From Donington To Download

by Ian Carroll

  Andy Booth (Go:Audio – Drums)

  “We had an absolute blast playing the show, there was an un-godly amount of people out there, and it was definitely a massive crowd.

  It was a total blur because everything went by so fast. Our songs are only 2 minutes long so we played about twenty songs, but it seemed so short, but it was fun; a once in a lifetime experience.

  The crowd was absolutely going wild for us and we had a giant ‘circle pit’ and a ‘wall of death’, it was a typical Waste show, but on a massive scale.

  The great thing about playing these kinds of shows are that there are little hermes who will see us for the first time and get stoked; but I’m not sure if we are a great role model!

  Onstage it’s a different atmosphere playing, but I hope that the sound was good. Its such fast music and we just come right out of the gates and sometimes sound guys just don’t get it.

  It’s cool to play a festival like Download, because there are so many types of music and fans and hopefully they all came and got exposed to us, people that wouldn’t normally see us and if one of those kids bought a cd then it’s a bonus, keep on expanding!

  I didn’t get to see much, a bit of Animal Alpha. She was furious backstage in ‘clown make-up’, stomping around like she had lost something and we were like, ‘it’s kinda scary’. Maybe she was doing that just to get hyped up for the show, or something.”

  Landphil (Municipal Waste – Bass)

  “We played the Tuborg Stage, which was the 3rd stage. It was very cool and exciting for us because we were a fairly new band and we’d only just put out our first record and so we were very lucky to get a slot on the 3rd stage.

  We played on the Friday around 4pm and we had no expectations of what it was going to be like; although we had been to Download when we were a bit younger, hanging around the mainstage, we hadn’t really ventured into the 3rd stage, so we didn’t really know what to expect from playing there and if anyone was going to turn up to watch us.

  So we turned up and set all of our stuff up and we had a lot of people helping us out and it was a real cool day up until we played and then it was crazy!

  The tent was absolutely packed and there were circle pits, crazy moshing everywhere and it surpassed all of our expectations; it was honestly the best day of my life.

  I couldn’t have enjoyed anything more. We were in a band for writing and then performing our music and to get to perform it to about 3,000 people, who really enjoy your stuff it’s amazing. We didn’t play to anywhere near that amount of people on tour, so for all of them to turn up and watch us, when there was such a great bill, it was incredible.”

  Rob Purnell (Trigger The Bloodshed – Guitar)

  “It was an absolutely pleasure to play Download, as it was a festival, to be honest, that I wasn’t wholly aware of, having grown up listening to Nirvana whereas our guitarist James had grown up listening to Sepultura and Machine Head. He came down to Monsters Of Rock, with his dad and saw Pantera and had a great time, but to me it was all about Reading Festival.

  Later in life, as my taste in metal has progressed, I actually now love the bands who love to riff that hard and so I can appreciate how Download has risen and become THE festival for rock and metal music.

  We had tried for 3 years to get on at Download, so it was great to finally get to be there.”

  Will Simpson (Brigade – Vocals/Guitar)

  “It was pretty amazing doing Download as I had never played a festival before with Johnny Truant, or anyone. The crowd massive and I shit myself before I went on, obviously.

  I saw Comeback Kid and Fall of Troy. I kept saying to people that I was going to see a band and they were always telling me ‘they’re on now’ and it was always the farthest stag away. I missed Biffy Clyro and I was fucking pissed off.”

  Alan Booth (Johnny Truant - Bass)

  “We were third from the top below Testament and Saxon and I remember that while we were setting up the tent was really empty and there were loads of people there who work for us and with us because we had been getting a lot of press in the lead up to the festival.

  It suddenly dawned on me that if no one was in the tent to watch us it was all going to be over and we might as well fucking chuck it in, so I really started shitting myself 5 minutes before we were due to go on. But the tent then really packed out and it was amazing.

  I couldn’t hear a thing on stage, the sound was rough as shit and I almost fell off the monitors into the photo pit as well, which was good.

