Words: Kathryn Edwards  //  Photos: Ryan Hildrew

The Scratch

“We’re from Ireland”, shouts vocalist and percussionist Daniel (‘Lango’) Lang, as if that wasn’t already clear from thick Dublin accents and the strong presence of the trad Irish folk music, which, along with heavy metal, makes up their distinct sound. This is a relatively new band, with their first EP only being released in 2018, but they’ve grafted hard over the past 8 years, with their current discography containing three albums, two EPs, and two features on Dropkick Murphys’ 2015 record ‘For the People’; though 2026’s ‘Pull Like a Dog’ makes up the bulk of today’s setlist. It’s 1pm and beers are flying, and the arena has filled up by the time they come on. No sight of people trickling in and out as is often the case with sets scheduled for earlier in the day. There’s a good reason for that: this set is the standout of the weekend, and the crowd is ready and willing to come and get weird. Everyone is dancing from the first second of the first note. It feels impossible not to. There are clear metal elements to this band’s sound; the guitar tones they use, and some pretty tasty riffs throughout, but this set is a bit of a curveball in comparison to everything else on the lineup. That’s in no way a bad thing – this performance fills you with a kind of energy that’s really hard to put into words. By way of an attempt, though; there’s someone in the middle of the circle pit dressed as a banana. Also, it’s not really a circle pit, everyone is just skipping in a circle. Some people have linked arms and are skipping in pairs. Lovely, really. Acoustic guitars and a cajon at a metal festival shouldn’t work, and yet here we are, jumping around with hands in the air for four lads from Dublin who used to be in an actual metal band before they swapped amps for wood and strings. Lango, Conor Dockery, Cathal McKenna, and Gary Regan turn the field into a hooley within thirty seconds, trad runs colliding with riffs that smack just as hard unplugged as anything with a Marshall stack behind it. It’s pure chaos laced with unbridled joy, and it’s the closest thing Bloodstock has to a session in the corner of a Dublin pub, if that pub also had several thousand people crowd-surfing in it.

Urne

Urne don’t so much play a set as build a slow-burning storm. Joe Nally, Angus Neyra and Richard Wiltshire’s sludge-thrash-prog hybrid is dense and unhurried, riffs stacking up like weather fronts before they finally break. Nally’s vocals sit somewhere between a growl and a lament, giving even the heaviest passages an odd, aching kind of melancholy, while Neyra’s guitar work twists through tempo changes that never feel showy for the sake of it. It’s a set for the patient, no easy hooks, no crowd-pleasing shortcuts, and there’s a stretch in the middle where it would be easy for a festival crowd’s attention to drift. It doesn’t, though. By the time the heaviest passages land, the tent’s gone quiet in the way it only does when a band’s earned real attention rather than demanded it, and there’s a small crowd near the front who look like they’ve just found something they’ll be obsessing over for months.

Vended

There’s a very obvious question hanging over the tent before Vended even plug in, and to their credit, they spend the whole set trying to answer it on their own terms, even though, yes – they sound exactly like early Slipknot, even down to the vocals – no prizes for guessing who Griffin Taylor learnt from. He prowls the stage like he’s got something to prove, which, fair enough, he probably has, while Simon Crahan pounds away behind him with a similar point to make. ‘Asylum’ lands early and sets the tone, all hard rock riffing and doom-y breakdowns, before ‘Nihilism’ whips the crowd into its most frantic state of the whole set. Guitarists Cole Espeland and Connor Grodzicki keep things tight throughout, and bassist Jeremiah Pugh anchors the low end with consistent weight. Whether all this is enough to shake off the shadow of the Iowa Nine is still up for debate, but nobody in this crowd looks like they care either way, they’re just here for the racket.

Northlane

Slick, heavy, and precision-tooled, Northlane’s brand of progressive metalcore feels like it was built in a lab specifically for festival main stages, in the best way. Marcus Bridge switches from full-throat roar to soaring clean vocals without breaking stride, and when ‘Quantum Flux’ arrives, the whole tent seems to know every word, turning it into one giant, chest-thumping singalong. Jon Deiley, Josh Smith and Nic Pettersen layer in industrial textures that make the whole thing feel bigger than your average breakdown-and-blast-beat crowd-pleaser, and ‘Echo Chamber’ shows off just how far the band have pushed their sound into electronic territory without losing any of the heaviness. Polished doesn’t mean safe here; it means a band who know exactly what they’re doing.

