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.

Click the below image for the full ‘Download Festival – Saturday’ gallery

‘PEACE OF MIND’ opens this album with a huge punch of power, before segueing into ‘LEAVE ME ALONE’. Bruising guitar work opens this absolute powerhouse of a song – it simply brims with pure, unadulterated rage. Electronic undertones are punctuated with war cries of, “Leave me the fuck alone!” It’s not hard to imagine that one line being screamed with gusto in a sweaty venue, packed with flying bodies and pits.

There’s a visceral energy throughout ‘RAINBOWS’, before kicking off into single and title-track ‘SELF HELL’, which needs no introduction. The first single released from this album in late 2023, it’s a track that’s confident of its strength without being cocky and arrogant. Deep riffs are paired perfectly with fun lyrics of, “Let’s praise the love inside of us.”

‘NO FEELING IS FINAL (feat. Aether)’ is, simply put, an absolutely sublime interlude – it’s ethereal, invoking a curious sense of mystery. It’s a perfect palate cleanser, before the opening chords of ‘DOPESICK’ strike.

The clean vocals on ‘DOPESICK’ are staggering – their power could cut glass; the vocals are that immense. Fin Power lends dynamic and skilled vocals, strengthening an already solid track. It’s the first of two utterly brilliant back-to-back tracks, as ‘DOPE’ follows straight after. The clash of Lawrence Taylor’s guttural screams and the roars from MALEVOLENCE’s Alex Taylor are simply staggering. Layered with bruising riffs and crushing drum work, ‘DOPE’ is yet another highlight and a track that will go down a storm for fans.

Single ‘TO THE FLOWERS’ is incredibly melancholic – there’s an air of despair beneath the lyrics. The guitar work is clever and bold, layered over drumming that’s dynamic and oozing with pure energy. This track reflects a wide spectrum of human emotion; from distress and sorrow to an elation and ecstasy that soars, it’s not hard to understand why this single caused an emotive and loved response from fans.

Another interlude, in the form of ‘OUT OF THE BLUE’ is another haunting instrumental piece, and really showcases just how diverse While She Sleeps are. ‘ENEMY MENTALITY’ is brawny and beefy, full of electric power and clout.

Closing track ‘RADICAL HATRED RADICAL LOVE’ throws even more weight behind what is already an excellent, awe-inspiring album. While She Sleeps don’t seem to miss, and ‘SELF HELL’ is just testament to their maturity as a band over the last few years and is the perfect package to showcase their immense and never-ending talent.

JESS TAGLIANI

Even before Lawrence Taylor and co launched us into the metal core stratosphere, however, this was a solid night of harder metal. The tragic loss of guitarist Ryan Siew earlier this year has not deterred first act Polaris from making exceedingly cool music that zooms around the sky like a jet. In fact, even the small pit did not put off vocalist Jamie Hails; he flings his hair, squats, bounces and opens his body wide to absorb our screams, all while ripping the most unholy, unclean vocals from the atmosphere around him. The industrial hints in Polaris’ studio sound are minimized live, but thankfully they’re still there in the smoke trails left by each high powered tone from the guitar. Polaris have successfully mined the core of metalcore, making music which is melodic and brutal while being fundamentally very interesting. “Fuck this place up,” demands Hails, and from a distance, a pair of skinny legs in grey jeans kick the sky above the crowd ineffectively as their owner is turned upside down. 

Bury Tomorrow, next in line for our attention, have a Jekyll and Hyde character to their live sound. Vocalist Daniel Winter-Bates moves like a muscular, deliberate dancer, conducting our appreciation, while producing vicious vocals and swearing like a trucker. ‘Black Flame’ utilises his screamed obscenities, unifying them with soul-bearing, harmonic heat from vocalist and keyboardist Tom Prendergast. Bury Tomorrow manage to produce a set which is always heavy, but never oppressive, with nothing added that would dilute the darkness of their sound. Unconsciously, the front few rows have synchronised themselves to Winter-Bates’ every movement, and at points their quieter riffs have a monstrous arcade quality to them. All six members bask in out red reflected applause. During ‘DEATH (Ever Colder)’, their final song, even a security guard on patrol pauses for a few seconds to slam at the edges of the solid crowd. 