  We turned up on the Friday really late; we’d wanted to see Beat Union and Rolo Tomassi, but we missed them both. We went to bed early and some fucking bitch tried to break into our van. Me and Olly were asleep at about 5:30am in the van and some one was trying to open the side door of the van. So, I jumped out of the van to give them a kicking and it was some 15 year old girl, totally off her face, she didn’t know what was going on, which was a good laugh.

  We played Saturday and got really hammered. We waited until we had played to start drinking. So when we got chucked out of the VIP area at 3am and everyone else was in bed sleeping, we drank half our body weight in alcohol and went on a mission to go to the normal camping area and bothered people until 10 in the morning.

  I bought a tent just to ignore it all weekend; it was just a place to keep our beer.

  Dillinger was amazing, Biffy Clyro were amazing; I’ve never seen either band play a bad set ever.

  The problem with it being the main metal event of the year in the UK is that when you get backstage, everyone you have ever had a beer with in band are there, so when you try to go to see a band, by the time you have walked 10 metres you’ve had about 15 beers with people and you miss everything. It’s cool, but it’s bad when you see your mates and they say ‘did you see us play’ you have to tell them ‘no I was having a few beers’. We spent the first 24 hours trying to stay sober before the show and then we spent the next 24 hours trying to get better.”

  Reuben Gotto (Johnny Truant - Guitar)

  “There were only a handful of bands that I had wanted to see, Rival Schools, Biffy Clyro and Kiss, there were too many of those fucking generic Emo bands that sound the same and they really bore the fuck out of me.

  So I spent most of the time getting really ‘lashed’ in the backstage area on the Friday, complaining about the shit music and basically making a fool of myself. I think I took a running leap at a gigantic woman at one point, she was about fucking 9 foot!

  I was kinda hanging on her going ‘Your massive’ and she said ‘Get the fuck off me’ and at I think she called me bitch one point, which I was really shocked about, but I took it really well being Irish n’all.

  The next day I had the worst hangover ever imaginable; it was just so bad it was like my whole face had melted and I had to go have a shower. I couldn’t even eat and when we had to go and have photos done, it looked like someone had sprayed me with AIDS, I was really, really fucked!

  I felt better when we got on stage and then my guitar cut out which really angered me. I tried to turn around to somebody, anybody onstage, but there was smoke everywhere and it was just me a big massive cloud; I was like ‘where the fucks the band??’

  That’s the thing about being in a three piece on a massive stage, ‘where the fuck did everybody go?’

  So, I had a bit of a nightmare for the first few songs, but then it was grand and the crowd really got into our band, so it was great exposure for us and we played a good show and I thought we were tight.

  I really enjoyed my Download experience. I spent the rest of the day checking out various bands and hanging out with some friends in In Case Of Fire and Biffy Clyro.

  It was an easy run, but a good 1st Download experience and I hope they have us back.”

  Cahir O'Doherty (Fighting With Wire – Vocals/Guitar)

  “It was our first time there and a great experience. We’d always known it from the Monsters of Rock, so to get the chance to play, we were honoured.
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  We arrived the night before and camped. We saw Kiss, so that really set the scene for us, it was just spectacular. The ultimate moment for me was when I went to the toilet backstage and as I was walking out, Tony Iommi was walking in! That was pretty fucking amazing; that was my ultimate ‘rock moment’ of all time. It was one of those moments when you see someone you recognize and say hello, but it was a couple seconds later that I thought FUCK; but it would have been a bit creepy for me to have run back into the toilet where Toni Iommi was taking a piss and have a chat.

  We unfortunately had some technical difficulties with Cahir’s guitar, but from my side of things it was all good. We had a good turnout, considering it was our first time there and we it one of the biggest stages that we had been on; we had a lot of smoke machines as well. I remember turning to look at the guys and all I could see was smoke, I was trying to make them out! I knew they were on the stage somewhere, I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them!’

