Download Festival

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Download Festival
Download main stage in 2005
Location(s)	Donington Park, England
Years active	2003 - present
Date(s)	mid June
Genre(s)	Rock, Metal, Punk, Grunge
Website	www.downloadfestival.co.uk

The Download Festival is a three day rock/metal/'alternative' festival held annually at the spiritual home of rock music in England: Donington Park (which hosted the Monsters of Rock Festivals between 1980 and 1996, and 2002's Ozzfest). It takes place in late spring, and is owned and managed by Live Nation, a company owned by Clear Channel Communications.

Contents 1 Download 2003 2 Download 2004 3 Download 2005 4 Download 2006 4.1 Controversy 5 Download 2007 6 See Also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Download 2003

The first Download Festival was held in 2003. The headliners were originally Iron Maiden and Limp Bizkit, although Limp Bizkit pulled out and were replaced by Audioslave. Metallica attempted to step in as headliners, but were unable due to already being headliners at that years Reading and Leeds Festivals. Instead, they played an unannounced "secret slot" in the afternoon on the second stage.

Main Stage
Saturday	Sunday
Iron Maiden Marilyn Manson Deftones Ministry InMe Murderdolls Amen Funeral for a Friend Stampin' Ground Shadows Fall Murder One	Audioslave Zwan Flint Apocalyptica Less Than Jake Disturbed Stone Sour Evanescence Mudvayne Spineshank The Darkness One Minute Silence Raging Speedhorn Instruction

Scuzz Stage
Saturday	Sunday
A Reel Big Fish Taproot Sepultura Reef HIM SOiL The Hellacopters SikTh 3 Colours Red From Autumn to Ashes QueenAdreena Violent Delight Arch Enemy Chimaira	NOFX boysetsfire The Bouncing Souls Strung Out Thrice [Spunge] TSOL Real McKenzies Metallica The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster Brand New Beatsteaks Randy Fabulous Disaster

[edit] Download 2004

Another stage was added to the festival in this year, bringing the total to three. 72 Bands played over the two days. The 2004 event was also noticeable for several last minute hitches. Firstly Soil got lost on the way to Donington and missed their main stage appearance on Saturday (they later joined Drowning Pool on stage to perform Drowning Pool's "Bodies" and their own song "Halo"). Static-X missed their slot due to a bus breakdown. Sunday was no better - Slayer arrived on time, but their equipment did not, leading to a slot change from the middle of the afternoon on the main stage to a later slot (and longer set) on the second stage. Slayer were replaced on the main stage by Damageplan, who were scheduled to play the second stage. Their setlist ended with a rendition of Damageplan founders Vinnie Paul and Dimebag Darrell's most recognisable song from their Pantera days, "Walk".

The biggest news came from the headliners Metallica, however, when Lars Ulrich was rushed to hospital ^[1]. Taking to the stage an hour and a half late, James Hetfield explained the situation with Lars and the show began with Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo playing on Battery and The Four Horsemen. Slipknot's Joey Jordison played the rest of the set apart from Fade to Black which was played by Metallica's drum technician, Flemming Larsen. The set featured no post-Black Album songs and was about an hour and ten minutes long. The set is considered one of the band's most memorable performances.^{[citation needed]}

The full line-up included:

Main Stage
Saturday	Sunday
Linkin Park Sum 41 Iggy & The Stooges The Hives The Distillers Cradle of Filth Monster Magnet Opeth Dillinger Escape Plan	Metallica Korn Slipknot Slayer Machine Head Soulfly Ill Niño Turbonegro Breed 77

Snickers "Game On" Stage
Saturday	Sunday
Pennywise Electric Six Wildboyz (Steve-o and Chris Pontius) Arch Enemy Biffy Clyro Million Dead Instruction 36 Crazyfists Akercocke Viking Skull Powder The Bled	HIM Bowling For Soup Taking Back Sunday Damageplan Life Of Agony Brides Of Destruction Drowning Pool Hatebreed Hoobastank Trapt Silvertide Ricky Warwick Terra Diablo

Barfly Stage
Saturday	Sunday
Peaches International Noise Conspiracy Ikara Colt thisGirl Roxy Saint The Glitterati Surferosa Burst Lowfive Yourcodenameis:Milo Bullet for My Valentine The Holiday Plan Hiding Place Fireapple Red	Suicide Girls Young Heart Attack Span The Sounds Dirty Americans Recover Amplifier Do Me Bad Things Danko Jones The Black Dahlia Murder Mooney Suzuki Gonga Acidtone Hurricane Party Planet of Women

Scotland In June 2004 a two day Download festival was held on Glasgow Green, several days before the Donington event. This had a limited line up with only 9 bands performing over a 2 day period. However, the bands which did play were similliar to those appearing at Donington including the headliners, Metallica and Linkin Park. Download Scotland also saw an appearance from Welsh rock act Lostprophets who were unique to the event and did not perform at Donington.

