Download Festival - Donington Park - June 2007 - Day 2

Bands:

Turisas - They sounded really cool, all symphonic power metal with painted faces and warrior get up; but I wanted to wander round so only caught like two of their songs ... I'm going to check them out based on what I saw though.

Malpractice - Had never heard of them before, will def. be checking them out now though … apparently the lead guy is a world class drum n' bass DJ, and although this was fairly ordinary alternative rock, it was done so well that I curtailed my wanderings to watch the rest of their set. Therefore I'll give them 3+/5

HellYeah – Straight up metal's always good of course, and it was cool seeing Vinnie Paul, but it was just basically very generic Pantera / Machine Head style metal but without any of the distinctive riffs that those bands came up with. "Can I get a Hell yeah?!" did become one of the quotes of the festival though, so I have to give them that. 3+/5 sounds about right.

Eliot Minor – Well, their last song at any rate. Which happened to be Parallel Worlds, the only song of theirs I know. Which is cool. Sorta hard to describe them, like a pop punk / alternative rock hybrid with some classical music, choir-style harmonies, and what sounds like a bit of an Iron Maiden influence thrown in for good measure.

Damone – Pretty cool female-fronted sleaze rock, good but nothing spectacular … their guitarist was cool though from what I remember. 3/5 will do the trick.

Bring Me The Horizon – Probably saw about half a song before I got pissed off and left

Aiden - Yeah, so they're just really a very watered down AFI, but they've got some alright songs, good energy, and watching the frontman kick and punch the cups being thrown their way out of mid air was entertaining. I'd much rather see AFI … for a start Davey Havok probably wouldn't advocate punching the person next to you in the face … but it was an OK way to kill half an hour. 3/5

Beyond All Reason – Like two and a half songs, although again one of these was the one I know, Love Crossed Pistols … they were pretty good, dunno quite why Kerrang was comparing them to Bullet For My Valentine, they're more of a modern hard rock band, and the singer has quite a falsetto on him. Don't think I saw enough to really rate.

30 Seconds To Mars – Yeah, they were good. As I texted various people, Jared Leto's hair is now too long for him to look like Dan (explanatory note: my friend Dan looks almost exactly like Jared Leto does in the videos for The Kill and From Yesterday). Apart from that, they gave a good performance of most of the main songs from their new album (although From Yesterday was conspicuous by it's absence), and I don't have a lot more to say than that! 3+/5

Bowling For Soup – Actually a lot better, and funnier, than I thought they'd be! Funny onstage banter, fun songs played well, and even a bit of a punk classics medley at the end. I thought they'd be lame … I'll admit, I was wrong! 3+/5

Machine Head - I'm not even familiar with much of their material (I only actually know Davidian, Imperium, and Aesthetics of Hate … must listen to more), but they were IMMENSE. Even watching from a bit of a distance, I felt as though they were tearing the place apart. Not much in the way of visual performance perhaps, but still utterly massive. 4/5, would probably be higher if I'd known more of the songs.

My Dying Bride – Only caught the very end of their set, and knew nothing of them … they seem to be a rather cool doom/goth band though, doesn't seem appropriate for a summer festival but it kind of worked in the tent. Should check out some of their stuff

Slayer - Only saw a few songs ... think they're a bit disappointing live actually. From what I could tell the setlist was near identical to their Reading one last year (including not playing Angel Of Death), and I dunno, it just felt as though it could have been exactly the same show. Not much of a sense of occasion then. Didn't really see enough to rate them properly, but needless to say Machine Head won the metal battle today.

Marilyn Manson – Actually seemed a bit subdued, lots of costume changes and lots of props, but beyond stalking the stage singing into a knife-shaped microphone, not much in the way of performance. Setlist featured a surprising amount of songs from his new album (about 6, some of which worked, some not so much), mixed in with pretty much the same setlist from Reading two years ago. Plus, the circle pit right next to me was distracting. Good performance, but Reading '05 was better, and I'd imagine 5 to 10 years ago might have been a lot better. He can have 4/5 anyway

Motley Crue – Again the tent was jam – packed, but by wandering around it I managed to get several different, marginally OK views (although none of these views let me see Tommy Lee until he came forward to get the crowd to pass back a bottle of Jagermeister each taking a shot from it). Now Motley Crue are obviously more sleazy and "cool" than their obvious peers in Bon Jovi and Def Leppard, and are more of a 'band' than what GnR has become, but they don't seem to have aged nearly as well, and their back catalogue is far less consistent IMO. So what we got here was a mixture of good rock songs, good ballads, not so good rock songs, and not so good ballads; with Vince Neil running out of breath too frequently to do the songs proper justice; Mick Mars barely moving, and for the most part the only non-drumming hint of Tommy Lee being him trying to sound gangsta … oh, and only one song played that actually came out in the last 15 years. So although the Crue are still pretty cool in their own way, they've become too much of a nostalgia band; which is part of why I prefer those other bands I mentioned. I guess they can have a 4/5 though.

Linkin Park – Saw their very last song, Faint. Sounded pretty good, I'm impressed Chester Bennington can recreate that screaming live. Also, the fact it was their last song means they must have also finished earlier than billed. Lame. That was about it.