by Ian Carroll
Mark (Beyond All Reason – Drums)
“We had a fucking awesome time. To get such a good crowd, we weren’t expecting it, amazing!
We went down to the tent the previous day and there were only about 100-200 people in there, so we didn’t expect the crowd we got.
Then we did lots of interviews and had a laugh.”
Nick (Beyond All Reason – Bass)
“The first time we played at Download we played the 3rd stage. I remember we were standing on the side of the stage and we were just in awe; we just couldn’t believe it. There was a sea of people and we were honoured and grateful and in the moment.”
Maria Brink – (In This Moment - Vocals/Piano)
“We really didn’t know what to expect, we had just released our first album, we’d done a run of festivals in Europe and it was definitely an awakening for us.
We had confirmed to do Ozzfest in the States, but we did all these shows including Download before that and it really opened our eyes to playing shows in front of a lot of people.”
Chris Howorth (In This Moment – Guitar)
“Download was amazing for me, growing up as a metalhead, and now I was getting to play in the same festival with Slayer, Motley Crue, Megadeth & Maiden. I can’t even explain the honor it was, cuz to me I have never been a part of something like that. It seemed to everyone else it was business as usual, no one was really impressed, but to me, I was like a little kid. I guess that’s how it is when you see ya heroes in the flesh, or just close enough to touch.
I was the only rapper on this festival and I felt a bit out of place, because it isn’t like people in the metal world have their arms wide open to a rapper. People are rather close-minded, but me and my boys made the room ours backstage, harassing every fine little metal chick that would walk by, in true old school metal fashion. I'm old school, the metal I listen to is not new shit, so when I think of metal, and metal gods, and metal legends, I think of perverts, debaucherous motherfuckers looking to fuck every hot girl in the room. Well it was a rapper/hip hop/metal head pervert such as myself that was playing that role, and enjoying it. I actually brought some sluts to the gig, my own English whores, who got on stage during my set and got raunchy, then got choked backstage in front of everyone to see.
At one point backstage, I wanted to pay homage to Motley Crue, who I felt were the kings of groupies, so I made this girl take her bra off, showing her tits through her fishnet shirt, and tight booty shorts on barefoot, with a leesh around her neck, and I walked her over to Nikki Sixx's backstage room. Everyone was out there partying so I know they saw this hip hop fuck walk over with this whorebag on a leesh. I offered her to Nikki as respect and homage for what Motley Crue did in the 80's, and he looked at me like I had 2 heads on my shoulders. I was a little surprised, considering I just supported him and bought his book, which detailed fucking tons of hoes, some on drugs, some off, but neverless, a lot of fucking. Anyway, he was with a girl, and she didn’t look too impressed either, and they both were pretty shady and just walked away from me, showing me no respect. So I thought to myself, fuck it, let me bring this peace offering to Tommy Lee, he was a few feet away, getting crazy with some hoes in his room, I walked over with my slave offering and his bouncer was being a dick. I screamed out, ‘Tommy!!!, Tommy!!!! I got a gift for you’, he looks out his door, stares for a second at us, and boom goes right back in his room, no respect!!!
His faggot bouncer was not being cool, and then his tour manager who knew me walked over, and didn’t do anything to help or accept my slave offering
So now, I'm thinking, where the fuck is Vince Neil, he won’t front on me
Anyway, after not finding Vince, I said fuck this shit, and fuck them, they aren’t worthy of my efforts, keep in mind, this was backstage, so if you weren’t important you couldn’t be there
So I'm thinking I can’t even get respect backstage when showing love and paying homage
So much for "rockstars"
Now on a better note, I saw Tom Araya, walking by me the day before, and I thought, shit, that’s Tom Araya, now he is different, I'm not looking to bring groupies to him, he is a brutal legend, he doesn’t need to be bothered, so I had to think quick, how do I pay homage to this thrash god, so as he walked by me, I screamed out just loud enough that he heard, "Reign in Blood!!!", that said it all, I didn’t need to say anything more, anyone that truly knows Slayer, and was ever truly a fan, knows what that album means, he responded with a friendly and cool, "Thank you", and a little smile, I felt good, because I knew I paid homage and I didn’t need to ass kiss or get played out.