Acts which also appeared over the two days at Download Scotland were Korn, Slipknot, Iggy and the Stooges, Machine Head, The Distillers and HIM. The running order went as follows.

Day 1	Day 2
Metallica Slipknot Korn HIM	Linkin Park Lostprophets Iggy and the Stooges The Distillers Machine Head

[edit] Download 2005

Download 2005 was held again at Donington Park, on 10-12 June 2005. This festival was different from previous years as the Saturday was officially dubbed Ozzfest 2005, as well as an "Indie day" on the first day of the festival.

Billy Idol performed on the Snickers stage on the Friday night; his first UK gig after a lengthy hiatus, performing songs like White Wedding, Rebel Yell and a cover version of Van Halen's anthem, Jump.

The official line-up included:

Main Stage [2]
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Feeder Garbage Dinosaur Jr Megadeth Biffy Clyro The Others JJ72 Wednesday 13 Queen Adreena	Black Sabbath Velvet Revolver HIM Anthrax Alter Bridge Bowling For Soup A The Mad Capsule Markets The Dwarves Trivium	System of a Down Slipknot Slayer Nightwish Killswitch Engage Papa Roach Mudvayne Society 1 DV8

Snickers Stage [2]
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Billy Idol The Used My Chemical Romance InMe The Bled Apocalyptica Underøath Lordi Fozzy Flogging Molly	In Flames Chimaira Lamb of God Bullet for My Valentine Meshuggah Unearth Every Time I Die Open Hand American Head Charge The Hurt Process	Motörhead DKT/MC5 Funeral for a Friend[3] Lacuna Coil Mastodon Shadows Fall Helmet Caliban As I Lay Dying Gizmachi Send More Paramedics The Mascara Story

Napster Stage [2]
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Napalm Death Raging Speedhorn Paradise Lost A Chance of Pace Hurricane Party Tokyo Dragons Colour Of Fire Slunt Just A Word Crashdiet Planet of Women	Helmet Lucky Nine Breed 77 The Explosion Towers Of London Johnny Truant The Ga Ga's The Answer Panic Cell Crucified Barbara Diamond Nights Quit Your Day Job City On Fire	Therapy? Team Sleep Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster The Dresden Dolls The Glitterati The Saints Engerica 3 Inches Of Blood Still Remains No Hope In New Jersey Acidtone Henry Rollins (Spoken word 'Sermon')

[edit] Download 2006

The 2006 Download Festival was held at Donington Park, England on the 9th, 10th, and 11th of June. Download 2006 boasted the largest selling acts out of all the UK music festivals that year (in terms of the combined total of every act).^{[citation needed]} The three days comprising the headlining acts (Tool, Metallica and Guns N' Roses) have sales of approximately 200-250 million albums between them, more than the entire line up of 2006's V Festival.

2006 was the first time the festival was mirrored in the Republic of Ireland, as Download Festival Ireland.

One memorable moment of the festival was the announcement that Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis had been rushed to hospital. Similar to 2004's Metallica set, Munky, Fieldy and David Silveria arrived and explained to the fans why Jonathan couldn't make it and played with guest vocalists Corey Taylor from Slipknot, Dez Fafara from Devildriver, Jesse Hasek from 10 Years, Benji Webbe from Skindred, M. Shadows from Avenged Sevenfold, and Matt Heafy from Trivium. Another talking point of the festival was Metallica playing the album Master of Puppets in its entirety in honour of its twentieth anniversary. A highlight of the Guns N' Roses set was Sebastian Bach performing a duet on "My Michelle" with Axl Rose. Guns N' Roses also performed material from the long forthcoming Chinese Democracy album which was received quite well by the crowd.

Main Stage The main stage was situated in the centre of the arena with crowd control moving around it, and was the largest of all three stages, the safety barriers used at this stage were in a T shape so as to avoid crowd crush in the middle. The stage was open-air and sponsored by the festival's media partners, Kerrang!.

Main Stage [4]
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Tool Deftones Coheed and Cambria Soulfly Strapping Young Lad Soil Wicked Wisdom Amplifier	Metallica Korn Trivium Avenged Sevenfold Stone Sour Alice in Chains Arch Enemy Bloodsimple Satyricon Down (Unannounced Set[5])	Guns N' Roses Funeral for a Friend Bullet for My Valentine Cradle of Filth Lacuna Coil In Flames 36 Crazyfists DragonForce Hatebreed Breed 77

Snickers Stage The Snickers Stage was situated in a tent, behind the main stage and was the second largest stage at the festival. Access to the stage was via a one-way system which attempted to spread people around the site, rather than all attempting to push through a rather small space.

