Download Festival, Donington Park – Day 3: Sunday 16th June 2024

21 June 2024

The rain that has fallen over the past two days has turned the Donington turf into a quagmire. In fact, all that’s needed are horses pulling heavy artillery and this could quite easily be the Somme, 1917. Subsequently, the gates are opened two hours late as the site is made safe, but it’s still treacherous underfoot with the mud taking on the quality of quicksand and makes traversing between stages seem like an epic quest, yet with a full day of rock and metal ahead we get straight down to business.

Delilah Bon – Download Festival – 15th June 2024

The delayed start time means the schedule has to be shuffled a little and while UK artist Delilah Bon wasn’t on our watch list, we’re sure glad we stumbled upon their performance in the Avalanche tent. Powered by righteous indignation and giving voice to those marginalised in society, Delilah Bon is a riotous explosion of sight and sound, and one that demands your full attention. Showing no signs of being flummoxed by the late start, Delilah Bon really stomp on it and provide a tonic to lift the crowd’s spirits. With a UK tour planned for September, Delilah Bon should definitely be on your watch list…and I plan on seeing you there.

Cemetery Sun – Download Festival – 15th June 2024

Cemetery Sun came together in 2013 with a desire to blend alternative rock, post-punk and electro R&B and serve them up as delicious songs. It’s a remit that the Californian quartet filled and they deliver a platter filled with delicious songs with ‘FLY’ being particularly well received and gets the whole venue clapping in unison. Vocalist Josh Doty sings with a lot of emotion and his words reverberate throughout the tent, yet it would be unfair to single out any one member of the band because they lock in tightly and display the kind of chemistry that occurs only once in a lifetime. With songs that attach themselves to the cranium like leeches, Cemetery Sun won’t be forgotten in a hurry.

It’s always strange seeing certain bands in the daylight; Alice Cooper at 2006 Monsters Of Rock springs to mind; the Prince Of Darkness performing in bright sunlight didn’t seem quite right, so I was interested to see how Creeper, who share a similar dark aesthetic would fare. The answer, it transpires, is very well. Anyone familiar with the history of shock rock will recognise elements in Creeper, yet don’t mistake the band for mere copyists because they bring a freshness to the table and if proof were needed just listen to opener ‘Cry To Heaven’ (which actually causes the clouds to part and lets a little sun shine through). Vocalist Will Gould certainly looks the part, and he sounds it too, and that’s the beauty of Creeper: you get the feeling that if you stripped away all the corpse paint and gothic imagery, there’d still be plenty of substance here and my only real complaint is that their six song set is too darn short.

Slayer main man Kerry King makes a welcome return to Donington Park, and he has brought with him the solid crew who helped to illuminate his recent solo album From Hell I Rise (reviewed here). However, it seems that you can take the man out of Slayer but you can’t taker Slayer out the man and the songs contained on his solo album show just what a big impact he had on that band. Yet, Kerry King isn’t resting on past glories and opening blast ‘Where I Reign’ places him firmly in the present. With Death Angel singer Mark Osegueda at the helm, the band have a big personality at the forefront and he confidently commandeers centre stage, seemingly intent on making contact with all present. As with Slayer, there’s a certain dependability to Kerry King, you know he’s not going to go soft and slip a ballad in or anything and he hits us with ‘Toxic’ and ‘Residue’, each song connecting like a well-aimed punch. Two Slayer cuts (‘Raining Blood’, ‘Black Magic’) make a welcome appearance before the title-track from his latest album finds the band departing in a tight ball of aggression.

With their boundless enthusiasm and unbridled energy, it is hard not to like California’s Zebrahead. They kind of remind me of a ska-infused, punky Sick Of It All and they share a lot of similarities in terms of how they approach a live show, and no more so that in terms of crowd participation. Vocalist Ali Tabatabaee constantly riles up the crowd and instigates a wall of death, crowd serving and plenty of circle pits. They’ve brought the California sunshine with them, along with new song ‘I Have Mixed Drinks About Feelings’ for which a video is shot and only adds to the overarching feeling of insanity. It’s all quite bonkers (in the best possible way, of course) and makes for an eight song set that will live long in the memory.

Now celebrating their 30th anniversary, Texas loons Bowling For Soup aren’t showing any signs of slowing down and their perpetual motion is best exemplified by opening song ‘Girl All The Bad Guys Want’. A track from their 2002 album Drunk Enough To Dance, it is a buoyant beast and one that sets the tone for the coming fifty minutes. With boundless energy the band bounce around the stage like Weebles (and they never fall down) and unleash all sorts of goodness with ‘High School Never Ends’ and ‘The Bitch Song’ following in quick succession, both of which find the band (and crowd) in good voice. A cover of Wheatus’ ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ sets pulses racing and when Wheatus main man Brendan B. Brown makes an appearance to add his vocals to proceedings, well, it’s time to break out the defibrillator. A cover of SR-71’s ‘1985’ makes for an arresting closer and ensures the band bow out on a high.

