by Ian Carroll
On the day that we played, we didn’t have too much promo, but we were obviously setting up, but we got to watch Architects, who were are big fans of and they blew us away and Faith No More. We also caught our friends band Jett Black.
We were walking around Donington when it was empty, before we soundchecked, which was before the 80,000 people turned up.
It was just incredible; it’s the best festival.”
Ben Jolliffe (Young Guns – Drums)
“It was absolutely awesome; it was amazing.
First of all, when we played the tent, it wasn’t that full, but by the second song there were quite a few rows there, a load of ‘metal horns’ in the air and everyone was loving it. There were quite a lot of people singing along to all the words, which was quite weird and I didn’t expect that at all; MySpace is helping us out ‘big time’!
I really wanted to see Motley Crue and Duff McKagan, but our sets clashed with theirs, but I did get to see Faith No More and they were amazing when they played ‘Epic’.”
Robb Wybrow (New Device – Guitar)
“I had come to the Download Festival for the last 4 years and seen all my favourite bands, including Motley Crue and Buckcherry. It’s got an amazing atmosphere, way better than other festivals because everyone seems to be on the same page.
It’s quite diverse in sense of style; Friday they had Hollywood Undead rapping, Slipknot on Saturday and then Def Leppard playing on Sunday, complete opposites.
I think that everyone gets something out of everyone band as well, it’s one of the most diverse audiences and there doesn’t appear to be any ‘slagging off’ of bands or empty stages; it’s a wicked place.
We played the Red Bull stage and it was wicked. It was awesome to be a part of it.”
Rozzy Ison (New Device – Drums)
“Certainly I’m a bit younger; at only 23 I am part of the Download generation, however our guitarist Stevie had been coming to Monsters Of Rock since before our drummer was born, so we have a lot of Donington history.
I came for the past 5 years. The first time I came my friend won tickets in a bar and he asked if I wanted to go, I said yes and have been hooked since then, coming every year.
We came in 2007 with a few guys from the band. Some people knew who we were and asked ‘are you going to be playing next year?’ and we said ‘I hope so’, but then we didn’t. So we came last year and people again asked ‘are you going to be playing next year?’ and again we said ‘I hope so’. So then we started pasting on the boards and then it all fell into place.
Our drummer is our booking agent; we don’t have a manager or a big fancy agent or a label; so it’s just hard work and persistence really. We just kept getting on Andy Copping’s back and saying ‘Andy, Andy, Andy, come and let us play? Andy, Andy, Andy, Andy, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, come and let us play?’
To be fair our drummer pulled a bit of a fast one on us really, because he came to us and said ‘we’ve been offered this gig in Margate, some mini festival in September or something, are you up for it’ and of course we said yes. Then he said ‘we’ve also got an email from a guy about a gig on 13th June’ and I was like ‘dude don’t be stupid, that’s Download’ then he came back with ‘yeah that’s what the guy called it Download’, so there was plenty of excitement then. We were one of the last bands to get announced, so we had waited a while to get the nod finally.
But it was really good with the times and nobody really clashed with us and we got a really good crowd and we were really pleased. The doors had opened at 10am and we were on at 1:30pm, so there was plenty of time for everybody to get in and get involved, shaking off the drunken haze of the Friday night. It was the first big festival show that we had done and there were people from all over the place that had come to see us on some of the tours that we had done with bands like Black Stone Cherry. There were people from Ireland, Scotland and down south; so we have fans from all over the country and it was good just to get them all together.
We stayed the whole weekend, trying to see as many bands as we could. All our friends were here and people from friends bands and it was a good way to see lots of bands that you would not normally see.”
Mikey Serpico (Serpico – Vocals)
“It was one of the highlights of the bands and one of the concerts that we have always wanted to play since the band has been together. It was the smallest stage at the festival that we were playing on, so we had gone in at the start of the day to check it out. We had noticed that the crowd was a bit sparse for some of the early bands, so we were a bit concerned that we weren’t going to get much of an attendance.
We were well rehearsed for it and we treated it like we do with any other gig. Then it was ‘show time’ and the guys that we have working with us put all our stuff on the stage, then we get the call and we walked onto the stage and the place was absolutely full. It was a fantastic response even before we’d played a note, just an explosion of noise.
I got quite emotional; I could see all these faces that I recognised from all over the country, from Birmingham, Manchester and Scotland, who had come to see us before; we had a relatively short set, about ½ an hour.
It was a great honour to play Download in the first place, but to have all these people supporting us and considering we don’t really have a record label, it was amazing.
So that was it, we came off the show and we were on an absolute high, bumping into these amazing people who you’d had posters of, up on your wall for all these years; Def Leppard, Journey, Brian May and Anita Dobson!”
Kenny Collins (Logan – Vocals)
“The one thing that I have to mention was that we had not soundcheck, sound engineers that we hadn’t met before and we weren’t using our own gear and we walked onstage worrying about it, but the sound was absolutely fantastic; the best sound we’ve ever had. Both the front of house sound and the onstage sound was phenomenal. So I have to ‘shout out’ to the Download tech guys because the sound was incredible.”
Mick Coll (Logan – Guitar)
“I thought it went really well.
