Download 2005

As I type this, my fingers are still encrusted in grime from Download. I was too wasted to shower when I eventually got home last night. What ****** cuts the M1 down to a single lane on the same Sunday that a well-publicised festival ends?

Catalogue of injuries:

• huge bruise on right shin
• Skin scraped off back of left calf
• right ankle *very* painful, especially when not moved for a while
• left knee took a knock
• willy got bashed (kind of a whiplash thing) but is ok now
• feet and tops of thighs (front) all aching
• multitude of bruises right around the wait and back
• both arms heavily bruised, swollen, scratched and skin scraped off (shoulder to wrist)
• two large scratches on my back
• middle finger of left hand will not bend right back
• two skinned knuckles
• both hands very “sensitive”
• shoulders and neck aching
• almost lost a front tooth
• nostrils still filled with fine dust
• sore throat, also mainly due to dust
• lips painfully chapped
• head sunburnt and scabby where hair was shaved off
• ears ringing

The pit by the main stage was pretty much like a desert. Very fine dust due to a lack of rain (until Sunday night’s Slipknot set) which made moshing a rather mucky business. I was coated in the stuff, still have a cough and was blowing mud out of my nose all weekend. Black snot. Lovely.

Friday

When we first got there, we were stood chatting by the entrance. I was – of course – wearing the shirt you see pictured to the left, with my hair done the same way. A group of lads from Newcastle came up and we had a right good chinwag. This, in fact, was a common occurance over the whole weekend. Mainly as I didn’t change clothes for 3 days.

I was actually surprised by the relative lack of footie shirts. I can only remember seeing one Forest and one Villa shirt, maybe an England one or two and a foreign one I didn’t recognise. At Leeds/Reading you usually get loads – maybe it’s because they take place during the season.

The weather was great on Friday. Too great, as my scorched (stripey) scalp will atest. There wasn’t much on that day I was too bothered about seeing, and that which I did all seemed to clash timewise across the stages.

Megadeth were the only main-stagers on my “to do” list and they were OK. Too short a set and we were too far back to really enjoy it. I passed up the Napster Stage’s Paradise Lost and Napalm Death (seen PL about 8 times, saw ND 2 months ago) for the acts in the Snickers tent. The two stages were about as far apart as possible while still being in the same festival, so it wasn’t worth running back and forth.

So instead I watched My Chemical Romance (rather good), The Used (enjoyable) and Billy Idol, who turned out to be the suprise package of the weekend. Anni came out with a big grin on her face because he kept taking his top off. The guy’s 50-something and annoyingly fit. Bastard. He’s also ******* good live. I thought he’d blown his wad early playing White Wedding about 5 songs in, but there were still Rebel Yell and Mony Mony to come, plus great covers of Jump and Who Are You. The new stuff was good, too. Definitely one comeback worth watching.

Andy had gone off to watch Garbage (mainly for the **** factor) and Feeder on the main stage. He’s now broken his festival cherry – even if he only went for the Friday – and I think wants to go back next year, or at least to something a little more mainstream like Reading or Leeds.

My first encounter with festival food was a fairly enjoyable (and vastly overpriced) sausage and chips. A stop at Tesco on the way back to the hotel (yeah, yeah – look, I’m camping at Graspop) helped fill the other food gaps.

Saturday

After hardly sleeping a wink due to the snoring activites of my three room-mates (I, of course, am perfect and don’t snore), I was up at the crack of dawn to drive andy to Derby for his bus and then to the festival site to see Trivium who opened on the main stage.

Back to the hotel after them to pick up Anni and Liam, and back to the festival site. Breakfast was one Tesco dark chocolate bar and 500ml of Tesco “makes you a mad ******” energy juice. This stuff either bungs me up or gives me the *****, so it’s a gamble – but I can live on it for a weekend.

“A” were quite good, and Bowling for Soup an utter giggle as ever. Definitely a band I want to see a full set from sometime. We also caught about 5 minutes of the Ga Ga’s in the Napster tent.

Down the front for Anthrax at 16:25 and I bumped into (literally) a guy from the Trivium pit, now sporting a lovely black eye. He’d been knocked cold earlier in the morning. Whoops.

Anthrax ******* ruled. A great variety of tracks, though I think Metal Thrashing Mad would have been better than Medusa, and they didn’t play Madhouse. Hey, I’m greedy.

Liam and I then took a wander round the shops while Anni watched HIM, who were – in her words – “****” and “boring”. And she likes their album. Just one of those bands who aren’t good live.

Velvet Revolver apparently play “Rock ‘n’ Fuckin’ Roll!!!!” (as abbreviated on the back of the t-shirts to RnF’nR – not at all like GnF’nR…). Thing is, they’re also ****. All their own material is instantly forgetable, the only highlight being a cover of Mr Brownstone.

At last 20:45 comes around, and the only band not to clash with anyone else on the bill appears. Well, OK, Helmet were on but they don’t count because they played on Sunday as well. It looked like the entire festival crowd was gathered in the main field. An amazing number of people to witness the UK’s only Black Sabbath appearance this year.

