From Donington To Download

by Ian Carroll

  It was to just have that experience and I think I walked off the stage that day feeling very fortunate for doing it.

  I do feel fortunate because this is my life, I get to hang out with all these bands and Download was the pinnacle of that year.”

  Brandan Schieppati (Bleeding Through - Vocals)

  “It was an honour to play Download. Everybody stills views Download as being Castle Donington, that’s how I still view it anyway.

  Tried to play it many times before, but we never got on it. Our old manager, who was a guy called Paul Loadsby, was the guy that started Donington, it was his original idea in 1980 to get it all together. I wouldn’t say he was bitter, but he was annoyed that when he managed us and wanted to get us on Donington, we could never get on it.

  But eventually we’ve done it. I think it was a good gig, I think we did alright and the crowds were into it.

  I can now sit back in my rocking chair years later and say that I’ve done it!

  I watched Bullets & Octane and they were very energetic, enthusiastic and got the crowd going with a good set. Then one of them came up to us afterwards and said we were pretty cool!”

  Gary Jennings (Cathedral – Guitar)

  “I went once before at the old site, inside the racetrack; the year ‘Guns N’ Roses’ played, in inverted commas.”

  James Davies (The Blackout – Guitar)

  “It was great, a lot of energy, it was wonderful. I would like to see a few bands, if only we get the chance to do it, there’s so much going on at the same time.”

  Rocky George (Fishbone – Guitar)

  “I’m glad to be here.”

  John McKnight (Fishbone – Keyboards/Trombone/Guitar/Vocals)

  “What the hell’s going on here? Too damn much and I want to see all of it!!

  I want to see Tool and the Deftones. Ours set was too short. The energy of the crowd was good though, really helped out. It was cool.”

  John Steward (Fishbone – Drums)

  “I’m loving it and having a good time, but you can’t really cover Fishbone in thirty minutes. But I’m enjoying the festival with all the beautiful women.

  But we’re only here today and then off to Hungary, Budapest, Holland and French gigs”

  Curtis Storey (Fishbone – Trumpet/Vocals)

  “Download rocks. Knock some heads, ripped some shirts, and inhaled some dirt. The crowd was great, we love the UK. We’re gonna keep on rockin’ y’all, you better come back. Later!!”

  Dre Gipson (Fishbone – Keyboards/Vocals)

  “One thing I remember about the Download Festival is that I went into the performance and did some poetry.

  I shaved my hair that day after growing it for about a month or so.

  I can’t remember too much of what happened as far as the crowd’s reaction it was top of the line Fishbone Moshpit skank-n-hoffin chaos.

  I liked it and thirty minutes wasn’t enough and we never really got to get started.

  But from the way the crowd was reacting it looked like they let us know they were enjoying it.”

  Angelo Moore (Fishbone – Vocals/Saxophone/Theramin/Percussion)

  “I had a good time at the Download Festival, but there oughta to be more bitches up in this mutha fucker for Norwood his damn self. Know what I’m saying?

  It turns out to be a family affair, there’s a lot of people here that we have toured with over the years.”

  John Norwood Fisher (Fishbone – Bass/Vocals)

  “It was fucking great; I was kind of excited of the turn out and the kids that were into it considering that it’s a metal fest. I was really fully happy. We’re more like Megadeth meets Winger metal, with some Run DMC thrown in the mix.”

  Matty Lewis (Zebrahead – Vocals/Guitar)

  “We didn’t know what the turnout would be, be it was really good. What made me smile was when I asked ‘how many of you guys are drunk?’ at least like 30% of them shouted yeah and it wasn’t even noon yet!!!!

  Ali Tabatabaee (Zebrahead - Vocals)

  “We played Download this year with Mondo Generator and got thrown out for breaking a chair or something. It wasn’t something serious; it is always for something silly.”

  Ben Thomas (Mondo Generator - Drums)

  “Download this year wasn’t very eventful, we got thrown out.”

