by Ian Carroll
Jim Stockham (Facecage – Guitar)
“It was an absolute dream come true; everyone has a list of things that they want to accomplish in their life and no BS Download was one of them. I had always wanted to come to England and play the Download Festival without a doubt and I can cross that off the list now; but now I have a new one to add and that was playing Donington a 2nd time and a 3rd time and a 4th time. Anytime that we are able to come back we will be coming back for sure.
We always considered Donington to be the pinnacle of musical success whether you are a small band or big band; getting the chance to play at the place where rock ‘n’ roll was born and showcase your talent is unparalleled.
This was the culmination of so much hard work, it took us eight years to get there and it was a dream come true. Being put on the same poster and the same t-shirt as some of our idols, it was just an unbelievable experience.
Faith No More was just unbelievable; when we found out they were on the bill, we were just flipping out.
It was our first show ever out of the country and it was at Donington, we couldn’t have kicked it off with more of a bang; crowd was awesome, show was awesome, and can’t wait to come back.”
Matt Nyberg (Facecage – Vocals)
“Dream come true, lots of people, it was fun and I thought we played great. We had a really big circle pit on the 3rd stage, pillar to pillar; I don’t think it could have got any bigger. It was a big tent, I could see a circus in there no problem.
It was our first time out of the country and it was just an overwhelming experience.”
Ryan Berrier (Facecage – Drums)
“Donington was amazing. It was amazing to be able play where all the rock legends had played before; you here all the stories from AC/DC to Def Leppard playing at there, it’s the mecca for every rock musician and it was amazing to get to play it. The first ever tape I bought when I was 10 was ‘AC/DC Live At Donington’ and I learned to play guitar from that tape and then we played there!!
We were on 2nd stage, which was a big band stage, so it was a massive step for us, it was huge. We had a great following and a really good day; we opened the stage, but lots of people came to watch us and it was a good show.
We watched Faith No More and Shinedown as we had toured with them.”
Carlos Garcia (The Crave – Guitar)
“The last band to play on the stage before us was Motley Crue, as we were the first band to play on Saturday morning; we were just freaking out saying ‘what is going on?’ You could say that we went on after Motley Crue.
It was absolutely amazing.
It was absolutely insane as no one had really known us. We have been in this band for 7 years, so to open the 2nd stage was insane, we would have played in the fucking car park, it was unreal; hopefully if we get to play in 2010, we will be higher up the bill.
We had full passes for the Saturday, so we could go wherever we wanted in the artist area, but we couldn’t use the artist area on the Sunday. We thought ‘fuck it’, we are the ‘Kings Of Blag’; so we figured out where the kitchen door was in the artist area, put our biggest set of bollocks on and just walked in. We walked straight through the kitchen and into the artist area, because Shinedown were playing on the Sunday and we wanted to go and see those boys; we met up with Shinedown and had a few drinks and then just blagged our way through.
We watched Limp Bizkit; we saw Limp Bizkit four times in two months, as we had also played Rock Am Ring and Rock IM Park.
It was just awesome.”
Ryan Burnett (The Crave – Vocals / Guitar)
“It was really great.
I went there when I was 16 when Metallica played, so to be back there again to play was wicked.
I didn’t recognise the place because they’d changed it all around.
I was sober for the whole time, so I didn’t do any crazy things. I just wish that I had got one of the free tattoos backstage!”
C.J. Evans (The Crave – Drums)
“The highlights really for me were Limp Bizkit, Korn and beer backstage.
Two tents, three men; me and C.J. got our tent up really quick, it was a quick erection! Then we looked over at Ryan and he was just there kicking his tent and going ‘ohhhh hay fever’. We decided to help him, but he did look very sorry for himself and it was very funny.”
Tom Swann (The Crave – Bass)
“It was a good gig, we had some technical difficulties, which is something that I guess you kind of get used to, but on the whole we had fun and everyone who saw us seemed to have fun.
As far as playing Donington goes, I have been a ‘metal kid’ as long as I can remember. I remember listening to the Monsters Of Rock festivals on the radio, wishing that I could go but being far too young. It’s the quintessential metal festival and bands from all over the world, know that if you are going to play Donington it’s gotta be fucking metal. That’s what I grew up on, listening to bands that played it and wishing I was there.
To play it??? MY brain doesn’t manage it that well; it’s completely dis-related from my memory, the fact that we did play it was amazing.”
Lee Vincent – (Pulled Apart By Horses – Drums)
“I had a Download voice, to get in with the crowd more; it was more of a shout to get rid of my weak Birmingham accent. It was amazing, I hadn’t actually been to Download before, so be there for the first time ‘to play it’ was incredible.”
Tom Hudson (Pulled Apart By Horses – Vocals / Guitar)
“It was amazing. The first band that I ever fell in love with as a kid was Def Leppard, so I’d gone through a few years of shame having to admit that but I still love them a lot and the played on the night that we played, so it was all good.”