Nevermore

There’s a lump in more than one throat as Nevermore take the stage for the first time in over a decade, and the first time ever without Warrel Dane, who died in 2017 and whose shoes new vocalist Berzan Önen has been handed the near-impossible task of filling. Somehow, though, it works; Jeff Loomis’s guitar lines are as serrated and technical as they’ve ever been, Van Williams still hits like a train behind the kit, and when ‘Enemies of Reality’ kicks in, Önen sings the old material with real reverence rather than imitation, clearly aware of exactly what this performance means to the people watching. New recruits Jack Cattoi and Semir Özerkan slot in like they’ve been there for years, and by the time ‘The River Dragon Has Come’ rolls around, the tent has gone from cautious curiosity to full-throated devotion. It’s a moving second life for one of prog metal’s most missed bands, and by the end there isn’t a dry eye in the tent.

Death Angel

Thrash royalty, and they know it. Formed by teenagers back in 1982 and still going strong more than forty years later, Rob Cavestany and co. play with a speed and precision that shame bands half their age. Mark Osegueda works the whole width of the stage like a man half his years, all wide-eyed energy and constant motion, and ‘Seemingly Endless Time’ proves the old material has lost none of its bite. Ted Aguilar and Cavestany trade off riffs with the kind of chemistry that only decades of playing together can build, while Will Carroll and Damien Sisson keep the rhythm section locked in tight even as ‘Thrown to the Wolves’ pushes the tempo into genuinely dizzying territory. The pit response to the old-school Bay Area riffing is a reminder that thrash this pure never really goes out of fashion, it just waits for the right festival to bring it back round.

Bleed From Within

Glasgow’s finest export a wall of sound that’s part groove, part melody, and entirely relentless. Scott Kennedy’s screams trade off with Steven Jones’s soaring cleans to anthemic effect, and opener ‘Violent Nature’ sets an suitably furious tone from the first note. Craig Gowans and Davie Provan lock in behind them while Ali Richardson drives it all forward from the kit with real precision, while ‘In Place of Your Halo’ draws one of the biggest reactions of the set, its surprise bagpipe breakdown sending the whole tent into a frenzy. Kennedy prowls the front of the stage and pulls the crowd into every chorus like he’s done this a thousand times before, which, at this point, he probably has. Funny to think this all started as a bunch of kids covering Lamb of God at a youth club; now they’re doing the genre just as much justice as their heroes, who happen to be headlining this very festival.

As Saturday draws to a close, we prepare ourselves for our busiest (and hottest) day so far to round off the weekend, after what will probably be an uncomfortably warm night’s sleep. But not before checking out the bin jousting, which is exactly what it sounds like. Can’t forget the bin jousting.

Click the image below to see more pictures from Bloodstock Open Air 2026 – Day Two

Words: Kate Allvey  //  Photos: Penny Bennett // Korn Photo: Andrew Whitton

Harpy

Harpy makes an early morning start absolutely worth it. “There is no redemption, only damnation!” She screams, the sophisticated older sister to Bambii Thug, and strips off her coat to reveal her PVC lingerie. Her Download debut is an impressive one, with ‘Medicine’ casting witchy rave pop waves that enchant her new converts. She’s seductive and destructive in equal measure, whether she’s howling with rage or letting her magnificent voice take centre stage.

Bleed From Within

Bleed from Within rouse the lunchtime crowd in style, especially the ‘old school metalheads’ that they dedicate ‘Into Nothing’ to, their self-assured pit-noise containing a daring ring that bursts through the smoke to give us the first anthem moment of the day. Scott Kennedy fondly recalls his first visit to Download in the crowd twenty years before, dedicating a tumbling throbbing ‘I Am Damnation’ to those in the position he once was in. They make metal for the people, by the people, expressed in the most brutal style. 

The Ghost Inside

The Ghost Inside are here to unite those who want to keep their day heavy, with leonine roars and seismic rhythms, a constant explosion of focused urgency. ‘Wash It Away’s’ tangled riffs send nods of approval across the hillside, a sense of motion and yearning connecting us. ‘Aftermath’ soars with refreshing melodic moments in the middle of the distortion, and we’re absorbed by a band who get stronger every time they visit the UK. 

Jinjer

The complex sound of the Ukrainians is dominated by Tatiana Shmayluk, the vocalist with the hugest range of the weekend. ‘Green Snake’ brings sparkling intelligence and a prog tint to their expansive narratives, the vocalist skipping merrily as she growls like a raging beast, “I know from experience that you like hardcore,” she laughs before weaving ‘Fast Draw’s’ soundscapes from guitar riffs that sound like barbed wire wrapped in silk. A sea of hands grows as quickly as the ever-present dust is kicked up, fuelled by our love for Jinjer. 