Even from the opening chords of ‘SLEEPS SOCIETY’, While She Sleeps have our full focus, almost to a hypnotic degree. Taylor bounces in his sequin bomber jacket over the crystalline, dying-star guitar riffs of ‘YOU ARE ALL YOU NEED’ before the worshipful introduction of ‘THE GUILTY PARTY’ implodes with sledgehammer guitar and toxic, oil drum percussion. Their set is arranged as a narrative, with each section of twenty minutes illustrated by a dynamic backdrop. Their every move creates drama, from exaggerated guitar flings to pauses to let each chord fade out into the distance. There’s also never an off moment or a pause in their power. They build an image with each intro then smash it, returning to examine and unearth the remains while the floodlights burn.

It’s not just their spectacular visuals and commitment to providing a show in every sense of the word that delights the fans though, as new track ‘SELF HELL’ receives its live debut through a streetlight yellow haze. It’s a late night, post-clubbing dissolution of a song, stapled back together with guitar strings and soaked in aggression. In the moody breaks, we feel the spirit of Serj Tankian in the song’s righteous fervent rhythm and megaphone vocals. As well as new material, While She Sleeps crack open their rarities box and bring some less-performed tracks out for our enjoyment. ‘Our Courage, Our Cancer’ brings a distinct mood change as the smell of burnt matches from the pyrotechnics signals the halfway point of the show. It’s been reworked as a far more electronic song than it was in the studio, and it’s now an anthem for us all as we reach up to the rolling gas giant projected behind the band. “Put your arm around the person next to you. When this shit kicks in, we are united,” preaches Taylor before the white lights above him slice down like blades and fantasy notes begin ‘Our Legacy’. Whether the tempo is fast or slow, the band’s intensity does not let up for a second. There’s a desolation in each member’s isolated parts before they join together like a rocket launch.

After ninety minutes of a fairly unrelenting set, there’s a long blackout. Someone begins an impromptu singalong of ‘Hey Baby’ before an evil laugh echoes through the arena. A vast boom shakes us and the graphics shift to a slowly moving sunrise as the organ kicks in. We’re recharged by the perpetually splintering guitar, before Taylor emerges with a question. “Want a fucking old song?” he asks rhetorically before the melancholy guitar fuzz of ‘Seven Hills’ breaks over a hopeful vocal. It’s the final song, our “last chance to mosh” as Taylor puts it, that really pushes our admiration over the edge. The pit for ‘Anti-Social’ is less a circle than a vast swathe, a stripe which stretches from the stage to the sound desk. Between the minute pauses for drum pops, Taylor crawls on his hands and knees across the scaffolding. Wind chime effects repeat endlessly over the echo of “bullshit” before the song ends with an atomic roar of everything they and we have left. The graphics drop to plain white, with only the silhouette of a Hollywood sign reading ‘SLEEP’. The narrative has ended and While She Sleeps are back to being humans again. They MC their own departure, take selfies and wish us a safe trip home as ‘Forget about Dre’ plays on the sound system and the magic of the show burns itself into memory. 

This was a show which deserves our respect. While She Sleeps sustained a frenetic and powerful show without pause for close to two hours. Every inch of the usually banal space was transformed into a cinematic experience, a passage to new worlds where our favourite songs were converted to pure energy. A film of this set is what should be shown to outraged civilians who think metal is monotonous and aggressive, because the bar has been raised across the genre for what can be accomplished in a single show.

KATE ALLVEY

This level of savage energy remains, with more and more bodies filing into the hall to witness a well-balanced and brutal display of the more extreme end of the metal spectrum. An enormous wall of death mid-set stretches from the stage all the way back to the sound desk, with non-stop pits from start to finish. Lorna Shore proved tonight that they deserve every bit of attention they’ve been getting, delivering a tight, slick powerhouse of a set.

An array of neon lights frame the While She Sleeps logo emblazoned on speaker stacks, the pulsing beams flashing in time as the crushing beats of ‘Sleeps Society’ open the set. Or should that be ‘SLEEPS SOCIETY’? The track listing for While She Sleeps’ previous two albums is printed in capital letters, and when you see these tracks played live, it all makes sense. The Sheffield five-piece have a lot to shout about, and they do it through their lyrics, fierce musicality and passionate performance.