Robert Lee (Pulled Apart By Horses – Bass)
“When I found out that we were doing Download I was quite overwhelmed. I’d never been before, cardinal sin, but to actually be there and to play alongside so many great bands, it was the greatest line-up not only for Download but for any festival. There was pretty much every type of heavy rock genre covered. But even compared to the line-up for Reading and Leeds, it was just incredible.
We missed the first few days as we were playing gigs, then we turned up and played and we were then free to go and watch Whitesnake, Def Leppard and ZZ Top; it might be the only time that we’d get to see them, so we didn’t want to miss it.
It’s an institution Download and 2009 was it’s pinnacle, especially compared to the line-ups in previous years.”
James Brown (Pulled Apart By Horses – Guitar)
“It was fuckin’ awesome.
We had a great time, the weather was brilliant and there were great bands on; there were some really great reformed bands, which everyone in our group were really looking forward to seeing. We had all the guilty pleasures like Korn, Limp Bizkit and Faith No More on Friday and on Sunday the mighty Whitesnake, Def Leppard and ZZ Top, we just couldn’t wait to see them, for all the right reasons; I’d never seen them before. I’m a big Coverdale fan and I was more of a Purple than Whitesnake, but the same with Def Leppard, I couldn’t wait to see them; a guilty pleasure.
It was a big revival in ’09, it was like they picked up Download and took it back to ’85; it was really good.
It’s a great festival, because you can go to a nice quiet tent if you’re chilling out and not interested in Pendulum or whatever, wander off and see something a bit more underground and a bit more unheard of. There were a few of our mate’s bands on the bill as well, so it was pretty cool.
It’s a dream come true really, because everyone wants to play Donington.”
Darrin South (Sacred Mother Tongue – Vocals)
“We were really nervous as it was the biggest gig we’d ever done and we thought we’d try and ‘step it up’ and make it look like we’re a really good band; hopefully that came across as there were a lot of people cheering.
No bottles of piss were thrown, so that was good!
I think th
at there were about 4,000 people, but they all looked small from the stage. But, even then we could see people we know, from little pockets, from all around the country.
There wasn’t a lot of grass, so when I got up there and there wasn’t much grass to be seen, I was happy.”
Andy James (Sacred Mother Tongue - Guitar)
“When we played Donington it was quite a shock really because it was the biggest thing that any of us had ever done. We had all been in other bands and been friends for such a long time, but not all of us in the same band before. The band had only been going since summer 2008, it was quite a shock to be asked to play Donington as it’s pretty a big gig.
We had done some shows with Airbourne in Europe, but people over here still didn’t know much about us and then we played with the Datsuns, which was slightly ‘left field’ of the Donington stuff, but it was kinda good. We then did some shows with Stone Gods which were amazingly good and we’d got the right crowd in there and then some shows with Danko Jones and that was good too and I think from there things kind of grew a little bit and then Download was just amazing.
We were nervous and very wary; more pessimistic than anything else, thinking that it was going to be really shit and that there would be nobody there. When we got there we hadn’t played for a while, we’d toured a little bit a the beginning of the year, but then we hadn’t done any shows since April; we didn’t even do a ‘warm up’ show before Download, so it was like ‘shit what are we going to do?’
The band before us finished and we went out and set up our own gear and it was pretty dead. But we thought that we would go out there and give it our all, it might be our only chance because might not do anything like this again and in six months time we might have been next months chip paper.
We went back into our portakabin and had a whole lot of beer and thought ‘fuck it, let’s go for it’, this could be the biggest chance we had of making an impression on anyone. When we walked out we were all so shocked and just so surprised that the tent was packed. I think everyone got really excited about it, which was quite good and I think that we ended up playing the songs a bit faster than usual, because our adrenaline was going and it was just amazing. I don’t think I have felt anything like it before really, it was just such a weird feeling. I never usually get stage fright or anything like that, sometimes after gigs I get a bit ill because we’re the sort of band who really ‘go for it’ and we mean what we do; I just make myself ill because I really go for it, like it’s maybe the last gig we ever do.
Download did us a lot of favours; we did a great gig, great set, lot of people in there and having that amount of people shouting ‘FUCK YOU’ back at you it was amazing! It was just so bizarre.
I was so nervous and at times you just don’t know what to say. Sometimes I am quite witty, but at the end I said ‘Donington put your noses in the air, take a deep breath and smell the victory of the show’; it was amazing and everyone was just loving it and the band were falling about laughing, they thought that I had learnt that, but it was just an off the cuff comment.
This year was a good mix of bands. We came down on the Saturday afternoon and got to watch Anvil after we played, because they headlined our tent. The Sunday was great as we were looking forward to the bands as lots of them had influenced us. We were looking forward to Def Leppard, Journey and ZZ Top was just the best, they were awesome. It wasn’t the original singer in Journey, but he was ok. Whitesnake were amazing; David Coverdale is worth the money just for his inter song banter, he’s almost like the James Bond of rock, he has so many bits of banter and he’s such a gentleman and so suave that it’s quite funny. All the weekend we had been thinking about what Coverdale was going to say and he said something about ‘The English Riviera’ which had us in tears.”