Alien Ant Farm

Alien Ant Farm’s appetite has been renewed since their last trip to the UK, and ‘Movies’ hits the sweet spot between nostalgia and summer fun, sending beach balls flying across the sky. Karaoke moment abound, fuelled by pop punk guitar squeals adding sparkle to ‘Last dAntz’. It’s Fathers’ Day, after all, so a “mosh pit for dads only” feels like a sweet gesture, and ‘These Days’ taps into the spirit of noughties youth. Of course, their version of ‘Smooth Criminal’ is iconic, and Alien Ant Farm truly have made it their own. 

House of Protection

Let’s throw rave vibes into the best underground party of the weekend, shall we? House of Protection throw their hardcore influence into the controlled chaos of the Avalanche stage, ignoring genre boundaries with a protest attitude and vocals like shouted slogans. ‘Fuse’ wins us over with a classic hardcore bounce that bursts from tightly wound electricity and a surprisingly soft chorus. When you’ve got Fever 333 and the Cancer Bats on your group CV, you’re bound to make appealing noise, and House of Protection make rowdy, uplifting Rottweilers of songs that throw caution to the wind. 

President

The crowd stretches so far beyond the Dogtooth stage for the most hyped band on the Download bill. It’s President’s first show, and sixty percent of it is made of new songs, a very bold move for the masked political hopefuls. The singalong for ‘Fearless’ breaks from an awed hush, before the long, lonely tones of ‘Dionysus’ betray a combination of Corey Taylor and Sleep Token on their playlist. ‘Rage’ has a rockier edge to drops that feel new and essential, and the huge scream on ‘Destroy Me’ jolts us into the President fandom. “Let it be known; this is merely the opening chapter,” announces the grandiose voiceover, and we truly hope it’s right. President have tapped into the zeitgeist with a sound that’s fresh and has already captured the hearts of seemingly half the arena. 

Jerry Cantrell

For those not enraptured by President, the ex-Alice In Chains founder offers a comforting rock presence, his old school outlaw energy channeled into his iconic voice. His guitar feels like raking a zen sand garden at times, an essential approach that reaches out to fans go reworked rock with its solid steel grunge heart. ‘My Body Breathing’ proves his role as a hero to older rockers suits him, and each song on his set is a road trip through post modern Americana.

Spiritbox

We’re greeted with an instant blast from a band who can’t be expected to accept an afternoon slot for much longer. There’s an epic scale to Courtney LaPlante’s screams as she floats angelically in a white dress above us onstage, ‘Fata Morgana’ quenches our thirst for deep riffs, and our love of Spiritbox peaks with ‘The Void’, the beats shaking loose our inhibitions. We scream out the chorus to ‘Secret Garden’ as one before ‘Circle With Me’ hits like a sandstorm; grinding and beautifully destructive. 

Lorna Shore

The award for ‘Band Who Started A Pit Before The Set After One Note’ goes to the majestic Lorna Shore. Taylor Barber of Die By My Hand joins for ‘Sun//Eater’, a song packed with drama, dignity and total savagery from a band in impeccably tailored suits. The air guitars are out in force for ‘Cursed To Die’, the bass heavy from a band who are a glorious contradiction, impressively absorbing for half of us and inspirational for the rest. Front man Will Ramos checks the pit with real concern, offering tips on hydration, before ‘To The Hellfire’ ignites the crowd, their blistering pyro adding to the wall of complicated deathcore.

Bullet For My Valentine

 The Apex stage is rammed for a least fifty metres for Bullet For My Valentine, a testament to the band’s “heavy but super accessible” stance. We’re here to celebrate twenty years of ‘The Poison’, a record that’ll be played in full “for the last time in the UK.” ‘Tears Don’t Fall’, “the song that changed our lives forever” according to vocalist Matthew Tuck, feels fresh, with gorgeous playful pauses added for buildup and for crowd surfers to rise to the surface. ‘Suffocating Under Words Of Sorrow (What Can I Do)’ is rich and bright, a well-polished call to arms, a celebration of passion. Sometimes you just want to hear your favourite songs played incredibly loud, glazed with genuine appreciation and sincerity, and that’s what makes Bullet For My Valentine’s set so perfect.