While She Sleeps are band that love to headbang, and they do this in perfect unison at many points during the evening, with frontman Laurence “Loz” Taylor encouraging the crowd to jump along in time. There’s some bouncing in parts, and a few bodies over the barriers throughout, but on the whole, the general feeling is a lot more subdued compared to the fury of the pits for Lorna Shore When he says “I wanna see the biggest fucking circle pit of the evening”, there’s a sense that perhaps it’s not going to go that way this time.

That being said, all three acts this on tonight’s bill showcase formidable vocalists, with crowd interaction and charisma aplenty. Taylor’s colourful language is steeped with impassioned emotion, riling the fans up to match the energy that the band exude. While She Sleeps deliver an effective contrast between heavy beats and quieter moments, with plentiful breakdowns sounding tight and powerful. The clean vocals don’t always pack as much punch as the metalcore screams, but this doesn’t detract from the impact of the performance.

The mix for While She Sleeps is a touch guitar heavy, but this serves to highlight the skill of Sean Long’s deft fingers on lead and Mat Welsh’s chunky rhythmic riffs. The drums on ‘You are We’ are a highlight too, with those who began the track on their friends’ shoulders safely lowered back into the pit to pick up the energy levels once again. A wild-eyed and sweat-soaked Taylor gazes out over the crowd, seemingly managing to focus in on the keenest of fans gazing back in awe.

With a last cheer for Lorna Shore and Parkway Drive, rousing closer ‘Systematic’ sees most of the band venture onto the walkway to witness the majority of the crowd join in with the classic “get down jump up” final mosh. This is a band who can deliver an arena show, entirely in their own way, and boy do they look like they have fun doing it. Fitting then, that they close with a banner announcing that they will be headlining this very venue in a year’s time.

It’s not surprising that Parkway Drive have brought a spectacular stage show for their long-awaited return to the UK, but the opening spectacle of chasmic rear projection, hooded figures carrying torches and jets of flame shooting towards the roof is impressive nonetheless. The tiered stage raises drummer Ben “Gaz” Gordon high above the front of the stage, with dramatic spikes protruding at all angles between the stage risers.

With the rest of the band clad in black, vocalist Winston McCall is a vision in white, at points stomping around the stage and punching his fists in the air in a moment of primal frenzy. Opener ‘Glitch’ from latest release ‘Darker Still’ is received with a flurry of energetic joy, the level of which only seems to be surpassed with each following track. There are cheers and screams of approval for ‘Carrion’, prompting McCall to comment “this looks like chaos, look after each other” after the pit has died down.

Crowd favourite ‘Vice Grip’ shows the band at their peak, with each aggressive beat sounding precise and deliberate. If there was a slight lack of togetherness in the audience for While She Sleeps, the crowd are united as one for Parkway Drive. This feeling is echoed by McCall, speaking before the carnage of of ‘Dedicated’ about the band’s development over the past few years: “If there’s something we’ve learnt, it’s that we’re stronger together”.

The newer tracks from the most recent album take a little longer that others to land, but given the intensity of the set, the crowd may just be taking a moment to catch their collective breath. Fireworks erupt at the onset of ‘The Void’, and when everybody jumps, well, everybody jumps. Parkway Drive fill the space with dramatic blows and precision licks, proving with every hammering beat that they know how to command a headline slot.

A costume change and string quartet appear for ‘Shadow Boxing’, the classical element adding another layer to the rich tapestry of sonic delights that Parkway Drive bring to the show, with frequent guitar solos scattered throughout the set from Jeff Ling nodding to the more classic metal elements of Parkway Drive’s sound. The theatrics are saved from entering the realm of ridiculous by McCall’s light-hearted quips peppered throughout the night. Introducing the blisteringly heavy ‘Karma’, he tells the crowd “If the cardio walking up the hill wasn’t enough – this is where you get your steps in for the day”. The main set closes on ‘Bottom Feeder’ with bouncing pits and thousands of voices singing along with glee. These fans have been waiting three years to see their heroes return to UK soil, and Parkway Drive have brought a show worth waiting for.

After a few moments of expectant anticipation, the stage is literally on fire for the devastating two-track encore of ‘Crushed’ and ‘Wild Eyes’, in a display of pyro that could give Watain a run for their money. The flames are not a gimmick to distract from any lack of a scorching performance, however. Quite the contrary, they offer just the right level of spectacle to cement Parkway Drive as polished headline frontrunners for arenas across the globe.