Download Festival

Thursday - We decided to head down to the site on Thursday. Dom had stayed Wednesday night, so we loaded the car and got going. We were parked quite a way from the arena and the campsites. We had to carry loads of stuff and it took us about an hour to get to our spot. Very annoying. Then we went back to get food and drink and forgot the car keys, realising this only when we got to the car. This meant another trip. Three trips to the campsite and back in a day in the boiling sun was not fun. But we got very drunk to make up for it.

Friday - The music kicked off and we went to see Throwdown and Soil before heading back to the campsite for a bit. Later we headed back in for Deftones and finally Tool. Tool was an experience, needless to say, a few smokes helped. I don't know a lot of Tool, but it was absolutely amazing. Bizzarely the planes coming in to land overhead at the nearby airport were well timed and really added some extra noise to the performance. Very impressive and one of my Top 3 live performances.

Saturday - This was the day I'd been waiting for. We got up and ate, then sat about in the sun until 1pm. Then we headed into the arena and watched the England game at 2pm on a massive screen with loads of other people. England beat Paraguay 1-0! In the background I could see and hear Arch Enemy, Alice in Chains and Stonesour, all pretty good. Once that was over we headed to the main stage and watched Avenged Sevenfold and Trivium, both excellent. We found out later that Korn's singer was ill and in hospital, so they had guest singers come on and sing with the band, interesting and unique, but I'd rather have seen Korn. Finally Metallica came out. They played an absolutely stunning set for 2 and a half hours, including (as it's the 20th anniversary of the album) Master of Puppets from start to finish. It was very very cool. We also got very drunk after that.

Sunday - Sunday was a lazy day after the two days before. We'd decided to head off that night so packed everything up and carried it all to the car before heading into the arena. We started out on the main stage watching In Flames, who were cool. The lead singer was Swedish and said he was going to make a big speech about how Sweden were going to kick our ass in the football, but then he'd seen them playing yesterday and changed his mind, he now wants England to win so at least one swede can lift the Trophy!

Unfortunately we'd missed Dragonforce as we were carrying stuff to the car at the time, but Dom and Matt had caught the end. It was incredibly hot on Sunday, so we decided to find some shade. Luckily there was a fair bit right next to the Snickers Stage. We could clearly hear the stage as we were only about 50 metres away from the stage, but outside the tent. We heard Aiden, Hundred Reasons, Eighteen Visions, Alexisonfire, then the Prodigy! After that we headed to the main stage to check out Guns 'N Roses. All I can say is, I was disappointed. We watched about 40 mins, then got bored and decided to leave early to miss the traffic.

We stopped at Donnington Services on the way home for a cooked meal, where I lost my wallet. After keeping on to it for the whole weekend! I didn't realise till Monday though, so I have no idea where it is. Bit of a bummer, but still an excellent weekend!

Just found out there were some problems on Sunday night, makes me glad we left early!