by Ian Carroll
Though I feel the situation in 1981 was certainly not deliberate sabotage on the part of either AC/DC or the Malcolm Hill company, the show in 1986 was quite another story. As usual, we arrived the day before and did a good sound check. The same system engineer was there from Malcolm Hill, we reminisced about the ’81 show and I remarked how good the current iteration of the Hill system sounded. The vibe was pleasant, everything sounded fine.
The next day, of course, everything was different. I had high hopes for a fine show, but as we began I noticed that the system sounded much quieter than the day before and the dynamics were limited. Nothing sounded quite right. At one point I became quite disgusted and took a little walk to my left, the centre of the mixing platform, and took a look at the system drive racks. Yes, there it was, a DBX 165 Stereo Limiter, and, by golly, it was kicking back about 12db on every peak. And it was attached to my mix! I turned to the Rocksound system tech (the sound man for the Scorpions, by the way) and asked, “What the hell is this?” I got a reply burned into my brain even these many years later: “You know how it is!” (Imagine a German-tinged accent and a condescending smile.)
Just in case you are thinking, Ahh, the Malcolm Hill people were engineering a payback for ’81; not at all. Malcolm's system tech was quite embarrassed and upset. Remember, his system is attached to the Rocksound array. If it sounds like ass, his system will sound like ass. And ass it was, through every act until Bon Jovi. Then it was all it could be (“You know how it is!”).
After Metallica’s less than audible set, Peter Mensch (Metallica’s manager with Cliff Burnstein) came up to Big Mick (Metallica’s super-fine soundman) and me and he was livid. He knew that his band had been badly treated, but alas, there was nothing he could do. So it goes in the wonderful world of big-time sound. Attitudes like this limit audience enjoyment and essentially rob the audience of what is rightfully theirs: a full and effective show. It's also a pussy move. It implies the headliner does not have the confidence to carry the show without kneecapping the competition.
Does this always happen? No, but it happens often enough to be a real problem for touring professionals. It is an unfortunate part of the politics of the music business. These decisions are almost always band decisions implemented by management with the complicity of the sound company. Are there bands that make it a policy of not doing this?”
George Geranios (Sound Engineer)
“1987 had been another good year that I enjoyed immensely, the highlights for me included a surprisingly mature and entertaining headline set from Bon Jovi which included Jon climbing to the top of the stage for one song and the crowd pleasing turn of having Dee Snider, Bruce Dickinson and Paul Stanley join him on stage for a strange but excellent version of 'We're an American Band', I considered it strange because Bruce looked ill at ease and obviously is not American, the only reason I think he was on the stage anyway was to announce that Maiden would be headlining the following year. Another memory I hazily have occurred during Metallica. Part way through the set someone managed to get past security and onto the stage where he managed to find a rope to climb and proceeded to use it as a swing, he managed to keep this up for at least a minute before being collared by the tardy security that had let him slip through their ranks, he received a tremendous applause.
Jovi, Anthrax and Metallica’s sets aside, my other favourite memory of the day was the entertainment supplied by my friend Mat who had designed his own Anthrax T Shirt with various felt tip pens in a primary school stylee, this was by far the worst shirt I have ever seen anyone wear at a gig and was ridiculed by virtually everyone that passed us, which of course had us howling with laughter all day long. Mat also learned later in the day that you should not accept drinks in medicine bottles from mad Irish men; I very much doubt he remembers Bon Jovi after a heavy dose of Pocine.
Another vague recollection I have is of Cronos from Venom stamping on my friends hand as he came stomping through the crowd trying to look all rock star cool, oh how we chuckled.
Female attendance appeared to be a lot higher this year than during the previous fests, this probably had something to do with Bon Jovi playing but it was good to see that more girls/women were enjoying what had/has largely been a male dominated and attended genre. The numbers did not seem to dissipate during the following years and continues to this day at Download. An amusing anecdote I always remember, referring to the early eighties was of how strange it always seemed, that David Coverdale would always be thrusting his crotch suggestively at the crowd at his gigs when the attendees largely consisted of teen or early 20’s males.
WASP were probably the only band that disappointed me in ‘87, they were ok but I was expecting better. It had not been that long ago when WASP were considered the most dangerous, noisy, parent scaring band on the planet, they were raw, unpredictable and even a little bit scary, they even managed to get their first single 'Animal, Fuck Like a Beast' banned which of course made them even more desirable to fans. This of course was before the likes of Metallica and their other thrash comrades who now made WASP sound wimpy and possibly a little bit silly. Blackie Lawless and the boys did their best and they rattled through their set professionally enough churning out favourites which included 'I wanna Be Somebody' and 'Blind In Texas' but for me the feeling of danger that got me into them had vanished and I was no longer finding them enjoyable. On the day though and despite the rain during their set, they went down well enough.”
Roger Moore (Glinton, Peterborough)
“I had been to concerts before, but never a festival, so I didn’t know what to expect.
It was 6.30ish and I am at my local train station waiting for friends to meet up for the trek to Liverpool to catch the coach to the Monsters Of Rock , I had my leather jacket on and my metal patch denim over the top bleached knotted dyed jeans and my Air Wair boots, the real look of metal.
