Download Festival 2010: Friday Review: Back In Black
Due to the rather large presence of AC/DC headlining the first night at Download this year, the amount of bands on Fridays lineup was a bit shorter than usual, with the bands kicking off at 3pm rather than the usual 1pm. We got ourselves into the arena in plenty of time and had time to acquire beer and ice cream and get a good spot right down the front for main stage openers Unearth, who kicked things off in typical aggressive style with their blend of NWOAHM. The sound was not brilliant, but it still didn't take long to get heads banging and circle pits whirring, and by the time they finished off with Black Hearts Shall Reign half an hour later, I think most people had enjoyed themselves. A very solid start to proceedings. (7).
Unearth: First Circle Pits Of The Day
In my opinion, as much as I enjoy 36 Crazyfists, they do not work at a festival. Brock's voice does not seem able to stand up to outside, and as a result I have always enjoyed them far more at indoor shows, so I was hoping that seeing them for the third time at Download might change my mind. Unfortunately it didn't. In fairness to the Crazyfists, the sound was awful, probably the worst I experienced for a band all weekend. You could not hear the guitars at all, but Brock's voice sounded pretty haggard by the 3rd or 4th song and even a guest appearance from Howard Jones of Killswitch Engage couldn't turn the tide on this performance for very long. As a result we left early to go catch A Day To Remember. Disappointing (5). It was however while watching 36 Crazyfists I noticed the enormous AC/DC bell hanging on the adjaceent stage, more on this later.
Howard comes to save the day (or not)
A quick navigation up the hill to the second stage and we were just in time for A Day To Remember, appearing on this stage for the third Download running. They seem to have become more popular year-on-year as there was a big crowd for them, and seemingly everyone around joined in with the intro singalong to opener The Downfall of Us All.
ADTR: Download Residency It Seems
In my opinion the strength of ADTR has always been in the drumming and Alex Shellnutt was on fine form behind the kit while the rest of the band seemed very up for it and happy to be playing Download once again. The setlist was a very popular one, with A Shot In The Dark and My Life For Hire amongst the songs before closing with the traditional Plot To Bomb The Panhandle. The first real combined singalong and headbang session of the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed. 7.5
The A Day To Remember Setlist was:
- The Downfall of Us All
- A Shot In The Dark
- My Life for Hire
- Mr Highway Is Thinking About The End
- Have Faith In Me
- I'm Made Of Wax Larry, What Are You Made Of
- The Plot to Bomb the Panhandle
At this point, most of my friends stayed at the Ronnie James Dio stage to watch Coheed and Cambria. With the Coheed vocals not being my cup of tea, and based on how much I enjoyed Killswitch Engage last year, myself and Louise legged it back down to the main stage to catch Killswitch on their second Download Friday main stage appearance in a row. It would seem judging by the masses watching that replacing Wolfmother with Killswitch was a good move (nice work Andy! (Andy Copping, Download Booker and general nice guy on Twitter)).
Killswitch changed things up from last year, not content to just "play the same songs over and over" as some people in our group thought they would. A particular personal highlight was a rare airing of "Fixation On The Darkness" as well as "This Is Absolution". Howard Jones had a huge, shit eating grin on his face the entire performance and kept making reference to how pleased they were to be here and how to be invited back for a second year running was a particular honour for the band. Come the last third of the set we were into traditional Killswitch singalong territory with My Last Serenade and My Curse before Adam asked us for "a moment". He then paid fitting tribute to Ronnie James Dio and talked about how it was their honour to play one of his best known songs for Dio and for all of us. Holy Diver then sent the fields of Donnington apeshit to close a performance that was thoroughly enjoyed, probably even more than last year. 7.5
The Killswitch Engage Setlist was:
- Rose Of Sharyn
- Reckoning
- Fixation On The Darkness
- Starting Over
- Life To Lifeless
- Breathe Life
- Self Revolution
- A Bid Farewell
- This Is Absolution
- The Forgotten
- My Last Serenade
- The End Of Heartache
- My Curse
- Holy Diver (Dio cover)
Back up the hill to the second stage and we caught the very end of Coheed, and then had some time to grab some food before the appearance of Bullet For My Valentine to headline the Dio stage for Friday night. With a big crowd watching and some decent pyro on stage, Bullet kicked off with Your Betrayal, opener from new album Fever, which got things going nicely. They followed this with the title track of their new album, which unfortunately has some of the most cringeworthy lyrics ever, before heading into more familar territory with Waking The Demon and All These Things I Hate Revolve around me. Conscious of getting a decent spot for AC/DC (or Acca Dacca as various people referred to them throughout the weekend), we left BFMV about halfway through. What we did see was good and an improvement on their Sonisphere show with none of the technical problems from Knebworth present. In 2008 Matt Tuck said "we'll be back next year to headline this m*****f*****", well he got it right, just a year later than he thought. 6.5
Remembering those who have sadly left us
One quick trip to the merch stand later (and a quick run back to the Dio stage to hear Bullet perform The Last Fight, which is my favourite song by far on their new album) and we had a great spot to watch AC/DC from (near The Donut Factory closest to the AC/DC stage if anyone went there over the weekend). For awhile there was a helicopter circling overhead, leading to much speculation amongst our group that Brian, Angus and co were going to land on stage to start the show, but then the helicopter disappeared over the trees, much to everyones disappointment. Before the start of AC/DC there was a video tribute on the screens to all the artists such as Dio, Paul Gray, Pete Steele and The Rev (to name a few) who have passed away in the last year which I thought was a nice touch.
