Download Review - part one - Thursday - Saturday

Nick Oliveri & Mondo Generator

Metallica

Naked Dave

Matt as "Mr Tee"

The Dunlop Bridge at Donnington - I have the Scalextric version and got very excited.

After having one train cancelled and the other delayed (amidst much shouting at station officials), a late night cab ride with some Finnish and irish Metallers (great guys although bad band names - "Merde Foot" anyone?), and a treck across a busy field until we finally ran into a very drunk Matt, Cath and I finally arrived at Download. Fortunately Matt, Jimmy Steve and kel had seen sense to get a shit load of beer and cider and Jim had already put up our tent. Within seconds of sitting down and opening a can and chatting to some random guys who I initially assumed were with Matt, we are into the festival spirit. Then Naked Dave wandered up, being touted for sale by his mates so we bribed him with a can of something and chatted to him for while. he must've been very drunk and very caned but was friendly enough and we chatted about how he didn't chafe his arse and how sensible he was to wear shoes (it was about 2 AM). Followning some food at 3:00 AM we thought about going to bed. By the time we actually managed to accomplish this it was already getting light again, but at least there was no queue for water at 4:30 in the morning.

On Friday we didn't do much as there weren't many good bands on, I think we saw Fishbone, Cathedral and tried to see Gay for Johnny Depp. Gay for Johnny Depp took half a aong to convince us that they had a mildly good name but were utter shite. Fishbone, however, despite the long walk, were pretty cool in a souly, funky rocky kind of a way, I enjoyed listening to them a lot. The other band we saw were Cathedral, who I hadn't heard before but were a pretty old school British doom metal band inspired by Sabbath. They were really good and I bought an album (Carnival Bizarrw) recently - which has Hopkins (The Witchfinder General) on it. Lots of almost stolen Sabbath riffs but a good album - I want to get a few more, some of the later ones are supposed to be a bit rockier. We shall see. Unfortunately I managed to miss Tool as I was knackered and had a headache.

On the Saturday I think (might have been Friday night, who can say), we passed a passed out guy near a tent a few behind ours. A while later another group of blokes had tried to revive him by picking him up and throwing him around a bit, but to no avail, and settled on calling him dead guy. They also discovered that he had soiled himself. A little while after that dead guy managed to recover consciousness and attempted to locate his tent. Unfortunately he had lost all sense of direction and balance - in combination with a shit load of tents and guy ropes potentially lethal. He almost fell on our tent, stumbled a bit further on, over a few guy ropes, into someone elses tent, recovered again and shambled into the distance, followed by cries of "dead guy's alive - yeah lets follow him". Gotta love festivals!

Saturday was basically - how can we waste time until Metallica? Well... this wasn't quite true as England kicked off their first World Cup game against Paraguay at 2:00 pm - spectacularly clashing with Alice in Chains. Gutted. Being the patriotic person that I am I went to watch England play out a crappy 1-0 own goal victory over poor opposition (a pattern that was to continue) whilst Jerry etc all played to an enthralled crowd on the main stage. Later on we went to see Nick Oliveri and Mondo Generator (well, him and half of Winnebago Deal), who were fukcing awesome - really really good. Bought 2 Mondo albums as soon as I got back and they are well worth it.

Then we went to wait for Metallica for about 2 hours.... but it was to prove the greates 'tallica gig yet.

After that we got back to the tent and drank and listened to Metallica cds for hours. I seem to recall making vege sausages that looked like turds - this may or may not have been saturday. i think this another dawn breaking before bedtime night.