Download Festival 2008, the premier rock and heavy metal festival

June 30, 2008

Download Festival is well known as the premier rock and heavy metal festival of the UK and subsequently, on Friday 13th June, hard rock fans from all over the country and further afield were gathered in the sacred grounds of Donington Park, ready to rock n roll. There had been much hype about Kiss headlining the main stage on Friday night including face painting en masse which led to the breaking of the world record for the most people with Kiss stage make up on in one photograph. The Kiss reputation has been so substantially built up over the years that there was great interest as to whether, on their 35th anniversary, they would still be able to live up to their legend. However, there was no need to doubt. From the moment the fully costumed and made up Kiss exploded onto the stage, the entire audience was captivated as they were transported back to the seventies. The extravagant performance encompassed everything you would expect from a Kiss gig: from excessive sightings of Gene Simmons’ tongue to fireworks, confetti and fake blood: the show eventually culminated in Paul Stanley (the ‘Starchild’) gliding over the heads of the audience on a zip wire to land on a platform and perform a fantastic guitar solo. The four piece, now consisting of two original members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley along with relatively new additions Singer and Thayer; completely filled up the massive main stage and expertly entertained for 105 minutes, leaving the audience in no doubt that 35 years on, they are still well able to ‘Rock n Roll all night’.

Punk godfathers The Offspring played to a very different audience as they headlined the Saturday night of Download. Gone were the nostalgic forty- somethings in their face paint and Kiss band tees, and in came the nineties kids with baggy jeans and spiky hair. In complete contrast to Kiss, The Offspring had no flamboyant costumes or showy pyrotechnics; they just came and did what they do best. As they struck their first note, the crowd surged forward crushing the people at the front, and from then on there was none stop dancing as The Offspring churned out hit after hit. Particular crowd pleasers included chart topper ‘Pretty Fly for a white guy’, ‘The Kids aren’t Alright’ and the last song ‘Self Esteem’ which left the audience chanting for more.

There was a serious divide in opinion about whether nu-metal turned emo heroes, Lostprophets, were a band worthy of closing the traditionally heavy metal festival: a divide the band were obviously well aware of. They opened their set with a particularly heavy riff, concentrating on older and heavier songs and making an effort to transform tracks from their most pop album ‘Liberation Transmission’ into much more ‘rock’ numbers, reminding the audience of the band they were in the past. This, along with Watkins’ warmth and sense of humour inevitably won the crowd over. ‘Shinobi vs. dragon ninja’ opened up a number of brutal mosh pits, and by the end of the set the whole field was jumping up and down to Lostprophets classic ‘Burn Burn’. The electric atmosphere, along with fireworks and lasers, promoted this gig into a headlining performance and the feeling in the crowd afterwards was that not only did the band greatly satisfy their diehard fans; they also gained some new ones.

Other bands on the bill which deserve a mention are Disturbed, Bullet for my Valentine and Black Stone Cherry all of whom had an amazing response from the audience. Unfortunately the lighter stylings of Kids in Glass Houses and Elliot Minor did not gage the same reaction from a crowd far more used to hard rock, but kudos must be given to them for managing to dodge so many bottles whilst still putting on fairly good shows for the few true fans that were actually there to see them.

With headliners as legendary and diverse as Kiss, The Offspring and Lostprophets; the chilly weather courtesy of the Great British Summer, and the usual overpriced beverages were not to dampen spirits, and as fifty thousand weary rockers trudged home on Monday morning, the feeling was that overall the festival was a great success.