  Ben Perrier (Mondo Generator - Guitar/Vocals)

  “It was one of the most frightening experiences of my life, but at the same time quite fun and so I enjoyed going on.

  But, before I didn’t know whether to vomit or shit? But I didn’t do either!

  I was considering shitting myself on stage, because I thought it’s very rare that people do that, but it takes a lot of effort and I don’t face those toilets; so I thought I would go up and lower the whole tone.

  I went to check out Aiden, Cradle of Filth, Prodigy and Guns N’ Roses”

  Betty Curse (Betty Curse – Vocals)

  “We played the Snickers Bowl which was very hot with a great atmosphere. We were on around 2:30pm and before the show we were quite anxious to get on there and ‘rock out’!

  I used to skate, so watching the people skating was fun and distracting at the same time, but it went down really well, we enjoyed it, Meg (Betty Curse) enjoyed it.”

  Adam Curse (Betty Curse – Bass)

  “This year the celebrations were cut short. We opened the mainstage and we were chucked out of the VIP area at about 2 or 3am in the morning as there was a fire in the campsite.

  There’s always something happening at Donington, this year Jonathan was missing from Korn and Axel Rose was the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons. It reminded us all about everything that you always wanted to forget about the rock industry and a very helpful reminder to keep you feet on the floor, unlike Axel ‘fly with the fairies’ Rose.

  They cleared the whole backstage area for him to get into his dressing room enclosure, which is really weird because it’s only artist’s back there and no one is going to go and kiss his ass!!!! There’s been enough of that done for a whole lifetime. I bumped into him backstage and we didn’t even exchange words, he looked like Axel Rose’s dad. He looked like a low budget movie and they had fast forwarded twenty or thirty years to when the main characters are old and they look like they have splashed some flour on and really, really naff makeup and they look really ‘un-human’ because they look all ‘plasticky’, that’s what Axel Rose looks like. I saw him about three inches away from my face, weird as fuck!!!

  Another thing to colour the festival experience at Donington, is that there is so much going on, BMX and skateboarders and performers, the whole cast of Star Wars, there is so much stuff going on all the time, it makes for the full rounded festival experience and you’ve got a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, you have survived another day at Download. You walk around and there are people sleeping in puddles of their own piss, people suffering from heatstroke and you don’t quite see it at other festivals now. All the other festivals seem very ‘state run’, very much for the masses, homogenised and diluted.”

  Paul Isola (Breed 77 – Vocals)

  “The first time we got to play was in 2006, when there was an incredible line-up. It was really exciting for me on a personal level as I got to see to Tool for the first time, who are one of my favourite bands. We got to watch Metallica the following day; the whole experience was just great. It was just like the ‘who’s who’ of rock and metal, which I think is the theme of Download in general, bringing these bands from all over the planet to the biggest festival.”

  Dave Peters (Throwdown - Vocals)

  “Well, Download was many things.

  We have never played a fest that big before. There were a lot of people in black with more hair than I have ever seen in one place. But what I remember most was when we were playing and started getting bottled.

  We played in a switched timeslot with Darkest Hour. So people were confused, then pissed. So as they threw bottles at us I k
ind of liked it...so much that I told the crowd that they can throw what they want, I am just glad they stuck around at all.

  Our fourth song was a slower song. One that may not be choice to

  play since we were at a metal fest. But I realized we had won over the

  crowd when they stopped throwing bottles for that song.

  Most bands would get bummed having bottles thrown at them...us we thought it was great.

  Not even half full bottles of water can bring us down at a metal fest.”

  Kenny Bridges (Moneen - Vocals/Guitar)

  “This was our first time in England, first time in Europe, our drummers Italian, so he’s been to Italy, but other than that it’s everyones first time in Europe and we had an amazing time.

  The stage we played on was absolutely fantastic. The crowd from the kids in the front to the people in the back, all the way through it was just fucking brilliant. By the end of our set we had five burlesque dancers on stilts behind us for the last two songs!! They were quite randy!

