Download Festival

[voorheed]

Anyone else going this year?

[phuej]

Not this year. The line-up seems to be getting weaker by the year. When they announced Rise Against early on, i had high hopes but ultimately there's only been In Flames, Children of Bodom, Amon Amarth, 36 Crazyfists and Cavalera Conspiracy added that are worth seeing.

Now if only the initial rumours that AC/DC and Rammstein were to headline were true...

[Bob Garage]

apart from Testament and Municple waste the line up is weak. and I am not paying downloads stupid prices for two bands that it would normally only cost £15 (at the very most) to see.

And I refuse to go to a festival that puts the lost wankers on as headliners. they are not good enough to be opening the festival, let alone headlining!

[Hatebreed]

Have been for the last 4 years but not this year, really weak line up and is getting more and more mainstream. Organisation is always terrible and the average age is getting less and less. Probably only go in the future if Metallica play.

[Bert Jan]

I heard on the radio when I was in Amerika that ACDC is going to tour again next year... maybe Download next year then? Anyone else heard about a new tour?

[phuej]

Organisation is always terrible and the average age is getting less and less.

I was thinking the same thing but then i've been going to these since i was 15, i think it's just that i'm getting older and still going. Donington 95 was my first festival (i'd been to tons of gigs before but never a festival). People were probably thinking the same thing about me back then. I think it's good there's a new generation but these kids just can't hack it at the front, you spend more time knocking them to the floor and picking them up again than anything else. I could do without Aiden and My Chemical Romance though... and the stupid hair and tight trousers, what's with that?

Is there a GHD van at Download like there is at Leeds? A big queue of children going to have their hair perfected each morning of the festival... why? You sleep in a field, why do you need to look perfect? Maybe this should be in the rant box...

[metmum]

It was better when it was monsters of rock or maybe I think that because I'm an old fart. I think they try to have too many bands on there and it makes for a very weak line up, when they had 1 stage they had to have the best bands around on. Also you could take your own beer in which was always a plus, its gone the way of all the other festivals and its just become about making a huge profit and ripping off the fans (£3 for a bottle of water is never going to be right).

[Bob Garage]

It was better when it was monsters of rock or maybe I think that because I'm an old fart. I think they try to have too many bands on there and it makes for a very weak line up, when they had 1 stage they had to have the best bands around on. Also you could take your own beer in which was always a plus, its gone the way of all the other festivals and its just become about making a huge profit and ripping off the fans (£3 for a bottle of water is never going to be right).

couldn't agree more.

I loved getting off the coach at Donington with a load of beer under my arm, going and finding someone selling one of those "beer bags" (for about 50p) and pooring the lot into it before going in and then carrying your beer round in it for the rest of the day. I also remember when they served both larger and bitter at the beer tents. Can't get a decent pint of bitter at any festival these days! I remember the beer being £1.50 in 95, these days you need a second mortgage to buy beer at Download.

For me, Donington 95 is the perfect example of a fucking fantastic one day festival.... Metallica, Therapy?, Skid Row, Slayer, Slash's Snakepit, White Zombie, Machine Head, Warrior Soul, Corrosion of Conformity and Krusher as the MC. Apart from Warrior Soul you couldn't fault the line up and it was well worth the £26 to get in. I think I payed under £40 which included the coach from Wolverhampton and back again. This years Download your paying 6 times that price for a much weaker line up (even if it is over 3 days). Even Reading on just the Sunday this year is 3 times that price

And its not just us getting old, Monsters of Rock was far better organised than Download could ever hope to be. You never had bottle necks when trying go into or out of the arena and once everyone was on the coaches it was fairly quick to leave the site. In recent years at Download its taken almost an hour just to get out of the arena after the show, we didn't leave the car park one year until 5am (the show finished at 11 - but it wasn't too bad, snow was driving so I slept in the back of his car haha). And as you said we were allowed to take beer into the arena, even if in later years it had to be dispensed into plastic bottles or "beer bags" at least you didn't have to pay over inflated prices.

We haven't been to all the Downloads since it started we only went in 2003, 04 and 06 (and even then it was only on day tickets - we never camped after the disaster that was ozzfest at Donington in 02). But every year I've been I've seent he organisation of the event degrade, the bottle necks get bigger, and the prcies of everything go through the roof. I really hope Metallica never play the festival again as I really don;t want to go back there.

[voorheed]

Ahh right. I'm sure Monsters of Rock would have been awesome, but I'm just not old enough to have been to them

The lineup might be a bit weaker but there's still quite a few I want to see. Just hope I don't die watching The Dillinger Escape Plan...

[eye-of-sanity]

I would have gone but methinks they blow their budget on kiss alone lol
decided to go to Rock am Ring instead,fucking awesome,espeically rage and tallica.Inlcuding all the flights n shit,it was still cheaper than download!