Download 2009: The Good, The Good and The Good.
People always lay into festival bills. And Jesus isn’t Download the worst for it? “Aw, it’s not metal enough, it’s not heavy enough, it’s not crispy enough…Why are they up there on the bill? Why are they above them? Why are there planes? What’s a racetrack? Why are we all here? What is pyramid selling?” On and on and on…
As festival promoter Andy Copping told us, you’ll never make everyone happy on a bill that big.
The bill gets announced and 2,000 gobshites yell (read: post anonymously on forums) “It’s shit! Why aren’t Metallica/Rage Against The Machine/Slipknot/Iron Maiden/Led Zeppelin/The Jimi Hendrix Experience playing?”
While that’s happening, 68,000 people smile, rush out and buy tickets. “Lostprophets, My Chemical Romance/Madina Lake? Great, I’ll have two!?”
Download = 100 bands @ £160 – £1.60 per band in total.
Assuming you see 30 bands over the weekend (10 per day) that’s £5.30 per band.
Slipknot at Brixton £30, Nightwish at Brixton £23, Metallica in Sheffield £35, Kataklysm at Underworld £12, My shit-awful band I was in two years ago at some dive in London Bridge £5. That’s not taking into consideration travel.
Tell me Download isn’t worth it.
Metal is enjoying a massive renaissance. While makes us proud to be metal heads in an I-told-you-so way, it does also mean we have to fight with our more mainstream siblings for the attention of the daddies: Maiden, Metallica, RATM etc. Reading seem to skim the top 1% of great metal and plonk it on their bill (NIN, Slipknot, Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold) leaving the grassroots thinking: “I bought all your records for years and now you’re playing Reading? Fuck you then.”
Check out the current rumours for the rest of the bill.
The burgeoning live scene and growing interest in heavy music – and possibly Download’s inability to cater for the more single-minded/niche fans – has meant that more specific genre festivals have sprung up and enjoyed great support (Bloodstock etc).
So… Slipknot, The Prodigy, Korn, Devildriver, Dragonforce, Pendulum and Motley Crue. It’s certainly a… motley crew. Nu-metal survivors, a stadium dance circus act, Nu-metal instigators, the overlooked champions of no-nonsense modern metal, happy hardcore with guitars, the ultimate Prodigy support band and a band who came back from beyond the grave to show the world why all those pictures from the 80s looked so amazing…
Check out Download Classic Rock Sunday rumours.
It’ll be interesting to see what gets said, who starts whinging, and who gets slagged off. Let’s check back in a week to see if my predictions are on the money:
a) People get shirty about Pendulum (but – as with last year – will end up in the tent loving it).
b) Motley Crue will be announcement that people say is great because it makes people under 28 feel knowledgeable, “ya, I luuurvve the Crue!”
c) People will be happy about Dragonforce.
d) People will be divided on Korn, and it will kick off about their placing on the bill.
e) No one will admit that they love the Prodigy. And no one will admit that are basically a heavy metal band… amongst other things.
f) Everyone will be stoked as fuck about Devildriver and they may even steal the show – much the same way Trigger The Bloodshed /Saxon/Pendulum/Testament did last year.
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it’s not too bad. i will care more about the smaller bands through the day. happy to see slipknot headlining finally. korn i’ve seen twice at download and both times really did not like apart from a couple of earlier tracks. dragonforce are great. motley crue not sure about but i am sure they are a good live act. prodigy rock, never seen them live but hear great things. it’s true you can’t satisfy everyone and last year i gave up on download and went to germany’s rock im park instead which was awesome. this year download is a possibility but having seen sonisphere’s initial announcements i may head to that instead, but it will be a good year for download i think anyway with the current announcements. good for everyone all round this year it seems
I heard the announcement on the radio last night, and when Pendulum came up again I thought ‘Dear God…’. Hate that band with a passion, there was nothing rock about it last year and I fail to see what’s changed. The other bands though are good additions. Most looking forward to finally getting to see Korn (after 2006’s problems and not getting a decent view in ‘07), The Prodigy – who will show Pendulum how things are done – and Devildriver headlining a stage! Didn’t see that one coming, but should be a fantastic set.
Let’s hope they give us some huge quality names in the next week or two.
personally the bands there i don’t give a flying shit about are korn and motley crue. Dragonforce i really don’t know i’ve heard so much bad stuff about them live ,pendulum became a kinda shitty band once in silico came out but i’m still excited to see them. Prodigy will be fucking awsome,devildriver even better and slipknot i don’t really need to say if they are gonna be good or not. Hope fully all the rest of the bands that are announced are good, i can expect to see bands like disturbed,inflames,bring me the horizon and hopefully ones i don’t really expect like trivium,avenged sevenfold and dir en grey
1.60 per band – but what`s the point if you only want to see a few of them?
10 bands per day that the crowd want to see?
mm possibly being more than a little unrealistic..
Do they split the days up and let you pay for only one day if you wanted it?
I could have saved up for download this year but would have missed out on great stadium gigs of bands that arent playing download.
£160 notes, plus travel and other expenses, so maybe 200 quid in all. is a lot of money for anything, especially with a risk that is download, and as long as people remember last year it will take a while for people to say.
“yeah! im defiantely saving for download!”…
Festivals arent for everybody, i`d rather pay for greater security and better sonics (i guess they would be?) from an inside stadium.
plus no worries about getting cold or wet, proper toilets, etc etc
If Download had seven or eight more top bands i wanted to see i would think abou it, but its a lot of dough.
I wouldn`t swap a DOFII ticket for a download one.
dragonforce are shit end of
It would be worth if the bands where good. Slipknot and shit like that are just for fag/mallcore kids who know fuck all about music.