The opening of the show (5 minutes early, when does a headline ever come on early?!) was pretty bloody impressive in its own right with the arrival of the Rock N Roll enormous steel train (no prizes for guessing the opening song). What immediately struck you was 1) how loud the sound was, but in a good way and 2) how clear it was. The AC/DC stage seemed to have about 600 high quality amps and speakers at its disposal and you could hear the difference in the sound immediately. Old favourites were mixed with a good helping of newest album Black Ice, though I was surprised at how early Back In Black featured in the set. The band were spot on from their years of experience, hardly surprising with it being their fourth time headlining at Donnington (first time since 1991) and also with the performance being filmed for DVD.
With a back catalogue like AC/DC's, you will never get to hear all the songs you want but there was a large dose of hits including Thunderstruck, Shoot To Thrill and my personal favourite, Hells Bells. The enormous, imposing bell was lowered from the rafters for the start of this song and Brian Johnson took a running jump and swung on the bell to ring it, which was pretty impressive.
Brian Johnson: Hells Bells Indeed!
About halfway through the set Angus Young took it upon himself to disrobe from his school boy outfit, slowly stripping an item at a time to eventually display nothing but a pair of AC/DC Underpants, which got a huge cheer. A Whole Lotta Rosie brought the appearance of a gigantic inflatable Rosie (with what has to be the world's largest inflatable breasts anywhere apart from Rachel Underhill) riding the back of the train and You Shook Me All Night Long brought the biggest singalong of the weekend so far. For the culmination of the main part of the performance, Angus undertook a solo that had to be at least 15 minutes in length and in part took place on a massive hydraulic lift in the middle of the stage. It was impressive but I don't think it needed to go on for quite so long.
These guys do not need a caption.
The encore kicked off with the enormously popular Highway To Hell before Friday night was appropriately brought to a close with For Those About To Rock, leaving AC/DC to finish off a very triumphant, impressive and successful performance. We were then treated to a very nice fireworks display which almost seemed to go off about 2 or 3 minutes too late and seemed a bit out of place, but nobody minded whatsoever.
A pretty end to an awesome show
After years of waiting, I was very pleased to finally see AC/DC in the flesh in what could have been their last ever UK performance (we will have to wait and see). They are a hugely experienced live juggernaut who put on a great show and provide full value for money, and I'd love to see them again. Definitely the highlight of the day. 8.5
The AC/DC setlist was:
- Rock N' Roll Train
- Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be
- Back in Black
- Big Jack
- Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
- Shot Down in Flames
- Thunderstruck
- Black Ice
- The Jack
- Hells Bells
- Shoot to Thrill
- War Machine
- High Voltage
- You Shook Me All Night Long
- T.N.T.
- Whole Lotta Rosie
- Let There Be Rock
- =================
- Highway to Hell
- For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)
An absolute mission to get through the hordes and back to the campsite followed, by which time no-one was up for much activity, so that leads us nicely onto Saturday, check back soon for all the fun of Saturday and Sunday.
P.S. I have just read the Kerrang review of Download and whilst I don't want to offend anyone (particularly one or two nice people I converse with on Twitter), I must conclude it was written by someone who didn't actually attend the festival. Some of the reviews are an absolute joke, especially the prat who gave AC/DC 3 stars and said that all the young people were stood static while the older generation went crazy. Well my entire group of about 20 people was 25 or under and we all went mental for the majority of the 2 hours of AC/DC. I don't know, anyone can be a journalist these days it seems.
I will leave you with my favourite photo of Friday, one of my best to date (modesty out the window). If this does not capture the general thrill and enjoyment of AC/DC by all, nothing does.
Download 2010 With AC/DC: We Are Those About To Rock
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