95,000 people rolled into Donington Park with Glastonbury on a fallow year and every eye in British rock on Download. The 23rd edition did not disappoint.
Friday was the feel:
good story of the summer. Limp Bizkit finally took the headline slot they walked away from in 2003, twenty-three years later, and Fred Durst got his moment. But the band everyone left talking about was Halestorm. Lzzy Hale is one of the most commanding live performers in rock right now, full stop.
Then there was the beautiful weirdness only Download delivers. A portion of Lemmy's ashes got enshrined inside a fruit machine in Lemmy's Lounge, with Duff McKagan stepping in to mark the occasion. Silly Goose, a rap-rock trio from Atlanta who built their following playing car parks and petrol stations, stole Friday afternoon on the Avalanche Stage. And Mastodon paid tribute to Brent Hinds.
Sunday belonged to Linkin Park, and it was not close. New songs like Heavy Is The Crown, The Emptiness Machine, and Two Faced sounded massive, and Emily Armstrong fronted the first Download headline set ever led by a woman. The strongest headline performance of the weekend, and the perfect way to close it.
Photo: Photo by Sharing Festival via Pexels
Source: Music-News.com
