Download Festival 2010: Saturday Review: Rust In Peace
Saturday came and the weather was still holding and our large group went off to the arena in dribs and drabs, with me failing to carry out my original plan of getting into the arena in time to see Rise To Remain early on, I instead opted to get in with plenty of time to spare for Sybreed, a band who I had heard good things about but not seen or heard much of their material.
Upon arrival into the arena at about the time Flyleaf should have been playing, I saw an unfamilar banner adorning the main stage and was informed subsequently that for whatever reason, Atreyu and Flyleaf had swapped places, so I got to hear most of Atreyu's set. They are another band who I have not really listened to, apart from the outstanding Ex's and Oh's, so was very pleased when they threw that in towards the end of their set. Despite my full attention not being on them, it seemed like a solid enough performance and I would give them another look. 6.
One reason I was not able to give my full attention to Atreyu was the acquisition of the magnificent Megadeth Rust In Peace 20th anniversary shirt from the merch stands, to which myself, Matt and Steve all gladly parted with 20 quid for. I'm sure like many of the people who will read this, I've got tons of band t-shirts but this is up there with the nicest I've seen.
Merch in hand, we entered the half full Pepsi Max tent with time to spare for Sybreed. I found them fully enjoyable though my 2 friends weren't as keen as I was, but the crowd seemed to swell considerably during their half hour set and its always nice to see a band draw people in. Their sound is quite hard to describe, sounding at times industrial with a touch of trance sound about it, and at other times sounding like bands such as Dead By April and In Flames on occasion. This was their first ever trip to the UK and they seemed very pleased to be with us, and by the end there was alot of fist pumping and headbanging for an all round solid performance (at least in my opinion, and since this is my site, my opinion counts :) ). Worth seeing. 6.5
Sybreed: Techno Metal
From Sybreed none of us were too fussed until the arrival of Five Finger Death Punch an hour later so we opted for some food and sat on the hill to watch Flyleaf. I only have the first Flyleaf album so I was not too familar with alot of the songs they performed but the old ones such as All Around Me, Cassie and closer So Sick sounded good and Lacey's voice held up much better than I thought it would, so they were pretty enjoyable too. 6.5
The gap at the end of Flyleaf gave us ample time to get a good spot down front for the arrival of one of the fastest rising bands in metal today, Five Finger Death Punch. Their popularity in the last 12 months seems to have taken off similar to how Trivium's did a few years ago, but on both sides of the Atlantic whereas Trivium's rise was more prominent in the UK than the US (it remains to be seen if there is a similar backlash to come against 5FDP).
Kicking off with the energetic Burn It Down, Ivan Moody prowled the stage barking lyrics and orders to the crowd (as Matt put it, he wants to be Phil Anselmo, not that thats a bad thing) while we all sung, jumped and headbanged along with them. The next 30 minutes were a brutal metal assault as the 5FDP brand of metal was unleashed on Donnington, with Salvation, The Way Of The Fist and their cover of Bad Company going down extremely well.
5FDP: Good Company
Then Ivan Moody made the somewhat poor decision to try and get as many people to get to the front so he could high five them as possible during the next song. He warned both the crowd and the security to play nice, before launching into Dying Breed. Que absolute chaos. I've never seen so many crowd surfers (from our vantage point at the back of the inner D we had a good view). People were flying over the barriers in an attempt to get to Ivan and within a minute or two there must have been a couple hundred people going over the rails and it was all a bit chaotic. Then they got cut off.
Ivan was pulled aside by someone (stage manager?) to inform them that because of what had happened, their set was being cut short, and if everyone got back into the crowd nicely and behaved they could play one more song. After a couple minutes delay, everyone played along, and 5FDP were able to finish their set with a mighty rendition of The Bleeding (I was later informed by Steve, who we lost for the entire afternoon from the point of Dying Breed in 5FDP until after Rage Against The Machine that during this song he ended up hanging upside down after attempting to crowd surf and coming within a whisker of being dumped on his head), closing one of the most memorable sets of the weekend thus far. You can see easily why they are not everyones cup of tea, but simultaneously why they are perhaps the fastest rising band in metal over the last 12 months. Great set. 7.5.