We had played an acoustic set with Black Stone Cherry earlier that week in the Gibson Showroom and I think on the day at Download our sets overlapped by about a quarter of an hour, so I thought ‘Oh my god, people are going to watch them over us’.
So I didn’t look onstage until we went on, so I ran out there and it was full right to the edge of the tent.
We didn’t get a soundcheck, just a line check, but the sound was really good and it was amazing.
I think Journey was playing after we played and we were watching that guy who they found off You Tube, he must have been stoked!
We filmed a music video the weekend before, played the Isle Of Mann TT on the Tuesday, had one day off and then came down to Download, stayed all weekend and played on Sunday, staying to watch Def Leppard; it was the best week that I’ve had for many a year.”
Will Stapleton (JETTBLACK – Vocals / Guitar)
“We got told that we were playing about a month before it happened. We had grown up on the music of Monsters of Rock, so we were just so happy to be playing there. We played on one of the smaller stages and we were up against some big names, Black Stone Cherry were playing the same time as us on the Sunday afternoon and they are very popular; so we just thought that we would see how it goes.
When we turned up it was amazing weather and the other guys had been there all weekend; there were Tesla, Skin and Journey playing that day. But when we came out the tent was pretty much packed; to say that we ‘won them over’ may seem a bit arrogant, but I think we did. The tent was packed right to the back.
We came onstage and said that we didn’t want to call it Download, today was going to be Monsters of Rock and it was wicked. An amazing day.
It was one of the best gigs that we have ever played and definitely the best gig that we played that year. Everything was perfect, the weather, all the bands that were playing were great, and it was fuckin
g amazing.”
Tom Wright (JETTBLACK – Bass)
“I was quite disappointed with the line-up in 2008, but I went this year as a punter and it was quite funny watching Limp Bizkit, Korn and Faith No More; it brought me back to ’97 and it was like ‘fuck I’m old now’.”
Nuno Miguel (Sons Of Albion – Guitar)
“I returned to Download for the first time in 21 years in 2009. We shot some shows there for my ‘VH1 Classic’ program.
It was great to be back and see how much the festival has grown and changed. One of the things I always loved was the diverse rock lineup and how the fans are so open to all kinds of music on the same bill.
Had the chance to introduce Tesla on the main stage in 2009 and we accidentally walked off stage with singer Jeff Keith's vocal mic, leaving him essentially naked on stage as his band played!
It’s a remarkably well run event for its size and I also love the community vibe backstage in the artist village.”
Eddie Trunk (VH1 Classic DJ )
“Another new site. More competition - Sonisphere, being run by former Download head honcho Stuart Galbraith.
This year the site was much better - to the south, plenty big and with that sense of Donington ‘epicness’.
Andy Copping had done good this year - brokering a Faith No More reunion, snagging Slipknot and putting on a classic rock Sunday that featured no less than two former Monsters Of Rock headliners on the main stage.”
Phil Hull (Download Forum Administrator)
“I think Staind are a cool band but was a bit disappointed they didn’t play ‘It’s Been A While’ it was still a good set. Being in a crowd of people who knew the words to ‘Outside’ was just something.
The Faith No More set again on Friday mainstage was very good and they played almost everything I wanted them to play including the classic Commodores number ‘Easy’ another crowd pleasing sing-a-long song.
On Saturday I was pleased to see The Prodigy were back on top. Their set was cracking. I have seen The Prodigy play a few pretty bad gigs at festivals in the past but this was not one of them.
On Sunday I pretty much stayed at the main stage to watch Def Leppard Whitesnake, ZZ Top and Journey. The ZZ Top set was superb as was Journey.
The best band I saw though had to be Steel Panther in the Turborg Tent. I saw their posters around the site during the day and at first thought they were advertising a new Will Ferrell film. But how great are they!? Awesome!! With songs like ‘Asian Hooker’ and ‘Party All Day’!
I was still a little disappointed that Will couldn’t make it though, but may be next year.”
Mike Horton (Plymouth)
“So, I go to a club in Plymouth every week and listen to my favourite bands and know a lot of people.
Download released the confirmed bands for Download Festival and I got very excited. Faith No More and Slipknot as headliners ‘hell yes I’m going to be there!’
So I come up with the idea of all going up in convoy. A big group of us met up at the start place (local superstore at the beginning of the journey). We all went in and bought our booze and alcohol I made up two cd’s one of which has a song from bands that are playing at the festival and one that will generally get everyone in the mood for a long journey and get the heads banging so of course I had to put ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on. Then we agreed to meet up halfway for a stretch, so we did.
We got to Download and set up camp.
There are a few main highlights of the festival first of all; all the people we came up with in convoy met up everyday and we stayed in one big group, then one scary moment was the day we moved over to the second stage to see Static X. The whole crowd ducked for cover and ran like hell because a swarm of bees had decided to swarm through the crowd. Later we heard that there was a nest before the stage was built up and they had smoked them away but the bees had decided to return which was pretty scary!
Second highlight had to be everyone trying to build a human pyramid next to us on the last day it was amazing, it got to eight people high.