Steel Panther

Steel Panther plot a taut set, as tight as the lycra on the exotic dancers onstage. Opening with ‘Eye Of The Panther’, they give us all the hair metal excess and guitar twiddle that we hoped for. In between the hopefully fictional anecdotes and jokes which all have homosexuality as the punchline, they’re doing what they do best: wailing, rocking out, and paying their own satirical homage to the greats. For the crowd who are into Steel Panther, ‘Asian Hooker’ is a massive highlight, and the newcomers exchange awkward side glances. At the top of the hill, one of the Festival Chaplains stares on impassively while the crowd go wild for the solos and smoke that flood ‘Friends With Benefits’.

Kids In Glass Houses

Meanwhile, down the hill, Kids in Glass Houses are projecting the polar opposite to Steel Panther. ‘Undercover Lover’ brims with optimism and sincerity, the warmth, layers and Lionel Ritchie sampling giving a weekend of the Avalanche stage a joyful send off. Their set feels like a graduation, as ‘Diamond Days’ flings out Springsteen energy, and ‘Sunshine’ could be a lesson in how to create softness without mush. Kids in Glass Houses project a buzzing brit energy that surely has lured half of the crowd to already book tickets to the winter tour. 

Korn

Korn are an enigma. Despite staying out of the charts for decades, they’ve amassed a huge following, at least judging by the amount of ‘Got The Life’ tattoos spotted over the weekend. Every phone is in the air as Jonathan Davis lets out his first scream into ‘Blind’, a song that feels aggressive and vital. Korn have rid themselves of the trappings that come with the label ‘nu metal’, and we can see them as they were meant to be all along. DJ scratches have been replaced with even more guitar and we can see clearly what made them special enough to start their own sub-genre. ‘Here To Stay’ emerges fast and stormy, the bass stirring further and further as we are sucked into Korn’s set. 

There’s moments of levity, such as Davis playing the bagpipes and silly lyrics on ‘Shoots and Ladders’, but Korn focus on the raw core at the heart of their sound that needed to be stripped of its baggage to be appreciated. ‘Y’all Want A Single’ has reached classic status, the swears screamed as a pressure release, a toy voodoo doll flung across the field to a huge groove and the trademark guitar echoes.  It’s ‘Freak On A Leash’, slowed to a glacial scale, that provides the perfect close the weekend, each second stretched to significance to accumulate our voices before confetti releases us from the weekend. Korn have stamped out relic or nostalgia status to become the final headliners that we didn’t know we needed. 

It’s a special show for Bleed From Within too. “The self titled Slipknot record is one of the reasons that we are a band,” exclaims vocalist Scott Kennedy. They’re the perfect support, with enough of the Slipknot sound to hype us up, but also enough of their own flavour to show us where that inspiration has been taken. Our hands sprout up like shoots nourished by darkness, drawn towards the riffs from ‘I am Damnation’, the arena filling before our eyes. There’s a beautiful willingness in the air, a desire to throw ourselves into ‘Levitate’, our arms raised to Kennedy’s ripped desperation in his euphoric, tortured vocals. New song ‘In Place Of Your Halo’ features tiny piano touches that head into a raw shred and a punching chorus. By the end of their brief set, we are beyond ready for Slipknot, preemptively lighting our phones across the area in anticipation.

“I said it last night and I’ll say it again,” Corey Taylor says, the smile behind his mask almost audible, “London, it’s like coming home. They stuffed so many people in this goddamn place.” From the moment ‘(sic)’ drops, the whole place has gone off, our appetite finally sated to re-live the original moment Slipknot. burst into the world, iconic in their uniforms, perfect in their choreographed rage. Taylor’s brief pause comes after ‘Eyeless’ sends the floor seething, the song charged with vocals like bullets and isolated guitar like a sewer tunnel. His vocals rise to the top of the finest circle of hell that is ‘Wait And Bleed’ while bucket drummers masquerading as demon clowns hit an oil drum with a baseball bat, our only respite from their dimension a minute guitar solo. Now, the frontman is here to make a promise. “Welcome back to 19-fucking-99. For one night only, you will not hear one fucking song written after 1999…” This album is no less powerful for being dragged forward in time, our nostalgia burned off like a layer of grease in favour of re-discovering their glorious brand of noise. 