  We had a blast, the weather doesn’t get any better. The highlight of the show, for me, was Alice In Chains, Tool and Deftones were fantastic. It finished very early, in Canada the festivals go on into the night.

  We were absolutely astounded with England, Donington especially. The one thing that is the best about Download is watching your favourite band on the mainstage and having a plane come fucking flying over your face, it’s awsome.”

  Jonny Hetherington (The Art Of Dying – Vocals)

  “Playing Download was by far the coolest experience that I have ever had.

  This was our first time in England and to play a show of this size was just fucking unbelievable.

  To see that many kids come out and actually stay and watch us and be interested in what we were doing, it was just unreal. Especially being 4000 miles from home and having people actually care in what we were doing, when they could have been doing anything else at all, it’s just a real surreal amazing feeling.

  We’ve watched All American Rejects, Aiden and Metallica, it was a long show but it was good”

  Danny Stevens (The Audition - Vocals)

  “Playing Download was such a surreal experience. We’re still a really new band, even when we’re back home in the States for anyone to know us so far away from home it’s still a thrill. But when you fly over an entire ocean and you go to a completely different country and there are kids who know your band and want to meet you, it’s even more insane than being in your own country, because you are 4000 miles away!

  You take a band like us and we were put on a stage in front of 3000 people, the biggest show we’ve ever played and we did our thing and did the best we could.

  We were really nervous coming in to this, because this is the biggest metal festival, we like metal, but we’re not a metal band.

  The band that played before (Enter Shikari) us on our stage was crazy. They had techno beats and they would then go into these crazy breakdowns.

  They all wore soccer uniforms on stage and all of them looked like friends I had at home, so I thought they were going to be a ‘pop rock’ band, but they were definitely not.

  Seth Johnson (The Audition – Guitar)

  “Obviously it wasn’t one of the greatest stages, but we were on classic ground and it is of course a cool thing for us to be able to come here. It has been a childhood dream ever since we started playing, of course we want to play something bigger next time, but we ended up here (Snickers Bowl) because we came in so late. I don’t think that Evergrey is much preferred in the skateboard world, but it doesn’t matter and we were honoured to play here.”

  Tom S. Englund (Evergrey – Vocals/Guitar)

  “However our second experience totally blew the first one away. I think our performance at Download 2006 will be one of the most important memories in our bands lifetime if not, The most important. It was certainly a moment in my life that I can always look back on and my hairs stand on end.

  For me playing there is like 5 years hard work and touring all condensed into a 30-minute moment. This time around we couldn't have hoped for anything better, we had an incredible time, the crowd were amazing and the booze flowed for 24 hours.

  We saw some amazing performances over the weekend too; Alexisonfire, Alice and Chains and Strapping Young Lad were all sets that the five of us enjoyed. Other than that Download was one giant haze of booze, cocktails and bulldozer headaches.

  I hope every band in their lifetime gets to have a moment like we did, we'll never forget it.”

  Olly Mitchell (Johnny Truant – Vocals)

  ”Download, wow, what a weekend! It was great to be part of something that

  means so much to so many rock bands and fans alike.

  Our own show went really well and it was a fantastic and privileged feeling to perform on such a great stage. Being local to the area and achieving a dream of playing to a packed out audience at The Charlotte, Leicester and then to perform at Donington is something else. Man, I loved every minute!

  The chicks’ walking around in bikinis and stilts was also a highlight for me!”