Now don’t let me tell you about the after party where I took a shit right next to Kerry King, he was in the other stall, hahahahaha, I said out loud, " Oh shit, Kerry King is taking a shit right next to me", he goes, "No, I'm not" and I said ok, then 5 minutes later, he is still there, and I said, "that’s a long piss" and he laughed, he was mad cool, showing all the fans love, so thumbs up to Slayer for being awesome!!!
Besides, that I played to a tent of 3500 kids, and they showed me a lot of love, and over all it was a good experience, and I hope to play Download again sometime in my life.”
Necro (Rapper)
“In 2007 I worked there in the bar, because I was skint and needed the money. So I saw a different side of it; but it was a great laugh as well, because I was around beer all the time and was just getting drunk and then rolling off and watching bands and then coming back and doing the same thing.”
Casino Brown (Ted Maul - Keyboards)
“It was our third show in England and we didn’t expect that much from it as there were so many awesome bands playing there that day and we played really early so we weren’t sure how many people we would get.
We played on stage 2 and the entire tent was packed! There were so many people and they were very enthusiastic and we got a huge response. We saw a lot of people singing along and for a band that hadn’t played here so much, it was amazing to see.
The first two shows here were amazing as well, but being able to play at the Download Festival which is so big, with great bands, it’s a huge opportunity and for us it was amazing to see how the reaction was.
We had to leave for the airport at four so we didn’t get to see many bands; it was shitty as I had seen the line-up!”
Floor Jansen (After Forever – Vocals)
“We played at the Mean Fiddler (London) in March and the promoters of Download saw us at the Mean Fiddler and they made us an offer to play Download, so we were pretty happy.
It was a very nice impression to be in the UK and to have a big crowd, the biggest crowd we’d ever had and we were very nervous for the first time, but it was amazing. The crowd made us feel very welcome.
We were there for all three days and we watched Marilyn Manson, Korn and Dream Theater, to see if they are still all good on stage.”
Anatoly (aka ANJ) (ANJ – Vocals/Guitar)
“It was our first time in the UK. We saw Motley Crue and it was absolutely packed, they closed off the backstage area to everyone as well!
We play on stage three and it was an incredible experience and as we had never been to the UK before we didn’t really know how the response would turn out, so having a good size crowd at the show was really amazing.”
Ryan Kirkland (Between The Trees – Vocals/Guitar)
“Coming over here we were really nervous as to what was going to happen, as we are still on a small indie label, so financially it was a big jump for us. We never say no to an opportunity and every time we say yes, something bigger has happened.
So we got here and we watched Paramore, who we are really good friends with; they are really great guys and a great girl!
The festival is like a different breed out here and completely different than the US. I wasn’t sure how they were going to react to us, being a ‘poppier’, rock/pop kind of band. But back home if people don’t like you they will just walk away, but here if they don’t like you they th
row stuff at you; I was really, really nervous that I was going to get smacked in the head with a water bottle, but the show went well.”
Jeremy Butler (Between The Trees – Bass)
“We played just before Kids In Glass Houses and they had a really sing-along crowd, so we looked forward to touring with them after Download. I was very surprised how well everything went though.
We didn’t really check out a lot of bands.”
Josh Butler (Between The Trees – Drums)
“It was fun coming out to the UK, I’d only come here once before to London.
It was fun hanging out and meeting with other bands. It was a once in a lifetime moment to see Motley Crue.”
Wes Anderson (Between The Trees – Keyboards)
“We didn’t know what to expect coming over to Download as there were a lot of metal bands and a few from our genre, but it was great.
The weather was good, all the kids were awesome to us and no one came up and hit us in the face; so that was cool. We were in a pub and we told some kids that we were from America and were in a band and we were treated like royalty.
