We arrived at Donnington in a blaze of sunshine, popped up
our tent, made ourselves at home, kicked up a barbeque, cracked open the cider
and sipped at it with sunglasses and sunscreen (but not enough) in our camp
chairs ready for our second UK summer music festival of the year.
But after one whole day in the sun we decided we’d had
enough of all that, pulled on our wellies (well one of us did anyway) and
headed down to the main arena for our first official day at Download Festival
2016.
Unfortunately we did all of that just a little too late to
catch Alien Ant Farm (completely gutted) which meant that the first band we
caught were the almighty Babymetal.
I said it at Reading last year, and I will say it again.
Babymetal are amazing and genuinely unlike anything you will ever see. It
brings joy to a huge crowd to see those dance routines in front of shredding
metal guitars. From the second Suzuka Nakamoto, or “Su-metal” as she is known,
squealed “Hi Guys!” she had Download Festival eating out of the palm of her
hand.
Crowd pleaser, and my favourite Babymetal track, Gimme Chocolate as well as brand new
track Karate were particular
highpoints but their whole set had the huge crowd forgetting that they were
standing in the year’s worst weather and throwing up their horns in their
thousands.
The original plan for post-Babymetal was to hang out for the
rest of the day at the Zippo Encore stage (for reasons that will become
apparent soon). However, when I say the year’s worst weather, I’m under-exaggerating.
At the risk of sharing too much information on the internet, once the rain
started it took approximately thirty seconds for every inch of my person to be
completely and utterly saturated and, sadly, I was not quite as prepared as I
had believed.
Turns out the very beautiful rain mac I bought especially
for the occasion was in no way, shape or form water proof. My wellies were also
very pretty but basically just little empty paddling pools waiting to be
filled. But at least I had wellies on. RIP my colleague’s Van’s. You served
well old friends, but you were no match for this occasion.
Clearly we had to head back to camp and attempt to pull
ourselves together, but once we’d done that we jumped right back in and managed
to catch The Amity Affliction who opened with a song called I Bring the Weather with Me, so
apparently we’ve got them to blame.
The Australian metal-core act brought five tracks to a stage
where they looked right at home. A more stern performance than our first of the
festival, they performed to a crowd of loyal fans who screamed back both the
roars of Joel Birch and the clean vocals of Ahren Stringer. The Amity Affliction
proved that when looking for your new favourite music, get you a band that can
do both.
Ever the suave performers, The Amity Affliction took this
set in their stride with Birch pointing to a low-flying plane over head,
muttering “that’s cool” and then unleashing pure mayhem less than two seconds
later. Masters of a genre that is perfect for both the festival world and
headline shows, I cannot wait to see these guys play their biggest UK tour to
date in December.
 |
Daryl Palumbo - Glassjaw
Download Festival, Donnington
10/06/2016
|
According to the plan, we stuck with the Zippo Encore stage
where Glassjaw’s experimental and progressive rock was next. Known for their
intense performances, the New York quartet wasted no time in launching into the
classic Tip Your Bartender.
Forming in 1993, Glassjaw have spent well over 20 years leading
the post-hardcore and underground scenes, shaping them both into what they are.
But today they just did what they do best and, above all, enjoyed it. Relying
heavily on the 2002 album Worship and Tribute,
Glassjaw proved that they shared a core value with their hosts – a dedication
and love of their genre.
It’s really important to me that you understand that the
weather I mentioned a while ago had not improved during all of this. No. It
wasn’t quite as dramatic as it originally was but it was still pouring. I just
want to make sure you get that.
Luckily, I had a pretty huge coat. Luckier still, it was
Twin Atlantic time.
 |
Ross McNae - Twin Atlantic
Download Festival, Donnington
10/06/2016
|
You remember when I said at Slam Dunk that, although a
line-up might be inundated with incredible bands, there’s always one that makes
your attendance at a festival non-negotiable? Well, ladies and gentleman, I
present to you the reason I went to Download Festival 2016.
I might have mentioned a few times that I really rather like
Twin Atlantic. It seems like we’ve been waiting a million years for news of their
new album, but in reality we only said goodbye to them 10 months ago when they
announced they would be taking a break after their now legendary set at Reading
last year.
But now the time has arrived. Twin Atlantic have announced
that in September they will release their fourth studio album, GLA, and quickly unveiled two tracks
from it before playing what can only be described as an incredible hometown
show at King Tut’s in Glasgow before announcing a whole host of intimate shows
on a UK club tour. Yeah. It’s been an exciting time.
To say I was dying to hear the new tracks, No Sleep and Gold Elephant : Cherry Alligator, would be ridiculous, because
frankly it was all I could talk about and I am overjoyed to say that they both
play to all of Twin Atlantic’s strengths. Live, vocalist Sam McTrusty
surrenders his guitar for the new offerings and both the change in focus and
new lease of life mean that he has never sounded better. Imagine that.
As soon as Twin were announced for Download Festival I hoped
that they would take the opportunityThe Ghost of Eddie and when that opening
riff reverberated from the stage just second in their eleven track set, the
crowd went mental.
 |
Sam McTrusty - Twin Atlantic
Download Festival, Donnington
10/06/2016
|
Given the environmental circumstances it seemed unlikely
that the crowd would be getting on the floor ready to fly into the air when I Am An Animal kicked in for its finale.
Who cares for likeliness nowadays? Every person in that crowd adhered to the
request and knelt down in the mud that we would fester in for another two days
because that’s what sets like this do to people.
I could go on about this band for days but luckily we got
three more Twin Atlantic shows to cover over the next three weeks as well as
something really special coming up for Louder Now too so I got the time to
revisit this but let it be known that there was nothing more special then to
hear that Heart and Soul chorus ring
loud once again.
 |
Jack Barakat - All Time Low
Download Festival, Donnington
10/06/2016
|
And from those that fit right in to the most unlikely of
Download headliners, next was All Time Low.
When guitarist Jack Barakat announced during their arena
tour last year that they were playing Download Festival I thought he was, characteristically,
taking the piss. To be honest I still didn’t really believe it until I saw them
up there with my own eyes.
Nevertheless, All Time Low are born headliners and, as it
turns out, are adaptable to all situations. That being said, they did not
compromise their trademark hilarity and good-time nature for one second. Having
seen these guys a ridiculous amount of times now I have always loved Barakat
for his tendency to go missing from the stage but I never appreciated just how
bat-crap crazy he really is. This guy loves those fans more than any musician I
have ever seen perform and he opts to spend most of the set just hanging out
with them, and I’m talking fall blown conversations, getting his pecks out, cheek-kissing,
hanging out.
As ever, they played a career spanning set, even pulling out
Jasey Rae from their EP to a rapturous
 |
Alex Gaskarth - All Time Low
Download Festival, Donnington
10/06/2016
|
No strangers to covering songs, we’ve seen All Time Low do
it all but an impromptu cover of American
Idiot was a pleasant surprise in amongst a sea of absolute bangers.
And if all of that weren’t enough they even brought some
cosy fires to the stage with them which I’m sure those close enough to feel
them were eternally grateful for at this late stage in the very wet day.
After All Time Low wrapped it up with the ever sterling Dear Maria, Count Me In we hobbled over
to the main stage to see the last of Rammstein’s incredibly visual industrial-metal
set.
If anybody wants to tell me that Download is a singular
festival I refer you to my last sentence.
As first day’s go our Friday at Download Festival 2016 was
pretty incredible but, with two more days to go, it was about time we took a towel
to all of our clothes, scraped our hair on to the top of our heads and
collapsed onto an inflatable bed somewhere.
Download Festival 2016 – Saturday will be uploaded tomorrow.