Taking breaks for mini DJ sets could be seen as excuse for Slipknot to recuperate (“We will give you another twenty five years, we promise you that,” shouts Taylor, unaware that in another quarter century, he’ll be seventy six years old), but the downtime is welcome respite from the juggernaut that is their set. His mask’s glowing red eyes are the last remnant of light onstage after ‘Eeyore’ proves to be a track that could sweep you away with it’s vigour. A circle pit opens like a sinkhole caused by ‘Me Inside’s rhythmic growling opens, the disconcerting rhythmic glitches building rather than breaking. Consuming and otherworldly, the jagged vibrancy of their show erupts with  ’Liberate’s rolling riffs and ‘Purity’s primitive, haunting opening, Taylor’s voice a murmured incantation. “How would you like to get into deep cuts, motherfucker?” He yells before ‘No Life’; their rap side invigorates like a nuclear blast untrained by nostalgia, a warehouse cyber voodoo that screeches and infects.

Even as far as the encore, there’s a sense of organised chaos, held together through guitar as tight as razor wire on ‘Surfacing’ acting a shuddering tour guide through an underworld of nasty noise. “We will never fucking forget tonight,” declared Taylor. “The first time we played this song in London was December 13th 1999. Just like that time, would you like to go some place very dark with us?” As if he needed to ask. Bringing forth bucket drummer scrapes, he rubs his hands with glee as acid rain guitar picks up for their extended version of ‘Scissors’. The last in a solid hour of crowd surfers are churned up like unearthed magma forced into lava.

Reimagining a specific moment in time, when Slipknot first exploded into the world, is the glue that we needed to round off a fantastic year of music, and draw five digits worth of fans  together. While Taylor might not be able to keep his promise to do a fiftieth anniversary spectacular, that doesn’t really matter. For one brief. Shining evening, we were back at the turn of the last millennium, re-introducing ourselves to the behemoth that is Slipknot. 

KATE ALLVEY

Words: Kate Allvey.  Images: Penny Bennett

Bambie Thug

Wreathed in black latex tentacles, the Irish vocalist opens the second day of Download with seductive, evil ‘ouija pop’. They’re like a possessed Lady Gaga, spilling musical ink on ‘Last Summer (I Know What You Did)’, and if you had guessed that a sexy bin man costume would feature somewhere over the weekend, you’d be proven right during hypnotic new track ‘Trash Will Take Itself Out’. But the magic happens in their almost un-backed cover of the Cranberries ‘Zombie’; flanked by flags of the oppressed held in silence, it’s clear that’s there’s so much more to Bambie Thug than nudity and Eurovision.

Florence Black

As the first act of the day to fall victim to the curse of a shortened set due to apocalyptic weather conditions, we sadly don’t get much of the welsh act’s bass-heavy hard rock sound, but the five songs we receive are as dark as their name. Tristan Thomas’ heartfelt wail makes the cliched metal horns he conjures up feel necessary throughout their Pearl Jam influenced set, and ‘Sun And Moon’ slips down as easily as a scotch at midnight. We’re left simultaneously frustrated and grateful for the brief snippet we did get to see. 

Bleed From Within

The faithful brave an extra half an hour wait in the downpour for the Scottish metallers, but ‘Sovereign’s essential burst of brutality makes the discomfort worth it. We needed something heavier and tougher, richer in ferocious guitar to bolster our spirits, and we got it and then some. ’Stand Down’ sends a connection flooding through the crowd all the way to the back, and vocalist Scott Kennedy grins at our response. Closing with a heartwarming and fan-pleasing rendition of Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’, they’re joined by Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan who’ve been filming onsite.

Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes

The frontman knows both how to construct a belting setlist and how to rock a fuzzy pink cardigan, and the huge crowd response to ‘Kitty Sucker’ shows just how comfortable he’s become in his rock n roll status. The lounger tracks which featured heavily on his last tour are thrown out in favour of the rangers which showcase Carter at his best like ‘Devil Inside Me’, though strategically placed slower tracks move us. “What it takes to be a main stage band? Confidence, power, kindness and love,” he lists before the impassioned ‘Brambles’s slinky beat booms out. Sadly, this makes a small boy in the audience cry, and Carter pauses the song to console him (“Little man’s tired… I don’t blame him, I’m tired too!”). ‘My Town’ hits heavier live, with tons more electro to console even the most weary, leaving us both in awe of the Rattlesnakes’ sound and energised to continue.

Babymetal

Handmade t-shirts and fervent hype surrounded the Japanese girl group, but their hyper-energetic routines angered whichever deity controls the weather in Derbyshire. After only one song, a look of panic flashed across leader Su-Metal’s face as she received a message in her earpiece, and the dreaded ‘we are pausing the show briefly’ message displayed onscreen as the weather turned biblical. However, the ladies are nothing if not consummate professionals, and as soon as it was safe to do so, ‘METALI!!’ proved that they are the holographic dressed superheroes that we need to push through the day. ‘RATATATA’ is an absolute banger live and the closest we would come to seeing Electric Callboy this weekend. It felt like as soon as Babymetal appeared, they were gone.

