry King, Mr Bungle, and Asinhell, even if you were to ignore everything else.
As for conditions, the weather is a factor that no festival can fully insure against. Having stood knee-deep in mud at Glastonbury, waded through puddles at Reading, and trudged my way around Catton Hall for both Bearded Theory and Bloodstock, it’s fair to say that heavy rain makes the huge crew of security, site staff, technicians, and stagehands work overtime to keep things going. For sure, there were issues, but we had a blast, as did everyone we hung out with between sets, and on the whole, the Download crew came through an immensely difficult weekend with flying colours. Roll on 2025!!!