I noticed one of my friends Lee was there before me. He was lying on a bench with his stomach contents lying on the floor next to him; he had been there all night after his girlfriend had thrown him out because he was drunk.
It wasn’t long before everyone of us had met up and were waiting to get on the coach to the festival ,
Liverpool was swarming with metal heads a vast see of leathers and chanting of ‘Donington Donington Donington’ , excitement grew and loads of beer got drunk on the way down, before we got on the driver said no drink allowed on the coach, as soon as I sat down I was handing out swigs out of my bottles of Mad Dog 20/20 and cans of ale, everyone got their drinks onboard, the coach had a video player on it and someone had made a VHS tape of the bands playing that day and we sang along all the way, backsides shown as ‘bum salutes’ to fellow festival travellers and food fights between the back half of the coach and the front broke out .
We started to slow down and traffic jams started, looking out the window every vehicle had people going to the festival in them. I knew we were nearly there, cars were parked up on both sides of the road and hordes of rockers making the final part on foot.
“Welcome to Castle Donington Monsters Of Rock ‘87 the signed said, we were there.
Being young at the time I drank as much as I could and staggered off down to the front to stay there and fight for my place to see the rock gods, nowadays it’s: watch a band, go the bar, watch a band, go the bar and so on, I could turn around in the sea of people head banging in unison to the tunes, the Dunlop bridge hovering over the crowd in the background.
We moved back towards the sound stage tower just to get breath before Bon Jovi came on stage. I will never forget we got standing behind two very drunk guys that were finding it hard to stand straight; they had plastic bottles of Scrumpy Jack everywhere around them and were chugging away on them. One of them picked one up and started to pee in one as they had no way of getting out the crowd; putting it back at his feet after he finished, the other guy, his friend, ten minutes later picked it up turned around and started talking to my friend, he then offered my mate a
drink he said ‘no thanks’ with a grin on his face, the guy turned around and started drinking it, the people in the crowd around us just fell apart laughing.
Dee Snider, Bruce Dickinson and Paul Stanley came on stage with Bon Jovi and did a cover of ‘Travelling Band’ that rounded off a superb day at Donington, and I couldn’t wait for the following year.”
Paul Townsend (Widnes)
“My friend Tina was a massive Bon Jovi fan totally besotted by Jon.
She hung around the gate to the backstage area, where if you looked
through you could see limos coming in to drop off the bands.
She saw Bon Jovi’s car arrive and pushed passed the security guy,
through the gate, ran towards the car and threw herself on top of the
bonnet!
The car came to a quick halt, the back door opened and Dee Snider got
out, he said "Hey, what’s going on, god I've got crazy fans!" he looked
very pleased to see Tina on all fours, quite a sight in her leopard
print mini skirt, bra top, boots and blond big hair...
Then Tina jumped down off the car, ran up to him, pointing in his face
and said indignantly “Who the hell are you? You’re not Jon Bonjovi,
what the hell are you doing here?!!"
He looked a bit deflated but not as pissed off as Tina!”
Naomi Laughton (Rotherham, South Yorkshire)
“The triumphant return of Bon Jovi. Whether they were your cup or tea or not, at the time they put on a fantastic show (including lasers…….was this the first time lasers had been used at Donington?). Our gang had tripled in number from the previous year, bolstered by several females which seemed to be reflected in the overall attendance. Donington had become sexy.
I remember Jon Bon Jovi performing part of the set from the top of the lighting rig.
As part of the encore, the band was joined on stage by Dee Snider (Twisted Sister), Paul Stanley (KISS) and Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden). At the end Bruce saluted the crowd with a “see ya next year”, which indicated that Iron Maiden were in line to play the following years Donington.
The fireworks display at the end of the show was as impressive as ever.
Dio put on their usual highly professional, faultless performance, but somehow they just didn’t seem to fit in 1987.
Metallica and Anthrax passed me by I’m afraid.
WASP were a little more theatrical and Blackie Lawless’ voice came over very powerful.
Bon Jovi stable mates Cinderella had an impressive debut album out at the time and their performance justified their addition to the bill. ‘Night Songs’ and ‘Nobody’s Fool’ being particularly strong songs.
The weather was ‘on and off’ wet.”
Paul Hartshorn (Chesterfield)
1988
Iron Maiden,
KISS,
David Lee Roth, Megadeth,
Guns n’ Roses, Helloween,
The Bailey Brothers,
Probably remembered mostly for being the saddest year in the history of the festival, due to the heartbreaking death of two young music fans.
Due to bad weather the previous few days, parts of the site had transcended into a mud bath; nowhere was it worse than in front of the stage. With everyone jumping up and down, moshing and crowd surges, the quality of the ground underfoot grew worse during the first band Helloween and the build up to Guns N' Roses.
Helloween from Germany went down well, but the most anticipated band of the day were Guns N' Roses making their MOR debut.
When GNR were originally booked they were nowhere near the popularity level that had reached by the time the festival had come around in August. With the release of the 'Appetite For Destruction' album GNR were catapulted to almost instant stardom. Slash was the guitarist that everyone wanted to emulate and Axl was the singer that everyone wanted to be.