Five Finger Death Punches setlist was:
- Burn It Down
- Hard To See
- Salvation
- The Way Of The Fist
- Bad Company
- Dying Breed
- The Bleeding
After being down front for Five Finger Death Punch, we retreated somewhat for some food and a breather before awaiting Virginia's finest export, Lamb of God. I promptly missed the opening couple of songs as I was inside a portaloo at the time but the sound was reverbing around the cubicles ensuring you did not miss a note. I legged it back to my friends during the always awesome "Set To Fail" and the next 45 minutes was a collection of great Lamb of God songs old and new. Ruin went down particularly well (especially as they did not play it at Sonisphere last year) and the now traditional end combination of Redneck and Black Label had everyone singing and bodies flying all over the place in true Lamb of God style. They were on top form and got a thunderous response from the very large crowd, my only complaint being that yet again in my presence they did not play the awesome Contractor from Wrath. Another very good performance 7.5.
The Lamb of God setlist was:
- The Passing
- In Your Words
- Set to Fail
- Walk With Me In Hell
- Now You've Got Something To Die For
- Ruin
- Dead Seeds
- Laid to Rest
- Redneck
- Black Label
After the afforementioned rest during Lamb of God, some of us bolted back to the front for Megadeth. This is what myself and Matt had been waiting for more than anything all weekend, even more so with the appearance of the 20th anniversary Rust In Piece shit confirming suspicions that we were going to get a good airing of most, if not all of said album.
People who have not seen Megadeth live before need to understand something; Dave Mustaine is not the greatest frontman on earth in terms of talking to the audience and crowd participation. He rarely speaks, if at all until the end of the set. He prefers to get on with shredding and singing and I'm sure he doesn't particularly care if this bothers you, you either like them or you don't. One of the main reasons Dave does not need to get particularly involved is that Megadeth have some of the most hardcore fans on the planet, who are more than capable of generating enough noise and movement and getting all those around them who are not engaged fully involved.
Within seconds of the members of Megadeth appearing on stage one-by-one after Shawn Drover got behind the kit, first Chris Broderick, then the returning David Ellefson and then finally Dave Mustaine, there was an almighty roar, accompanied by an even mightier surge, one which pretty much continued on and off all the way through the set. Dialetic Chaos was not the opening of Holy Wars that some people expected, but it was a good start and great to hear the opening (and best, in my opinion) track from newest album Endgame. The chaos really started after that as they carried on straight into Wake Up Dead and the jumping intensified and moshpits were suddenly everywhere.
Things did not slow down from there, Dave and co carried on with the brutal Headcrusher from Endgame (death by the headcrusher indeed!) and we were all bouncing around like crazy whether we liked it or not (I am sure 95% of the people down front did like it). We were permitted a very slight breather before the classic In My Darkest Hour was next to follow, the first half of which offered some respite from the craziness (by this time I was about five people from the barrier and right in the thick of it having lost all my friends during Wake Up Dead) before the second half of the song sent it off again.
Dave Mustaine: Incited his own Holy Wars at Donnington
Mustaine then took to the mike for the first time, announcing to those not in the know that it was the 20th anniversary of Rust In Piece and that they would be playing a selection of songs from it for us now. Que the opening riff to Holy Wars and everything that had gone before seemed like a calm walk in a nice field somewhere. I think I only watched about 1/3 of the song as I spent the rest of the time fighting for my life and being surged/bundled/jumped into and the adrenaline levels of everyone were off the charts. The solo-laden Hangar 18 was followed straight into for the most manic 12 minutes of my entire Download Festival weekend.