Snickers Stage [4]
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
The All-American Rejects Atreyu InMe Clutch Fishbone Dredg Bleeding Through Gojira Throwdown Suns Of The Tundra	Alter Bridge Opeth Within Temptation Secret Machines Billy Talent Henry Rollins DevilDriver SikTh Johnny Truant Khoma	The Prodigy Alexisonfire Eighteen Visions Hundred Reasons Aiden Fightstar From First to Last DevilDriver (Instead of Soilwork[6]) Zebrahead God Forbid

Gibson/Myspace Stage The Myspace stage was the smallest of the three and under a smaller tent. It was positioned across from the front of the main stage.

Gibson/Myspace Stage [4]
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Ginger & The Sonic Circus Backyard Babies Cathedral Engerica Bullets & Octane My Awesome Compilation Animal Alpha The Audition Enter Shikari Art Of Dying	Killing Joke Reuben Mondo Generator Louie This Is Menace 10 Years Flyleaf Manic It Dies Today Living Things Exit Ten :( Stonegard My Alamo[7]	Sick Of It All Lordi Skindred Moneen Darkest Hour Blindside Mendeed Bring Me the Horizon The Zico Chain Voodoo Six Lauren Harris Winterville Streetlight Youth I-Def-I

Snickers Bowl Stage [4]
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Gay for Johnny Depp Keiko SinTution	Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly getAmped The Hedrons	Viking Skull Betty curse Evergrey

[edit] Controversy

On the Saturday, Main Stage act Korn lost lead singer Jonathan Davis after he was hospitalised over concerns for bruises on his body. After observation, it was discovered that Davis had contracted a rare blood disease and could not perform at the event. Several different acts contributed singers to fill in for Davis, who each appeared with the rest of the band for a shorter set.^[8]

Throughout most of the festival, bottles were thrown around the crowd, mostly in a harmless manner. However, during the Sunday headline set of Guns N' Roses, one or more bottles landed on the stage. This caused problems after the band's lead singer, Axl Rose, slipped on the wet surface and one of the bottles apparently hit bassist Tommy Stinson. Stinson threw his guitar, accidentally hitting one of the cameramen, and left the stage. He returned after the song and apologised, but warned the crowd that if this activity continued, he would leave for good. Disturbances died down, and later in the set Rose commented "I'm actually having quite a good time now! I couldn't have said that an hour ago!"^[9]

On the final night, fires were started by some festival goers and police were called, arresting twelve people.^[10] The festival director posted a message on the official website stating that "About 150 people spoiled the end of what had been a great weekend for over 75,000 of us."^[11]

[edit] Download 2007

The 2007 Download Festival is scheduled for June 8-10 2007, with tickets going on sale from 9am on 31 January 2007.^[12]

On 30 January, the three bands that will headline the 2007 festival were announced as My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park and Iron Maiden.^[13] The inclusion of My Chemical Romance as one of the headlining acts has been met with heavy criticism by many users on the official download forums.^[14]

Other bands that are announced as playing at Download 2007, include Slayer, Marilyn Manson, Wolfmother, Killswitch Engage, Bring Me The Horizon,^[15] DevilDriver, Korn, Velvet Revolver, Lamb of God, DragonForce, Dimmu Borgir,^[16] Evanescence, Mötley Crüe, Gallows, 30 Seconds To Mars, Enter Shikari , Machine Head, Bowling For Soup,^[17] Megadeth, Shadows Fall, Buckcherry, Turbonegro, Dream Theater,^[18], Job for a Cowboy, Chimaira, Unearth, Stone Sour and Within Temptation.^[19]

Dez Fafara announced on the DevilDriver World online forum that DevilDriver, hope to get in the Guinness World Records book for the size of their circle pit at this festival.^[20]

Korn's Jonathan Davis stated that the reason for the band returning this year, was because of his absence due to illness last year. He states on the official Download Festival website, "I am so looking forward to coming to the Download Festival this year. I was heartbroken to pull out last time. So this time I am very happy to be coming back and we promise to rock the place! I will definitely make-up for missing the last one. You can expect an amazing Korn show!"^[21]

[edit] See Also

• Monsters of Rock
• List of Donington Park Festivals
• Twisted Realm @ Download

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Website
• Official Myspace
• Unofficial Download Festival Flickr Group