Enter Shikari

There’s a reason Enter Shikari sold out stadiums across Europe earlier this year. Glitching between poetry, dance grooving, eighties vibes and nineties optimism, they perfectly capture the escapism of the weekend. ‘Giant Pacific Octopus (I Don’t Know You Any More)’ is melancholy and bold, opening a thoughtful pit that embraces the message of the song. Frontman Rou Reynolds paces like a caged tiger; “This was the first festival that ever allowed us to play, back in 2006” he yells before turning the bass up to absolute limits for ‘goldfish’s intense drops after dreamlike soft bridges that weigh heavy with longing. Enter Shikari lean into the drum n bass end of their sound for shows like this because it absolutely works for huge crowds, and ‘Sorry, You’re Not a Winner’ playfully extends the electro side of the band like an outstretched hand, inviting us to dance. 

  While She Sleeps

“I’ve been here before, I’ve been stood where you is,” pants Loz Taylor between songs, and it’s the solidarity and empathy between While She Sleeps and their fans which make them such a great live act. With neon guitars blaring on opener ‘RAINBOWS’, they’re the perfect transition to the evening after Enter Shikari. “We did not come here to fuck about,” says Taylor sternly, and he’s determined to cram every minute allotted for his band with  vital honesty and the kind of songs that create slamming all the way up to the top of the hill. ‘SELF HELL’ burns with rage and mutual frustration to provoke a massive, bouncing response that we yell back to the band mid air. 

The Offspring

One of the oldest bands on the bill, the Offspring have been known to let their tendency towards bad puns and novelty skits get in the way of their sound. Not so today. Noodles, Dexter and friends plot a tight course, barely deviating from faultless punk and proving that they are so much more than the guys who asked us why we were still unemployed. New song ‘Make It All Right’ is a burst of summer fun that bodes very well for their upcoming album, and ‘The Kids Aren’t Alright’s eulogy to the loss of childhood dreams captures just the right balance of poignancy and thrashing. ‘Hit That’ sparks conga lines and even the most hardened types chant out the melody while coloured balloons bounce like weightless marbles over the pit.

Billy Talent

The spiky Canadians put out seriously classy proto-emo from the get-go with ‘Devil in a Midnight Mass’ dropping bombs of distortion amid Benjamin Kowalewicz’s trademark steel wire vocals. Their potent dark energy is the antidote to the Offspring’s jollier hits we hear spilling over from the Apex stage. ’This Suffering’ is like a midnight hedge maze, it’s tone providing a taut atmosphere that cracks before ‘I Beg To Differ (This Will Get Better)’s brightening guitar. Kowalewicz theatrically emotes, aware he’s got a dedicated audience in the palm of his hand during the derelict loveliness of ‘Rusted From The Rain’, and Billy Talent’s set has to be a highlight of the weekend for pretty much everyone who rushed over to the Avalanche stage.

Fall Out Boy

It’s deceptively easy to get to the front for Fall Out Boy’s chronologically curated set, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t the star attractions of the day, if not the whole weekend. The Teenage remembrances and sizzling solos of ‘Grand Theft Autumn’ give way to fireworks and picture frames as, word perfect, we sing along to ‘Sugar, We’re Going Down’, our inconveniences fading away. ‘Dance Dance’ tugs on our sense of nostalgia, but with a slight roughness and friction to dispel the gloss of memory and shake us in the present. Pete Wentz shreds like we never remembered him being able to, smiling broadly between frequent costume changes. “I want you to sing till your lungs give out,” he calls, and we nearly do to the perfect showmanship and bass drops of ‘This Ain’t A Scene, It’s an Arms Race’.

If there was a prize for ‘maximum spectacle achieved in an hour at Download’, Fall Out Boy would take the gold. ‘My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark’ sees guitars re-made into flamethrowers at the centre of walls of pyromania, and the troupe of sinister cheerleaders onstage for ‘Uma Thurman’ signals the start of a clear ramping up of the effects on the songs without cult-favourite status. It’s not just all shock and awe, though. Wentz helps a couple with their gender revel via waterproof envelope and declares they should name their baby ‘Download’. After ten years away from Donington, Fall Out Boy wanted to ‘make the biggest art project we could fucking make’, and they made it happen in a huge way.

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