Sunday
June 10
Sunday
is the day of rest! Not at Download, here it is the day of blacker than
blacker, heavier than lead metal (and, shamefully, Evanescence –
but more about that later).
The heaviest sounds are set to blast from every stage (Orange Goblin,
Napalm Death, Dimmu Borgir) which raises the question – what are
nu-metal pansies Papa
Roach doing on the main stage? ‘I didn’t know
they were still going!’, I hear someone ask. My only thought is
that they shouldn’t be. Just who their watered down pop-rap-metal,
aural dung appeals to is anyone’s guess. Still their big (and
only) hit ‘Last Resort’ is a nice, appealing pop tune, but
it brings back memories of wanting to murder the people playing it over
and over again in my uni halls.
So, Papa Roach to me are the sound of annoyance, confusion and murder.
I can feel
my brain caving in at the sheer earth-moving clout of Mastodon.
Description and analysis seem futile in the wake of experiencing their
monolithic prog-metal assault. Intricate jazz drum patterns, off-kilter
time-changes and samples surge through chugging gargantuan riffs to
produce overpoweringly dense soundscapes that could have been spewed
from the bowels of hell. With the wind bouncing the sound around the
main arena, I can’t help but feel there’s more to be heard
the aural collage, but still Mastodon lay waste to everything in their
path.
Lamb
of God….aren’t cute or particularly Godly,
what they are is unrelentingly loud. The Virginian five-piece bring
a full metallic maelstrom, their groove-driven, metalcore dropping a
huge slab of aggression on Donington Park. ‘Black Label’
is 100% proof ‘Pure American Metal’ at its brutal finest.
Putting
whiny ballad-rockers Evanescence
in the second-highest slot is a controversial move. Singer Amy Lee knows
this all too well as she keeps trying to justify her presence –
‘We belong here’, ‘We rock hard’ and other such
try-hard announcements just draw further attention to the fact that
they really DON’T belong here.
Evanescence peddle the kind of self-indulgent, wanky pop-balladry that
touches a nerve with middle-class kids who sit and cry about having
‘a hard life’ whilst cutting themselves because daddy asked
them to hoover the lounge. It’s emotional music for people who
have no reason to be emotional. A few rockin’ riffs and breakbeats
can’t disguise the fact that this music is no different to ‘Unbreak
My Heart’ by Toni Braxton (or insert your own horrible love ballad
here). Lee looks nice and sings well, but you can polish shit all you
like, but the end result is always the same….shit.
There are
few bands more deserving of headlining Download than Iron
Maiden. After all they are a metal institution who are
as much a part of Donington’s history as the race track. Playing
25 years after the release of seminal album ‘Number of The Beast’
Maiden have something to prove, which they do effortlessly. Bruce Dickinson
is on fine form, egging on the crowd with every note - one massive ball
of performance energy.
Revolving back-drops change the scene for every song, which sees Maiden
preaching the gospel of metal from a gothic altar. Classics ‘The
Trooper’, ‘Fear of The Dark’, ‘WrathChild’
and ‘Number of the Beast’ turns the crowd into the Maiden-vocal-choir
them vocalising every note.
As a finale the stage set turns into a giant tank with mascot Eddie
surveying the crowd from his gun turret and it’s over….Maiden
once again have blown Donington away.
by Chris
Marks
Friday
Saturday