  Jamie King (Fighting With Wire - Bass)

  “We got to Download a day early, went and set up in ‘Artists Camping’ and proceeded to get absolutely ‘bombed’- steaming drunk.

  We went to see Kiss and they were absolutely amazing, they blew me away, it was good fun.

  The day of the gig, me and Jamie weren’t too bad, but Cahir suffered the most because he’s a cryer when it comes to hangovers, whinging away ‘I don’t feel too good’, ‘I’m so nervous’!

  Then his guitar cut out on the first song, which just set us up for the rest of the gig; made him play with anger which was good.

  But I really enjoyed the gig, with a great onstage sound.”

  Craig McKean (Fighting With Wire – Drums)

  “Download was great for us. We arrived actually a few days earlier in Stockholm, from the States. It had been about six months since we had been on tour, which was rare for us because we’d been on tour for four years with only a break of three weeks in between.

  We made a new record in February; we finished writing in California in January and then recorded in Seattle. Then we were about to come over here for five weeks on tour with Turbonegro, but Euroboy got cancer; so instead of coming over and doing some of the dates that we had booked, I went ahead with giving my father, who had been really sick, one of my kidneys.

  I should have had about six weeks recovery time, but I only had four weeks, as we had lots of shows booked. Three weeks in I felt ‘up to it’ and we left for Europe.

  We watched Municipal Waste and Airbourne. We really like the guys in MW, Nitewolf used to work in a skatepark in North Carolina and we knew them from other bands as well. It’s just awesome to see us touring and them touring and growing into this!

  They came over and partied with us.

  We were busy doing interviews during the rest of the day and then it came down to the show.

  Some of our buddies, who we’d met on tour with Motorhead in Germany were there helping us and a couple of other guys that we had met in Wolverhampton were also working on the stage.

  We did also get to see some of Between The Buried and Me, who are also from North Carolina.

  It was one of the bigger crowds that we had played to and in Kerrang! we got five K’s and there were only about five bands that got that; I hope that some people come and check us out after that.”

  Valient Himself (Valient Thorr – Vocals)

  “Sweden was sick and then the whole whirlwind of Download was intense!

  We had a lot of good dudes helping us out, we don’t really have a full set-up crew or anything like that, but we know a lot of crews from other bands and we ‘scooped’ them up and they all helped us out.”

  Dr. Professor Nitewolf Strangees (Valient Thorr – Bass)

  “It was a big dream coming true for me and for us, it was a childhood dream you have wanting to play Donington as we all grew up with Maiden recordings and stuff like that.

  It was just fantastic, but there was a lot of stress before the actual show, with getting the gear set up and we had some problems that the keyboards weren’t working properly, they weren’t working at all actually!

  But we finally made it and got a good response. A lot of our fans were there and we also got exposed to a lot of people who didn’t know Firewind; I think that it was really worth coming over to do Download.

  We just came off a 30 date US tour and we then went back to Greece. We watched Judas Priest and Kiss; and Kiss had never played in Greece before until 2 weeks before Download, but I was away on tour so I missed them.”

  Gus G. (Firewind – Guitar)

  “We played on the first of the three days, in an afternoon slot, up against Kid Rock.

  A little bit before Kid Rock was due to come on he cancelled, so that helped us out a lot. We had a pretty decent crowd there and then all of a sudden a lot more people came over from the mainstage, as they had nothing better to do and thought that they would check out this other ‘Kid’ that was playing at the other end of the festival grounds.

  We ended up having an incredible time, we were there for Saturday and Sunday as well, we got to meet some people from Atticus, promoters, the guy who booked us at the Underworld (Camden, London) and met lots of new friends. We also watched some bands and hung out with bands like Bleeding Through.

  I watched some bands, but I must admit that a lot of the festival was in an ‘alcoholic haze’, but I did watch Kiss and Judas Priest; I’m not a Kiss ‘fan’ but I watched them out of curiosity. I also watched Jimmy Eat World and In Flames on the last day and we saw Dillinger who ‘killed it’ as usual.