It was Sabbath. All the songs were classics. Ozzy ******* rules. ’nuff said.

Oh, it was also bloody cold, but courtesy of five measly quid and an Oxfam tent, I got a nice Adidas t-shirt and a Gryffindor hat to keep my baldy scalp warm. I also had a ridiculously expensive baked potato and beans, which was nice.

No Tescos that night because of the ******* bible-bashers and their ludicrous hold over our government so I ******* starved. I hope you’re all smug and happy with yourselves.

Sunday

No sleep again courtesy of Anni and her amazing chainsaw/steel bar impression, but breakfast was courtesy of Mr Tesco – now allowed to open as obviously god’s not looking or something. I made my point by wearing my Sunday best “Team Satan” shirt. Hey, it’s a small protest but a statement nontheless. After all if I’m being evil enough to even consider shopping on a Sunday I must be a devil-worshipping child killer. I may as well live up to their stereotypes.

We got to the site around midday, and missed what was apparently a rather spectacular set from Society 1. The lead singer did the whole set (30 minutes) suspended from the lighting rig by 9 steel hooks through his back. Metal!

Papa Roach were the first band of the day I was after. Met up with BB just before the came on and warmed myself up for the later acts by kicking the crap out of some really nice people.

We went for a wander after that, and caught about 35 seconds (roughly) of 3 Inches Of Blood as well as Helmet’s second set of the festival. They were OK, I suppose. Not really my thing.

Food was had (roast beef sandwich – lovely), beer drunk (well, one small bottle as I was driving) and Nightwish waited for. And waited for. And waited for. Travel problems made them almost an hour late and they only played 4 songs as a result. No big loss.

It did, of course, mean that everyone else was on late. Slayer finally came on about the time they were due to finish and raised ******* hell in the pit. With each act, the moshpits got bigger and bigger. Absolutely ******* intense. If I had a criticism, they seemed to play about half a set of fairly heavy (and therefore slow) numbers.

Miaculously I managed to find Anni in the crowd afterwards and announced that as I felt a bit ill, I’d sit Slipknot out and just enjoy the stage show.

Then the pit opened. And, lo, but it was awe-inspiringly enormous. And I couldn’t resist and was dragged in by the forced of temptation. A circle a good 20 yards in diameter was formed, the opening chords sounded over the speakers and – I would guess – 100 ******* nutjobs (myself included) charged into the middle. It was like the battle scenes in Braveheart or Gladiator just with much better music, and slightly more carnage.

Dust flew along with the fists and feet. Anni complained that it was my fault she couldn’t see half the show because of the dust cloud. I hope she didn’t miss the flames, the rising side drumkits or the rather spectacular drum solo involving a flipping/rotating drumkit. Oh, and the amazing full rainbow that appeared over the opposite end of the venue. Liam had wandered off to see Therapy? as he’d missed them the last time they played a festival. Something about being in about 18 pieces in a hospital bed at the time.

I kept meeting the same people in the pits. What a ******* great bunch. Like one of them said, you get one weekend a year to blow everything out of your system. Wail the living ***** out of someone twice your size and hug him like he’s your best mate afterwards. Never a truer word.

There was one lad who kept running up to me, shouting “MOSH!!!” and rubbing his hand over the name on the back of my shirt. It felt good to be wanted.

Another spent every pit trying to upend me and take my legs out from under me. I am proud to say that as far as I’m aware, I’m the only person he wasn’t successful with all weekend. A worthy opponent!

The guy who got knocked out during Trivium also kept appearing, and I met more random Geordies than you could shake a stick at.

******* brilliant.

I decided to skip System of a Down in favour of Motorhead. I’ve never seen Lemmy and crew live before, and System are on at Graspop anyway so it made sense. They played a short set, starting late and finishing early and I only knew three songs. Still, hearing Ace of Spades as it’s meant to be heard (live and ******* loud) but a whacking ****-eating grin on my face that even the rain, cold and pain in my aching feed couldn’t wipe away.

Lemmy signed off with a trademark “We are Motorhead and we play rock and ******* roll!!!”. Someone should tell this to previously-mentioned Velvet Revolver who are under the impression that that’s what they do. Well, they don’t. Motorhead do. With bollocks on. Hairy, tattooed bollocks, at that.

I walked round the meet everyone and System were still on, courtesy of Nightwish’s delay. I caught maybe 7 or 8 tracks, including Lost in Hollywood which came as a surprise being such a slow song. Good stuff and I’m looking forward to seeing them again in a couple of weeks.

A troll up the hill to the Dunlop tyre (and a very nice overpriced burger) to wait for Anni and Liam to appear netted a nice circular end to the weekend. I bumped into the same Geordies I’d got talking to right at the start of the Friday!

Liam eventually arrived having walked via ******* Peru or somewhere and we departed. Slowly, and with aching limbs. Knackered but ******* deleriously happy.

Same time next year, folks?