It was cool to play our first show in the UK and it grew throughout the set and we sold a lot of merch, which was great. There were a few people singing along which was cool as they knew who we were.”
Brad Kriebel (Between The Trees – Guitar)
“I honestly think that it’s really an honour to have the stage named after him and to think that people loved him as much as they do; it feels good.
I remember waking up and Vinnie had sent me a link to where they had posted it and it was a great thing to wake up to for the day, with a big smile on my face.”
Rita Haney (Dimebag Darrell’s widow)
“Loads of people didn’t want to see My Chemical Romance, so we gave them Suicidal Tendencies up the hill or Korn on the Tuborg stage.
People always as why do you put certain bands on certain stages? Korn wanted to play the Tuborg stage and it worked, it was absolutely fantastic; as it was when Billy Idol played in there and Metallica.
I like the way that the festival has shaped now and that we have three stages and that we can programme them differently.
We will always get criticised for clashes; like when people wanted to see Korn and Suicidal Tendencies, but it’s just unfortunate and bound to happen.
We are also open to different stages, as we were in 2003 with the Deconstruction stage and 2005 with the Ozzfest stage; so be it a Bamboozle stage or a New Band stage, which would feature new British bands and we can’t see anything wrong with that, so we may start looking at that for 2008.
I don’t have so much to do with booking the talent as I used to, Andy Copping in the office does most of that now, but I have to say I like his work, he does a good job!
It’s nice to see that the festival started out in 1980 with a show that was seven bands. Then towards the end of Monsters life we did a second stage for the last two or three years; we broke bands out of that stage like Korn, Type O Negative and Biohazard and that was fantastic. But to sit here now and look at a line-up that is one hundred bands over three days is fantastic.
Download as a brand is now rolling out with four Download festivals in America, though they are more indie in America. The ambition is to make Download a ‘global brand’ and to roll out into two more territories next year and then just do it progressively.
People still insist on calling it Donington, but Bruce Dickinson, has now taken to calling it Download.”
Stuart Galbraith (ex – Donington Organiser)
“My Chemical Romance. Oh my giddy aunt. People had been upset enough about The Prodigy, but judging by the reaction to My Chemical Romance as headliners you'd think Live Nation had posted a fresh turd to each and every Download goer in the land. Linkin Park didn't help, but no one seemed to take stock of Iron Maiden as a headliner...
2007 was also the year of the first Fan Forum meeting in April, where we took a group of board members down to London to meet Live Nation and chat about the festival.
It also saw the first band at the Boardie BBQ - Scumface - and we can't really take any credit for that as Mike Hyslop (1 half of Scumface) was at the meeting and managed to talk his way into it.
On the Friday night we went to see Hayseed Dixie & Suicidal Tendencies on the 3rd Stage. The tent was packed (well, they were up against MCR!) but we were lucky enough to catch Sophie on the way round, who took us side of stage. I also got to meet DJ Krusher back there, and had a bit of a Fan Boy moment!
Saturday was Motley Crue - and again Sophie tried to get us side of stage, but unfortunately the stage manager wouldn't let us! She did manage to sneak us into the Nikki Sixx press conference however, and I guess that made up for it.
We watched Crue from outside the tent (packed again!) and I saw Mastodon chatting with a group of fans, take a fancy to one of the fans t-shirts, do a swap and wear the lucky fans shirt onstage the next day!
Sunday was "Flat Spit" day. Flat Spit was a cardboard cut out of a forum member - SpitItOut - who couldn't make it that year. So friends made a life-size cardboard cut out... Spit's girlfriend, WebWitch is one of the moderation team so we decided to take it out and about.
It's amazing where a life-size cut-out will get you... Live Nation let us take him into a meet n greet with Killswitch Engage who were great, and who signed and posed with Flat Spit. We also got to take him side of stage for Stone Sour, not to mention serving burgers and crowd surfing.
