Download Festival Report - Friday
12 June 2009
Donington Park, England

Just to be clear this should be consider more of a report of my weekend at Download rather than a review as I wasn’t there in a press capacity. Some of the photos I took with my compact camera came out OK so I decided to write up a little piece on what I saw. I wasn’t taking notes and all setlists are sourced from the net. We’re hoping to cover Download officially next year.

Arriving at the campsite very early on Friday, we sailed through the wristband collection and, although we had quite a walk, managed to find a surprisingly spacious spot. The nearest campsites were packed with hardly a blade of grass between tents and it was immediately obvious that Download was going to be very well attended. One point of interest whilst enjoying a few breakfast beers was witnessing a dust devil (like a mini tornado). We’d spotted a load of rubbish suddenly drifting high into the air in another section of the campsite, shortly followed by an entire gazebo - very weird!

With some of the campers being here since Wednesday it was no surprise to see Hollywood Undead had gathered a large crowd for an opening act. Decked out in masks, to my ears they sound like an unholy clash of Eminem and Linkin Park and I didn’t stop on my way past. In fact the early part of Friday had little scheduled of interest to me.

Staind came on and were far more rocking than I expected, though I didn’t find them particularly engaging and having just managed to acquire a wrist band for the Jaegermeister viewing deck, had decided to venture there.

Staind set list:
Raw / Falling / Paper Jesus / For You / Spleen / Outside / Mudshovel

The first band circled on my schedule was Middle Class Rut in the tent on the third stage and they did not disappoint. With a line-up consisting of just a drummer and a singer/guitarist the sound Middle Class Rut generate is quite startling, with a hint of Jane’s Addiction at their melodic wall of noise building best. Busy Being’ Born was immense and the only let down was that the band departed short of their full allotted 30 minutes.

Back at the mainstage I caught a couple of songs by Limp Bizkit who had gathered a sizeable crowd. Having been through a period of “We all hate Limp Bizkit”, with Wes Borland back in the band, whilst not turning everyone’s opinion, the interest and even nostalgia to see them seemed high. To be fair they didn’t sound bad at all but I had a very important engagement back at the third stage.

Limp Bizkit set list:
Space Odyssey (intro) / Break Stuff / My Generation / Livin’ It Up / Show Me What You Got / Nookie / Hot Dog / Eat You Alive / Rollin’ / Full Nelson / My Way / Faith / Take A Look Around

I’d seen Voivod only once before during the Eric Forrest era, so this was my first chance to see Snake and Blacky with the band. Of course the key original member missing was Piggy but guitarist Dan Mongrain honoured his legacy with an excellent performance. With the exception of Global Warning from the forthcoming Infi album, the whole set was lifted from the band’s “classic” line-up days. Snake seemed to be enjoying himself and Blacky’s bass rumbled in trademark fashion. Basically I was grinning throughout the set and surely this was to be my high point of the day.

Voivod set list included:
Voivod / The Unknown Knows / Tornado / Global Warning / Tribal Convictions / Astronomy Domine

Wrong! Somehow Opeth managed to top my Voivod experience. On occasion the stars seem to align and certain Opeth performances can be just jaw dropping and today’s was one of those. Mikael Åkerfeldt was on top comedy form between songs with Whitesnake on his mind. “For those that don’t know we’re Motley Crue. Seriously we’re the shit band that plays before Crue. We are called Whitesnake.” “This song we wrote for all the beautiful women here. This song is called Whitesnake” and before closer Demon Of The Fall he noted that for Motley Crue fans “This is a very obscure song as it’s by us. We are Whitesnake.”

Opeth set list:
Heir Apparent / Ghost Of Perdition / The Lotus Eater / Deliverance / Demon Of The Fall

Wandering back towards the main stage, Korn had drawn a massive crowd and I caught the last 20 minutes. That was probably about enough for me and the lasting memory is of the sun low in the sky with a cloud of dust hovering over the crowd from stomping feet.

Korn set list:
Right Now / Chi / Did My Time / Thoughtless / Falling Away From Me / Coming Undone / We Will Rock You / Shoots & Ladders / Helmet In The Bush / Here To Stay / Freak On A Leash / Y’All Want A Single / Divine / Somebody Someone / Blind / Got The Life / Another Brick In The Wall

I was a bit of a Faith No More addict when The Real Thing came out and caught them six times on that tour alone. My liking of their later stuff waned but I had been very much looking forward to this reunion show. With the simplest stage set up of the headliners of the weekend, which consisted of red curtains, Faith No More took to the stage wearing suits. Mike Patton was last to appear, hobbling on to the stage with a cane wearing a red suit. It’s not my intention to go in to depth here but the first half of the set was awesome. The setlist then turned to latter day Faith No More and on a quick trip to the loo it was apparent the crowd had thinned quite a lot since the start of the set. Be Aggressive followed by Epic picked things up and We Care A Lot was a great finish to the day.

Faith No More set list:
Reunited / The Real Thing / From Out Of Nowhere / Land Of Sunshine / Caffeine / Evidence / Chinese Arithmetic / Surprise! You’re Dead! / Easy / Last Cup Of Sorrow / Midlife Crisis / Introduce Yourself / The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies / Take This Bottle / Ashes To Ashes / Malpractice / Cuckoo For Caca / Be Aggressive / Epic / Mark Bowen / Chariots Of Fire / Stripsearch / We Care A Lot

LINKS:
Download Festival