Download

It's the 20th Anniversary of Download Festival this year, so they've got to book Metallica right? Nope, they've got to book them twice! That's right, they extended the usual 3-dayer to 4 days, and the monsters of rock (excuse the pun) play twice, headlining on Thursday and Saturday nights.

Ever so slightly gutted we couldn't make the first day, we arrived on Friday in the blazing heat to witness a sea of people wearing black, soaking up the Sun, some remembered sun cream, some evidently didn't and I imagine will be languishing in intensive care by now. We're not complaining, it was fantastic festival weather to stroll around, nurse a £7 beer (it seems to be the going rate now!) and chill on the grass in front of whichever stage took our fancy.

Slipknot were a deserved headliner here with the super charismatic Corey Taylor leading a memorable and impressive performance filled with massive riffs, attitude, and of course the scariest masks outside of any horror film you ever did see. Friday night, some may say a brave, some may say an inspired choice of Bring Me The Horizon. Whatever your taste, Bring Me commanded an enormous crowd with a superb stage show and enough pyrotechnics to burn down a rainforest.

Our choices of acts that we caught our eye over the weekend included the electro-metal of Carpenter Brut. How many other keyboard-fronted bands can command a mosh pit to a cover of Michael Sembello's Maniac? Fantastic atmosphere in the Doghouse Stage tent.

Clutch brought their blues-tinged heavy rock to a huge crowd on the Apex Stage on Saturday afternoon. Neil Fallon's gravelly bass voice instantly recognisable on classics like the awesome Electric Worry, and most definitely the best ever song written containing a full recipe for crab cakes (listen to it, it really does), Hot Bottom Feeder.

A bit of Carcass? yes, please. The Liverpool lads pulled one of the biggest afternoon crowds we saw on the Opus stage. With about 35 years of Death Metal rage and experience behind them, these guys were like a breath a fresh (or perhaps rotting) air, kicking out tunes like Buried Dreams and probably, no, definitely, the best-titled song of the weekend, Exhume to Consume... "Grimly I dig up the turfs, to remove the corrupted stiffs" The whole band performed with in intent many of their younger peers could take a piece of.

Seen Slipknot? Think you've seen a costume? In walk GWAR to the Doghouse Stage wearing the most ridiculous ensembles you ever saw, they must weigh a tonne! They even brought on " The Dead Queen" during Fuck This Place...."We dug her up so we could kill her again" Shock and looks definitely over-content, but they were entertaining nonetheless and it was good to get out of the sun for half an hour.

Static Dress who opened up the Opus stage on Saturday has to get a mention for the fact they had what seemed to be a mannequin depicting a dead body nailed to a cross behind them on stage for the whole gig, the body then gracefully climbed off and jumped down at the end of the set, poor bugger must have been roasting!

Spirit Adrift were one of the biggest undiscovered (for us at least) joys of the weekend. The Arizona band carried the spirit of 80s/90s metal into the here and now with a set full of huge riffs and soaring vocals courtesy of Nate Garret. Definitely one to watch reach new heights.

Talking of 80s/90s metal.....where was it? There were huge posters around the festival showing previous years line ups, all of which had a good balance of new bands and classic acts, or heritage acts you might say. Perhaps it was a brave move to take the festival in a fresh direction (after all it did sell out), perhaps they blew all the cash on Metallica twice, who knows, but despite the array of great bands on, it was a shame not to have some more classic, bigger names peppered throughout the weekend.

Metallica. Although I was gutted to miss the first set, waking on Friday morning the first thing I did was check the setlist. They were billed to play two completely different sets. I missed Seek and Destroy, Creeping Death, Harvester, Master. Luckily their back catalogue is so strong, and they didn't play One!

After a few tracks, we skipped out from Placebo and made it into the front section an hour before they came on. It was a long wait and a long time without a refreshing beer in the heat but was worth it. The band came on, no fucking about, "Are you ready?" shouted Hetfield...straight into Whiplash. The immense For Whom The Bell Tolls followed, then Ride The Lightning, by this point I'm starting to pinch myself at this fantasy setlist.

The band were tight, engaging, and quite frankly brilliant. How Lars can still pound those drums with such ferocity at almost 60 is quite something. The stage show was incredible, The air was already hot on the scorcher of a day, but the pyrotechnics, in particular on Moth Into Flame were sensational. The tracks from the new album stood up to scrutiny, the best of which is the title track 72 Seasons.

Every track was a crowd-pleaser here, but the end of the gig was just pure quality. The unadulterated thrash of Battery, followed by the joyous singalong of Whiskey in the Jar and then the pure brilliance of One, possibly the perfect metal song, maybe that's up for discussion, but not right now. It's mesmerising, emotional and heavy and so, so tight. I would have been happy if they walked off stage right there and then with Hammett's lead ringing through my ears, but of course, Enter Sandman, the most recognisable Metallica riff of all has to end Metallica's weekend and our night. Utter brilliance. "Are you still alive?" shouted Hetfield" before he kicked into his lyrics. Yes, we are, and so is metal.