  Andy Driver (My Awesome Compilation- Drums)

  “The sun beat down on the smooth racetrack tarmac, thick black skidmarks wound across the track. We sped out of the pits and crossed the finish line, and that was it. We were there. We weren't racing though, merely walking out of the artists' paddock and into the festival grounds for getAmped's very first Download festival at Donington Park racetrack. But for all intents and purposes it could have been a race - it turned out to be one hell of a high speed, adrenaline-fuelled ride. Our trusty, stalwart manager, Carl, and I arrived in Nottingham late on the Thursday night, so we could be at the festival early the next day. Although getAmped would not be playing until Saturday afternoon, I had been recruited by the editor of a national rock magazine, Burn, to interview some of the other Download artists, and I would need to be at the festival for the whole long weekend. The interviews I conducted would be transcribed in a 'Download special' for the magazine, and also aired on the getAmped podcasts for the next few weeks (so look out for them here!). I was a ball of nerves, wired on excitement and expectation that night, and coupled with it being one of the first hot, and humid summer nights this country sometimes spews out, I didn't get much sleep. Nevertheless, I was full of energy on Friday morning, bouncing around like a kid on Christmas morning, much to Carl's annoyance. After visits to both the artist accreditation cabin and the press reception to collect our multitude of wristbands and passes, we wandered into the festival ground itself, before it was open to the public. I was blown away by the vastness of the place, and most of all, the black and red metal behemoth that was the main stage. The crew for one of the first bands were tuning the PA, and massive booms echoed around the track as some roady relished in banging a kick drum. I felt my pulse race, my stomach drop, and palms tingle a little as I contemplated playing on the main stage. I couldn't help but feel that I was staring our destiny, as a band, in the face as I took in the enormity of the view. 'Maybe next year," I mused to myself, "it'll be our turn up there." I snapped quickly out of my daydream as we reached the Snickers Bowl, where we were due to play on Saturday. It was dwarfed by the Death Star-like proportions of the main stage, but was still impressive with its mad structure which was centred around a 15 foot skate bowl, with rows of staged seating set up around it, stadium stylee. I couldn't wait to get up there and rock out. Behind the bowl was a colourful sea of tents, as many of the 73,000 people who would attend the festival had already arrived and were setting up their pitches. After leaving Carl to schmooze with other industry execs in the press tent, I sped off back into Nottingham to pick up Jackamo and James, our film crew for the weekend. As I drove out of the festival gates, a slight car accident had already caused a couple of miles worth of tailback back to the M1 - this was going to be one mad weekend!

  My first taste of the balls out, high energy, high wattage craziness that embodies the Download
Festival was 'Strapping Young Lad'. As I walked from the car with the film crew over to the press room, I paused on the hill in the centre of the track and stood aghast at the sea of frothy moshed-up bodies pulsing to the angry kick drum-ridden throb of these mentalists. The front man was a crazy dude that looked like a cross between a mad monk and a hillbilly, but boy could he scream, and more importantly, boy could he work a crowd. But I couldn't stay for long - I had work to do. Download is the pinnacle of the rock and metal scene in this country, and nowhere was this more obvious than in the press area. The place was a hive of activity full of internet hook-ups, photo backdrops, body guards, press agents, photographers, A&R men, and of course...rock stars! This was like a bloody 'Who's Who' of rock for 2006. I didn't really have time to be starstruck, as before I new it I was interviewing crazy space-rockers Amplifier, who'd just come off a cooking main stage set. I hadn't heard a note of their music before the interview, but will be sure to check some out, as they were absolutely top lads. They were still positively effervescing after their show and we soon got deep into band related-chat, covering topics as varied as why people fancied their roadies more than them, and their favourite types of sausages in Germany. This was to set the trend for the weekend really, in that most of the guys I interviewed were just really cool down-to-earth people who were a pleasure to chat with. There was none of the rock 'n' roll bullshit arrogance that I had been half-expecting.

  Next in front of the mic were 'InMe' and we chatted away about the differences between playing a festival and a club, what they liked to eat best on tour, and more weird and wacky stuff that was coming off the top of my head. I was getting quite into my role as journo for the weekend, and was starting to get a feel for it. One thing that struck me was how well organised the weekend was by the media - InMe arrived, were straight into the press tent for a whole heap of interviews, including mine, and then whizzed straight out to hit the Snickers stage and play their first show in 6 months. The pace was relentless.