Maiden brought the festival to a suitable finish - in fact, of all the Download Festivals I've been to, Maiden gave the most Monsters Of Rock atmosphere to the place. It could have been the 80's - good natured old school bottle fights and all. There couldn't have been a better finish to the festival, which given the (unknown at the time) fact that this was the last time the infield would ever be used to host a gig. But it wasn't the end of Donington as a festival.”
Phil Hull (Download Forum Administrator)
“Linkin Park headlining the main stage on Saturday was incredible.
I loved Wolfmother and Paramore on Friday, but all I can say is we are all not worthy of the awesome talent that is Hayseed Dixie.
All hail to the gods of Hillbilly!!”
Mike Horton (Plymouth)
“Well, roll on a few years and Monsters of Rock became Download. A personal high point has to be, being there for Bruce belting out, “Scream for me Donington!” in '07, well Bruce I fuckin’ screamed myself hoarse... Bring it on Download!”
Matt Allison (Plymouth)
“A cloud of hairspray seemed to loom over the historical Donington site all day, scattered amongst it were zebra print clad, leather wearing, eyeliner rocking glam rock fans; their ‘ready to rock’ pre-dyed manes of hair fierce and on display, like a violent peacock on Halloween. It’s amazing that so many people (boys, girls & a few in-betweeners) managed to look so glamorous despite living in a field for the past couple of days.
Come sun down, you could pretty much follow the cloud of hairspray over to the second stage, where it seemed to gather together to create one big glam cloud of fun. The Jack bottles were out, the tops were off and without sounding too cliché… it was time to party.
The tent was well and truly packed, it almost seemed like an insanely overheated, over hyper and over intoxicated circus had rolled into town with all guns blazing. You can’t help but wonder what main stage headliners Linkin Park were thinking before they hit the stage; considering the amount of people that swarmed off to watch the Crue.
The band were due on stage at 20.45, but no real fan expected them at that time, they arrived about 10 minutes late in true Crue fashion, hair teased to the max, leathers & guyliner on, but more importantly ready to rock the shit out of “Donnnnnnnington”. With the crowd of 15 year old girls gathered around us, screaming “NIKKKI” & ready to flash their tits the very second they thought he cast a glance our way, it’s almost easy to forget that’s a 50 year old father they’re screeching
at, in a band that’s been going for well over 20 years.
They delivered a perfect set, featuring all the hits and classic Crue songs as expected, however it’s not just the songs that the Crue deliver so perfectly for me, as many bands over the weekend did that. It’s they’re ability to create an atmosphere, where the person at the side of you feels like your best friend, despite never knowing or possibly having anything in common with them. It’s they’re ability to take a sweaty 50 year old truck driver, a 30 year old uptight female office worker and an unemployed 17 year old glam rock girl, throw them all into the same environment and make it feel like a party.
During the set; my friend got pissed on, another was threatened to have her hair set alight and I was punched in the mouth, but we wouldn’t have had it any other way, it’s a Crue concert!
And from the very opening cord of ‘Dr. Feelgood’ to the last yelp of “When I say Motley, you say Crue” from Tommy Lee, that’s exactly where they kept it; a Crue show. They might well be in Donington tonight, but Motley Crue showed the crowd that they weren’t about to be intimidated or overshadowed by any of the historic bands that have played this venue and in the process proving why they’re the perfect band to play at this festival; reflecting the fact that both band and festival only appear to be rocking even harder as they get older.
For me it was by far the best set I’ve ever seen any band do and for that I salute both Donington & Motley Crue for this match made in heaven hell… “When I say Motley, you say…”
Robert Southwell (Shirebrook)
The summer story begins with Scuba Steve running through arrivals at Terminal 3 and throwing up the metal horns before a solid 2 minute embrace. England, Amsterdam, Belgium, Paris and Scotland will never be the same. Seeing Kat and Steve was a blast and certainly three weeks I won’t forget in a hurry.