The experience and feeling I get from Download Festival is a feeling of people coming together sharing a passion for music meeting new people from all sides of the globe.”
Tish Crutchley (Plymouth)
“The day I met...Dimebag Darrell. the look alike
I was heavily drunk on Thursday 11th June, walking around with Gaymers Cider in one hand a camera in the other, till I shouted really loud ‘OMG DIMEBAG DARREL CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD, OMFG!!’!
The sheer momentum of bliss wept my mind, the guitar messiah had been resurrected.
I took a photo and bragged it to everyone in the village saying how he was alive. Lol I have no idea who’s the dude with him was...probably the sound technician.”
Kira Concept09girl (London)
“Download 2009 was for me my first ever festival experience and has to be one of the best moments of my life and I’m only 18. I went with my 3 friends Callum, Josh and Starkie and there we just made so many more, everyone there was so friendly and was always up for a laugh, as long as there was alcohol involved of course.
The days just became so random and you never knew what was going to happen, I remember one time this guy casually walked into our area where we were camped tied to a camping chair, he couldn’t even speak because someone had taped his mouth shut, it was hilarious, we had to run round and scavenge to find something to cut him loose and all we could find at the time was a plastic knife so we just had to rip through it, the marks he had on him afterwards were crazy.
The lineup for this year I thought was amazing, I still can’t pick which my favourite day out of the weekend was with my personal favourite performance of Korn on the Friday which I thought was the best of the weekend, they just got the crowd moving so well, I knew every song, we all just loved it.
Not to mention bands like Killswitch, Billy Talent and Bizkit just sweetened the deal so much more.
The Saturday on the other hand was just as good, with an early ‘ish start to the day for us with Five Finger Death Punch, who being one of my favourite bands made my day straight away and it was barely midday then to move on straight after to Devildriver who's meet the wretched circle pit was immense, the sheer size of it blew everyone away, so much we had to take a break for a while. We watched Hatebreed and Down from a distance instead of being in the middle of it, to then appear back in the crowd for Manson and Slipknot. Slipknot were also quite an amazing band this year, with already seeing them once before I knew what was coming but it was even better than I expected especially for the ‘Spit It Out’ ending, for the whole crowd of thousands to kneel down and "jump the fuck up", it was amazing to even see it, never mind being a part of it, it took so much out of us.
My friend had to buy about 5 bottles of coke to survive afterwards, not caring about the prices for once.
Sunday was more of a relaxed day for us, with me and Josh waking up somehow at 7 in the morning after going to sleep at 5 and finding that someone was asleep in one of our left out camping chairs so that was quite a funny start to the day. We then managed to walk over to the cafeteria and actually have a proper meal for once to keep us going although the constant cooking of noodles kept me happy most of the time.
Sunday I thought wasn’t as good for me with the bands, I mean Shinedown put on a great show, Roach were really good too and Trivium were amazing
It was unfortunate we had to leave half way through Trivium's set to go home but only seeing half of it made our day.
So overall I thought it was a great life experience and we're definitely coming back. Roll on Download 2010.”
Simon James Ward (Garforth, Leeds)
“First time at Download was in 2009 and what a great venue and atmosphere. My early images of this festival were Monster’s of Rock, when I got myself a copy of Whitesnake, Live in concert 1983, Monsters of Rock, Castle Donington on Video. My son Alex and I left at 4.20 am to get on the road and arrived at our sleepover for 9.
30am. We shared a Taxi with other first timers to Download, who had travelled from Cumbria. We were looking forward to see Journey, ZZ Top and Whitesnake. It was worth the travel and great sunshine, to enjoy the classics of Rock. Can’t wait for 2010.” Mark (the Redrocker) Jewitt & Alexander (the Pear Cider) Jewitt (Plymouth)
“During Download 2009, I think one of the highlights for me was inside the village, on the Sunday night.
Just bought a Dominos Pizza to share with a friend. As we sat down to eat, some guy literally just in his Y-Fronts and wasted, was being dragged out from the Fairground by two guys. To top this all of, he had the skids! Was really unexpected and pretty hilarious, then I thought to my self, ‘Only at Download!”
Ben Calloway (Wolverhampton)
“2009 was my first year, so I thought I'd be prepared, packed a hex stove and some super noodles.
Thursday morning we woke up at 5 am (no idea why!) and the guys went back to bed, but I sat in the sun to read. Before long I started to get hungry so, thinking it was lunch time, started to cook up some noodles on the little fuel block...
Wondering why I'm getting all these strange looks, my fiancé came out of the tent coz he could smell chicken, and wondered who the hell was cooking lunch at 9 in the morning!
I honestly didn't realise that Donington had a different time zone when you've been drinking and was so 'jet lagged' I thought it was lunch time!”
Alley Payne (Farnham)
“The highlight of 2009 however was Def Leppard and how surprisingly great they were live and everyone shouting ‘Buttscratcher!’”
Charlotte 'Coxy' Cox (Portsmouth)
“Download 2009 was my first ever festival and one of the best times I’ve ever had. By Sunday the camp site was like a beer can grave yard. The chaotic mess of download stands out to me.
5 days of no washing, no hair brushing the lack of rules and hygiene.”