Crystal Lake – Download Festival – 15th June 2024

Such is the buzz surrounding Crystal Lake that even their soundcheck gets a huge cheer from the assembled throng that’s already here and waiting for their set to begin in earnest. When the band return and blast out the chords, things go off the dial; this is a heads down, no-nonsense brand of metalcore that takes things to the extreme. ‘Prometheus’ is the first track, it’s razor sharp and cuts the air like a steely knife. The band radiates energy and it’s highly contagious with many present wrecking havoc in the pit. New vocalist John Robert Centorrino has made the microphone his own and latest single ‘BlüdGod’ signposts a very bright future. Short, but sweet, this set leaves all present hungry for more.

If it’s really true that Canadian rockers Sum 41 will be disbanding early next year then it will be a sad day for music, but as this final run of shows proves, they’ll be bowing out in style. In fact, the world would be a better place if more bands retired in their prime rather than leaving a bloated caricature in their wake. Today’s set is a nice mixture of pogo-inducing punk tracks and hard rockers (it’s a duality best exemplified by their recent album Heaven :x: Hell) but in whatever guise they appear they are putting plenty of smiles on plenty of faces. It’s hard for an ageing punk band to keep playing with the energy they expended in their teens, but Sum 41 are doing a grand job with vocalist Deryck Whibley being particularly animated. Using AC/DC’s ‘T.N.T.’ as an intro is indicative of the band’s love of classic rock (as is a cover of Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’) and when T.N.T. morphs into ‘Motivation’ things really get interesting. There’s no dip in energy levels and ‘Fat Lip’ and ‘Still Waiting’ make the perfect closing couplet and leaves us feeling that we’ve seen something special.

In modern metal music there’s probably no band as controversial as Limp Bizkit. Just their feuds with other bands could fill an entire book, so we should turn our attention to their music and what today’s set reveals is a bunch of songs of which most artists would kill for. Rapping and scratching over nu-metal beats was always going to be a winner and when you factor in the curve balls Limp Bizkit do, you have a live show like no other. Throwing in a sample of Oasis’ ‘Wonderful’ initiates a huge sing along whilst a sample of George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ is just plain surreal (and probably the only time you’ll hear it at Download) and Limp Bizkit are probably the only band who could get away with pulling such a trick. In between the surrealism we get classic cuts such as ‘Hot Dog’ and ‘My Generation’, but all performed in a unique way and it is this elasticity that gives Limp Bizkit a unique edge which makes for a one of a kind show.

The great thing about heavy metal is that it’s apolitical, so it’s disheartening that some bands have dropped out for “political” reasons; it kind of goes against the spirit of metal, but on the plus side there’s been some stellar replacements, and one such beauty is Connecticut deathcore band Shadow Of Intent. In Bryce Butler the band have a powerhouse of a drummer and one who plays so fast you fear he might explode. Raw, visceral and full of rage, this quartet set the Dogtooth stage ablaze and I’m mighty glad I wandered into their incendiary performance and judging by the huge swirling pit, it transpires I’m not the only one. New cut ‘Flying The Black Flag’ is a beast of a song and one that spits fire. Such is the power of Shadow Of Intent that the silence that follows their set is positively deafening and makes this another set that’ll live long in the memory.

Machine Head (or Machine “Fucking” Head as the backdrop says) are true metal titans and deserve some much overdue credit for keeping heavy metal alive throughout the 1990’s. With a deep discography, it’s a hard job trying to pick a set list, someone is always going to be disappointed, yet tonight works because Machine Head spread their bets and pull ten tracks from seven albums and when the band open with a crushing version of ‘Imperium’ nobody has any complaints. Robb Flynn is in fine voice and with long flowing beard looks like the elder statesman of metal. The band’s history has been categorised by a constant flux in line-up with Robb being the only consistent, yet this seems to have kept the band rejuvenated and this incarnation of the band certainly play the part. With flames licking the stage the penultimate ‘Davidian’ causes all sorts of havoc and sets things up nicely for closer ‘Halo’. Machine “Fucking” Head, indeed.

Coming to prominence in an area more know for hardcore punk (Huntington Beach, California), tonight’s headliners Avenged Sevenfold have always gone against the grain and it has given them a steely determination that has helped them navigate the ups and downs of the music industry. It has also provided a freedom which has seen them constantly evolve musically over a career that’s spanned twenty five years. From the brutal metalcore of their debut album to the avant garde approach of 2023’ Life Is But A Dream… Avenged Sevenfold have been in perpetual motion and that’s precisely the aesthetic they bring to tonight’s show. Using Kavinsky’s ‘Nightcall’ as an intro tape sets just the right amount of tension and the spell is finally broken when the band appear and launch into ‘Game Over’. It’s the cue for all present to go nuts, and that’s precisely what the crowd do. With the stage bathed in ice blue light the band unleash the one-two punch of ‘Mattel’ and ‘Afterlife’ and make any questions about this year’s headliners look irrelevant and trivial. As you might expect, the body of this set is culled from the band’s latest album, but there’s still room for lots of fan favourites with all their long players being represented (apart from the debut Sounding The Seventh Trumpet). There’s plenty of crowd participation (such as on ‘Nightmare’) and this creates an inclusive affair; while those outside might be trying to sow division, inside Donington Park we are all one family united by a love of heavy music in all its shades and colours. ‘Cosmic’ makes for a cataclysmic conclusion and one which caps a perfect weekend.

With the new, fresh feel to Download it seems it is finally time to toast the past and look forward to the future. What d’ya say?