Download 2024 has come and gone, and we’ve all been reminded of why we call it Drownload.
Picture this: 100,000 metalheads, endless drinking in a field, some of the biggest names in guitar music, seemingly half of Noah’s flood, and the bloody mud to match. Musically, it was alright, but not one for the history books. Out of the headliners, I reckon Avenged Sevenfold did the best job, really hammering things home towards the end of their set.
Fallout Boy played a large amount of their new stuff, which didn’t get much reaction at all from the Download crowd, who quite frankly probably wanted to hear “From Under the Cork Tree” in full instead. Queens of the Stone Age were, to put it lightly, substantially under the influence on stage. While the performance still sounded solid, for a festival of 100,000, this comes across as a little disrespectful.
Overall, I found all three of the big dogs this year slightly underwhelming. I’m not a megafan of any of them though, so I defer further judgement to those megafans in the comments.
Lower down the bill, we had a bit more luck. While fans were extremely disappointed Bad Omens and Electric Callboy pulled out, I was very impressed with a host of acts I saw over the weekend. That’s one of the things with Download—even with it not really being a year for me lineup-wise, as a semi-lapsed metalhead and current punk enjoyer, there was quite a lot I wanted to see.
My first favourite on the lineup, The Old Time Sailors, are probably the only part of the UK folk scene currently suitable for Download. Playing on Thursday in the Doghouse, to the largest crowd I’ve ever seen them perform to, this 28-piece act are already legends on the festival scene, hitting up Maui, Boomtown, and many more. I’d describe them as the new Bellowhead, but there’s even more of them! Highlights include their covers of polka punk legends the Dreadnoughts. Speaking of which—Dreadnoughts for Download when?
My highlight from Friday was Heilung. Now, Heilung is arguably closer to a West End show than a metal band. With dozens of people on stage, they weave an authentic feeling (but completely inaccurate) recreation of Viking pagan spirituality and myth, chanting in guttural registers and wearing animal skulls, while a phalanx of warriors marches with spear and shield.
Busted, my hometown heroes, while slightly clashing with Heilung, did us the honour of saving “Year 3000” till the end, allowing me to catch it from the edge of the Avalanche Tent. Their placement in that tent instead of on one of the main stages was a travesty. The tent was jammed full, with crowds rammed into the sides, and many struggled to even get a good spot to hear the show, but Charlie and friends did there best to get everyone enjoying themselves none the less.
Saturday was absolutely banging, with Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and The Offspring bringing punk energy to the main stage. With both of these acts, you forget how many bangers they have, with nearly everything they played having wormed its way into my head previously. I even heard some discussion that The Offspring would have made a better headliner than Fallout Boy. I don’t know what the numbers say, but the crowd size and vibe certainly agreed with this, with substantially more, livelier folk attending the older band’s show by my reckoning.
Some political weird vibes ensued at the second stage, where Tom Morello and Pantera were playing on the same day. I managed to catch a bit of both, and while you could expect some potential bad vibes from that lineup, it was actually fantastic. Tom clashing with Enter Shikari was a very questionable choice (would have been better facing either of them off against Pantera), but his decision to just play a metal set went down incredibly well with the audience, who particularly loved his medley of all the best Rage solos.
Compared to Friday and Saturday, I honestly thought most of Sunday was a damp squib. Corey Taylor was alright, but the man was really too sick to be performing. Thanks for the effort, I saw and felt how hard it was, and it still sounded great, even if the energy was a little less than you’d expect. Nonetheless, going to a Corey solo show really demonstrates what the rest of Slipknot do, and it is a lot! His own band are good, but they are no gang of jumpsuited masked maniacs.
I also liked Zebrahead, who played a couple of sets over the weekend, and Machine Head were banging for the first half of their set before I went to Avenged, but otherwise, really eh, compared to the other two main show days. The secret set was Parkway Drive, who are very popular with a segment of the Download crowd, and I have to admit, were probably a very good choice, but are also completely not my thing, so that was also disappointing.
Basically, I shouldn’t have even bothered with the arena. And that’s the thing. While the rain and mud at this year’s affair weren’t quite as bad as the Somme recreation that was 2016, it still made attending the festival a chore for all but the most hardcore.
Heavy precipitation across Thursday, Friday, and Saturday led to Donington Park doing its usual thing and developing an inch-thick layer of muddy water across, well, pretty much the entire site.
This leads me to my key point. While it may be hallowed ground, I just don’t think Donington Park is a suitable festival site for 100,000 people. While the hillsides offer great views of the stages, the clay soil is terrible for drainage, and even a relatively small amount of rain turns it into an absolute swamp. Additionally, the circuit, plonked right into the middle, breaks up the site, practically doubling the distance people have to walk, with large amounts of the space on the inside of the site either going unused or being unusable.
Basically, Download is too fucking big. It’s awkward, half the fans aren’t into half the music, and there’s far too much walking to make any change in conditions bearable. Once you’ve committed to the arena, it’s an hour’s trip back to the campsite to swap your stuff, and don’t you dare think about putting anything on the ground because it will be consumed by the mud forever, never to be seen again.
This is even worse for metalheads with accessability needs. While Download claims to be the most accesable festival in the country- and it really does make massive endeavours to help those less able to perceieve or get about the world, in these conditions even these endeavorss weren’t enough. I heard horror stories about many hour long waits for transport, and saw people dragging themselves though horrendous conditions on cructches and in wheelchairs.
The best Download ever was 2021 when it was cut back to a sensible size, footprint, and lineup. I wish Live Nation would do two or three separate Downloads a year, each the size of the pilot, focused on one type of metal, instead of this one, impossibly large, monstrosity. It’s bloody days later and my feet still hurt for fuck’s sake.
Like, I love Download. The lineup is great. The crowd is amazing—genuinely the nicest people in the world. I really want to keep coming. It’s just too big. It’s too awkward. When it rains, it’s completely unmanageable, and for all but the most hardcore punter, their £250-plus ticket just becomes a miserable endurance test set to an admittedly sick soundtrack.
So, check the weather before buying a Download ticket. It’s just too big to make a muddy one worthwhile. By Sunday, so many people had got pissed off and left that everyone’s phones worked again.
Our review of Download 2024 was made possible by Circular Camping. Circular Camping is a bloody brilliant company which salvages festival sites in order to reclaim and recycle the kit left behind. They offer pre-pitched camping options and camping shops at a wide variety of UK Festivals thoughout the year, as well as running an online shop for camping gear rescued from the festival field. Whether you find yourself missing an essential piece of kit, or wanting to rent a tent so you dont have to carry so much through the swamp, Dean and his team of camping legends have you covered. Check them out at www.circularcamping.com!
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