The crowd grew as the GNR set loomed closer and as the band started up it could be seen that there was a problem; jostling fans caused massive crowd surges and the slippery ground underfoot meant that sections of the crowd were falling over and then people from behind them were piling on top of them, some people had no chance of getting out. Give the band their due, Axl did stop the concert several times and ask the people further from the stage to move a few steps back, in order to allow the people at the front space to breathe and help people up that had fallen in the crush. At the time the extent of the chaos wasn't known to most of the people in attendance and the security staff were fighting a losing battle, unable to get into the crowd during the bands performance.
All the sad news would be all over the BBC news that night and the following day; a dark cloud had descended over Donington and would be remembered by all in attendance whenever Donington 1988 was mentioned.
Up next were Megadeth, with Mustaine in fine mood for a set in the mid afternoon; this was their debut at Donington and 2010 will be their hat trick of festival appearances.
Next up was David Lee Roth making his return to Donington after 4 years; this time his guitar maestro was Steve Vai in the position that was filled by Eddie Van Halen in Van Halen. Steve Vai was an ex- Frank Zappa guitar prodigy who had played on the album 'Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch'; Vai would return to Donington as lead guitarist in Whitesnake, in the headliner position, two years later in 1990.
Special guest this year was none other than the 'mighty' Kiss, without make-up, making their first of three appearances to date.
Playing a mixture of classic and recent songs, Kiss could do nothing but entertain the masses. The line-up featured Bruce Kulick and Eric Carr; the die hard fans were still yearning for a 'full make-up Kiss' playing all the classic 'Alive; tracks, 7 years later at Donington they would get their wish.
Headliner Iron Maiden made their first appearance at Donington and what a performance it was. Another British band topping the bill and a band that could fill the slot with ease.
Playing tracks from most of their albums, including crowd pleasers 'Run To The Hills’, ‘Number Of The Beast', 'The Trooper' and 'Aces High'.
So another festival drew to a triumphant close, only tarnished by the two fan deaths during the GNR set; the names of Alan Dick and Landon Siggers would be forever etched on the Donington history for all the wrong reasons.
Due to the tragic events in 1988 the festival took a sabbatical in 1989, returning two years later, with increased security, precautionary measures and a greatly reduced capacity.
“You can’t argue with a crowd this big and we don’t intend to argue, we intend to entertain”
Paul Stanley (Kiss – Vocals/Guitar)
“I was amazed at the enormous crowd and the very metal attitude that was at the Festival.
Gene and Paul were excited even though Iron Maiden headlined. We had such a good hit with ‘Crazy Nights’; the fans were very into the band. The stage was SO huge, and that was really cool to be on it. Paul loved the ramps which he used, and what a feeling to look out at the crowd and see so many people out there, like an ocean of fans! The pressure was on, but we played great and I remember us all being pleased.
I watched some of G n’ R and I was impressed with the reaction. Sad of course that some fans died getting crushed to see them. Backstage, there was press, lots of cool people and quite a good hang for everyone. I still meet people in the industry who say they met me backstage at Donington!
We left while Iron Maiden was doing their thing, and I remember leaving the grounds knowing it was an event that will be remembered for many fans for a long time. I still have the tour book and the souvenir mug!”
Bruce Kulick (Kiss – Lead Guitar)
“If every one of these guys had bought the album we would be doing great. I came here thinking this would be the worst day of my life after hearing all the horror stories about Donington but it’s the best day of my life”.
We are not going to be one of these bands that make an album then disappear”<
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Axl Rose (Guns N’ Roses – Vocals)
“The good and the bad goes on here. I found out the responsibility of a band being huge right here. When Guns played here, the first time the band had got really big in the UK and between getting booked on the bill and the time we played the band had blown up, so we were lower down on the bill; everybody surged forward when we played and that was before they had the partitions and two guys drowned in the mud. So this festival for me also has a really serious aspect to it. This is where I grew up and realised, ‘Oh shit. Nobody told me about all this.’ This kind of stuff, the responsibility. You start thinking that if the band never got big then those two guys would still be alive; you go through that stuff in your head.” Duff McKagan (Guns N’ Roses – Bass)
“The last time I played here in 1984 Van Halen was peaking, as do all great relationships but the audience were spectacular.
The whole theory of Rock ‘N’Roll in England and Europe is different to America.”
David Lee Roth (David Lee Roth – Vocals)
“My memory of the gig was that it was massive in terms of size. I’d heard of the Donington event and expected it to be a large crowd but was still blown away by the shear size of the whole thing.
I remember that we played Donington during a period in which Dave was trying to change his image to be “classier” so he had us all wearing suits. At that time Dave wanted to distance himself form the other bands that wore leather and blue jeans or the loud spandex clothes from which he had become associated with just a couple of years earlier. Things were also coming to a head with his relationship with Steve Vai and the “gunslinger” mentality for which he was hired in the first place. I think it was also around that time Vai had gotten a big money offer from David Coverdale to join Whitesnake, which also made things tense out there.