Download Festival,

Donington

Park

14/06/2008 and 15/06/2008

The weather forecast predicted rain and misery for Download weekend. So the fact that by mid-Saturday everyone’s sunburnt and the dustbins are full of discarded umbrellas means things have gone well. And the sense that every cloud has a silver lining, or isn’t even actually a cloud at all, is one pervading this festival. The line-up was frowned upon: headliners are LostProphets, Kiss and The Offspring – where’s the metal? And just to add to the confusion, the whole arena has been shuffled about and everyone’s lost. It’s for the best though – all stages are now situated so you can see from wherever you’re standing and the sound systems all seem to work flawlessly. Apart from when 36 Crazyfists are on. The Alaskans sound like they’re playing under eight feet of water and the effect kind of ruins their set. As it would. Jimmy Eat World fare better. Normally this lot send us to sleep live but today something about the mix of sunshine, enormous but softly-delivered sentiments, and a field full of frazzled fans, works in their favour. It has to be the best gig of JEW’s life and everyone watching ends up on their knees and worshipping the band as their new God. LostProphets do a good job following up. A couple of the Welsh boys may have got themselves their most ridiculous haircuts yet, but the band’s music itself is only getting better and better. Also improving are Exit Ten. And people are noticing – the marquee fills up with people as they come on stage and the

Reading outfit proceed to beat everyone to pieces with twenty five minutes of epic rock. Brilliant. Back on the main stage, Bullet For My Valentine’s old material still sounds huge. Unfortunately it’s a lot better than their new stuff and the end product is a set that’s half good/half bad. More consistent are HIM (Ville Valo’s still sober and thus remembers the words to his songs which always helps), Biffy Clyro (they actually make us cry), and The Subways (even their older material sounds brilliantly fresh in the context of their new stuff). Admittedly it wasn’t all joy and sunshine. And perhaps it’s no coincidence that the only downpour came when Go Audio were on stage. Luckily for them they were performing undercover so people soon flocked into their tent for shelter. Getting soaked, however, might have proved more fun. Go Audio are some kind of joke band playing Busted-esque (and that’s doing Busted a disservice) pop punk who we’d expect to see on a BBC musical tour of children’s schools. What they’re doing here we can’t tell you. Still, you’ve got to laugh. It’s the unpredictable nature of life that makes it so awesome. Unless of course your doorbell rings and you’re expecting a delivery of a million pounds, a brand new helicopter and a packet of frazzles. And instead you get an electricity bill dated six months ago, another electricity bill dated last month and another letter informing you you’re electricity’s going to be cut off in ten minutes. That would be rubbish.

Johnny K