  Some of the food was good from the vendors; I usually have a bit of a diet issue, but not there. Also everyone who worked at the festival were very helpful and on the ball, it seemed very well organised.”

  Jeremy Hiebert (Comeback Kid – Guitar)

  “It was absolutely amazing; we had only been to the UK four times previously.

  I really enjoyed myself. I did this thing where we asked people if they knew who we were and I couldn’t believe the amount of response that came back; the hands in the air, the screaming!

  When I looked out, I saw everybody singing along and I was really blown away.

  We are on an independent record label and we had turned down some majors; what I’m trying to say is you couldn’t find our record if you tried, so to see the internet ‘word of mouth’ it was beautiful. It was a blessing and I had a great time.

  I really wanted to see Children of Bodom. I went for a pee earlier and Alexi was waiting to take a shit. I walked over and I asked ‘are you waiting to take a pee or a shit’ and then I did that quick double-take and I said ‘I’m a big fan’, that was all that I could say, all that I could splutter out!”

  Craig Owens (Chiodos - Vocals)

  “We played two years in a row and 2008 was our first festival experience and we were really expecting the best show we’d ever played, to thousands of people and for it to be an incredible experience. We got there and we played to 1,500 people which was amazing, but in a tent that holds 8,000, it was a bit ‘hit and miss’.

  So the first year was good it was an amazing experience. I went to see Kiss and then came back and watched The Dillinger Escape Plan and I thought that this was what a live band needs to be like; we were standing at the side of the stage in awe. They went out and the way that they were moving and swinging their guitars, I was amazed that they didn’t kill themselves.”

  Richard Carter (Blackhole – Vocals)

  “We played the festival first in 2008 and we were about midway up on the 3rd stage. We were really pumped beforehand and thought that it was going to be a really good show, but it didn’t live up to our expectations; I think we set our expectations a little too high.”

  Nick Mitchell (Blackhole – Guitar)

  “My first experience of Download was last year and that was the first ever festival that I had personally been to. It was pretty crazy and I was really nervous, I think because I expected too much; it was definit
ely a good learning curve. The festival gives lots of young bands a good opportunity to play there.”

  Andreas Yiasoumi (Blackhole – Guitar)

  “We played the Gibson stage at 11:35am on the Saturday. Playing was unbelievable, it was a ‘step up’ from what we usually do. The crowd was fantastic, a lot of people were dancing and headbanging; they were literally doing what we intended to make them do! The crowds at Download are absolute fantastic, amazing! I think that the line-up was great, it had something for everyone, with bands like Pendulum and Lethal Bizzle catering for the more mainstream needs and bands like Job For A Cowboy, who have a niche audience, but they never fail to impress. I came to the first one in 2003, came back in 2007 and now came back and it’s a step up, as we’re playing it! We were incredibly honoured and excited and could only hope for the best and we can’t wait to come back in 2009 to headline the mainstage!” Austin Dickinson (Rise To Remain – Vocals)

  I was ‘bowled over’ to be playing the festival, after years of having the posters on my walls since I was about 12 years old, to be finally playing it is just a great honour. We had been listening to a lot of Trivium and Shadows Fall and a lot of American influences, as well as the grandad stuff like Maiden and Priest, but just to be part of the ‘young generation’ of this tradition of Metal, everyone just feels as one. Getting on that stage and seeing everyone headbanging, just coming together to see a new band and make them feel good. It was nicely filled out.” Ben Tovey (Rise To Remain – Guitar)

  “Download Festival was possibly the highlight of my life! Stepping up from playing bass in one band to playing rhythm guitar in this band, it’s just the best band that I have ever been in. I’ve only known Ben for about 2 years and now we’ve played Download together, it’s just such an honour; Metal forever!” Will Homer (Rise To Remain – Guitar)