Pete Spiby (Black Spiders – Vocals / Guitar)
“It was amazing! It was our first time at Download and we didn’t expect to have even nearly a full tent. We walked out on stage and it was packed; we were over the moon about it.
We had an amazing time, the crowd went mental and we couldn’t have asked for a better crowd response it was awesome. We tore the crowd apart at the end with a ‘Wall of Death’ with a twist; me, Jay and Rob jumped the middle and when you jump in the middle, it just ignites the crowd that little bit more. We done it before with just me in the middle, but for Download we thought that we would make it stand out a little bit, it was good fun.
We watched Architects who were incredible and so good, as were Meshuggah. We watched a bit of Steel Panther, but you could hardly get in the tent though; it was packed all around the tent, you could hardly see them. I’m a huge Billy Talent fan and they were awesome.
Overall Download Festival 2009, sweet.”
Marc Halls (Fei Comodo – Vocals)
“We were on the Red Bull stage at 2:30pm on the Sunday afternoon; pretty packed, pretty damn good.
Me, Jay and Marc all got in the ‘Wall of Love’ or ‘Wall of Death’ (or whatever you want to call it) at the end and it was pretty mental.”
Rob Clemson (Fei Comodo – Drums)
“We were really chuffed to be there, because festival crowds are really ‘up for it’. It was really cool. Everyone is usually drunk by midday, so when we played everyone was really into it and it was a great experience.”
Jamie Graham (Sylosis – Vocals)
“It was pretty hilarious, there were a couple of thousand people there and we had an insane circle pit. It was probably the best thing that I have ever seen and done in my life.”
Carl Parnell (Sylosis – Bass)
“I looked forward to seeing Opeth and Faith No More; I would have liked to have seen Motley Crue do ‘Doctor Feelgood’, but they were on the same time as Faith No More and it had to be them.”
Josh Middleton (Sylosis – Guitar)
“I wanted to see Trivium, God Forbid and You Me At Six mainly. I thought that our set was hilarious and great fun. The crowd was much bigger than I thought it would be and we got a massive circle pit. I can’t wait to do another festival really.”
Alex Bailey (Sylosis – Guitar)
“It was an amazing atmosphere and totally different to any other show that we had played.
I then got the drink in and I just got shitfaced for the rest of the day!”
Rob Callard (Sylosis – Drums)
“I was so excited. I had obviously been to festival before as a fan but hadn’t the chance to play before, so this was the most surreal experience of my life and it was absolutely amazing.
It was so good we had a full tent and there were people outside. It was the biggest crowd that we had ever played to and people were all singing along to the words.
We were so excited to see Limp Bizkit, a total party band.”
Scott Kennedy (Bleed From Within – Vocals)
“Download is like a big platform gig and every time you play, you just go up and up and up. To go from the small clubs that we play to this is amazing; we could sometimes play to 20 people and then 100 people the next day, it’s just so ‘hit and miss’. But when I was growing up and I formed a band, people would always say where do you want to play and you would always say ‘Download’.”
Craig Cowans (Bleed From Within – Guitar)
“It was an honour. I only joined the band a couple of months ago and did a couple of tours and Download was the highlight of it. It’s been the best turn out and the crowd was phenomenal.”
Davie Provan (Bleed From Within – Bass)
“Everything was made quite easy for us to get from the van, to the gear, to the stage, so thumbs up to the organisers.
I wouldn’t come to Download had we not been paid, not that I don’t like the festival; it’s just that we are not metal fans.
We shared a shuttle bus with the singer of Down, who used to be in Pantera; he didn’t say anything, but that was cool.
There wasn’t enough beer for us so we went to Asda to stock up on beer, not that we are promoting Asda, but i
t is good at what it does.”
Alex Kershaw (The Computers – Vocals / Guitar)
“It felt a little bit rushed, getting everything to the stage, but to all the people who were organising and directing us I would like to say that they were very helpful, which helps a lot at these events because the last thing you want is some ‘douche bag’ being annoying.
We had about 15 minute’s downtime, while the friends that we had brought along with us set up our kit, whilst we were able to go and get changed into our slacks.
We played and it was fucking great fun; we’d been to Reading before but never Download and we had certainly never played anything that big before.
The sound was awesome, we did have a sound guy but he had to go and do something with Fightstar, so we had the ‘in house’ or ‘in tent’ sound engineer. We had a load of friends at the side of the stage run on every time a pedal got unplugged.
We had an awesome time and the tent was packed. We could see a bunch of our friends from Exeter; Alex our singer said that we were from Devon and then we saw a big Devon flag appear and we could see various friends of ours, faces around, so that was very nice.
Couldn’t wait to see ZZ Top and Journey and we were a bit gutted that The Ghost Of A Thousand didn’t play.
It was really fun.”
Nic Heron (The Computers – Bass)
“It was absolutely incredible! We were there the year before, just to watch bands and we were saying ‘imagine if we played here, imagine next year!’ We obviously didn’t expect it and then suddenly we were playing it and it was one of the best things, to this day, that we have done.
It was the first big gig that we had done and to share such a major festival, with such big bands, it was just incredible, as was the gig itself.