Try as I might to find Matt as Five Magics kicked in (as it is his favourite Megadeth song and had waited years to hear it) he was nowhere to be seen amongst the pits of chaos and general bedlam at the front and things did not change during Poison Was The Cure either. I decided during Tornado of Souls to get slightly out of the firing line so I could appreciate some of the set rather than spending the whole thing fighting for my life and helping crowd surfers, so I moved to the side somewhat and took in the amazing last section of the show comprising Trust, Sweating Bullets, The amazing Symphony of Destruction (during the breaks in the main riff there was a thunderous chant of "Mega-Deth") and they finally capped it all off with Peace Sells. Thoroughly brilliant, and Dave Mustaine even said a few words at the end saying how much he always enjoys playing Download & Donnington. It really doesn't get any better than that. 9.5
The Megadeth setlist in full was:
- Dialectic Chaos
- Wake Up Dead
- Headcrusher
- In My Darkest Hour
- Holy Wars... The Punishment Due
- Hangar 18
- Five Magics
- Poison Was the Cure
- Tornado of Souls
- Rust in Peace... Polaris
- Trust
- Sweating Bullets
- Symphony Of Destruction
- Peace Sells
- Holy Wars (Reprise)
I managed to recoup with a few of my friends after the Megadeath mega-chaos, and was going to go and watch Breed 77 rather than the Deftones (for those of you who are not aware the Deftones are a band I just do not get, despite trying to understand it and many listens I do not find them remotely appealing in the slightest), I ended up wandering a few stalls and getting an ice cream. I did rejoin part of the group in plenty of time for Rage Against The Machine however. With AC/DC and Rage being two of the last big bands I needed to tick off my "must see" list, it was going to be very interesting to compare the two experiences.
Whereas Friday night was completely over the top in everything about it (the huge train, the inflatable Rosie, the fireworks, the 15 minute solo), tonight was the total opposite, with only a big red star backdrop and the band calmly walking onstage and Zac announcing "We are Rage Against The Machine" before launching into Testify, you feel that live more than ever, the power of RATM is completely in the music and in the message behind it. I was quite glad I had forsaken my Megadeth position down front, as I was later informed by one of the group who was down there for both it was probably worse than Megadeth in terms of crush, which was definitely saying something.
Rage Against The Machine: Definitely Guerrilla Warfare
After the conclusion of Bombtrack a guy walked onto stage to have a word in Zac's ear after which he asked the crowd to all take a couple of steps back as apparently a couple of people had been seriously hurt. That did not surprise me, and I think everyone was very aware of not having another Leeds 2008 (where the barrier broke during RATM's headline set after 3 songs and quite a few people got hurt). Everyone seemed to comply well enough though as they did not have to issue any more warnings or mention crowd safety again. It was a testament to the insanity that Rage can incite in people though that this happened after even less time than it did at Leeds previously.
As with AC/DC the previous evening, the sound from our position was absolutely perfect, loud, clear and spot on for hearing Tom Morellos craziness with the guitar. Rage classics like Bulls on Parade, Bullet In The Head and Guerrilla Radio came and went, with the song of the set for me being Sleep Now In The Fire, watching god knows how many thousand people at Donington going mental just as the last shades of the sun were setting behind the main stage.
It would not have been a Rage show without at least a tad of politics (though I was surprised to learn at the Rage factor free show in Finsbury Park they did not bring up anything political) and Zac treated us to a short diatribe about the suffering of Palestine and the injustices of the governments of the western world, focusing particularly on the US and Israel. He did not build up too much of a head of steam though and stopped after a few minutes.
The main portion of RATM's set was ended up Wake Up, but there wasn't a long wait until they were back onstage and launched into Freedom. The most obvious song for any band to finish with all weekend was then played as Donnington Park went batshit to the sounds of 2009's Christmas Number One with a gigantic Fuck You to Simon Cowell. We had our own circle pit on the hill which didn't go down too well with some of the older folk surrounding us but I can honestly say during those few minutes I probably would have barely registered if it had been my own parents. I knew that Rage were going to be good, but I didn't know it was going to be that good. Absolutely fantastic performance and a tie with Megadeth as my band of the festival. 9.5
Rage Against The Machine setlist was:
- Testify
- Bombtrack
- People Of The Sun
- Know Your Enemy
- Bulls On Parade
- Township Rebellion
- White Riot (The Clash cover)
- Bullet In The Head
- Calm Like A Bomb
- Guerrilla Radio
- Sleep Now In The Fire
- Wake Up
- =============================
- Freedom
- Killing In The Name
For me, this was the day of the festival I was truly looking forward to with 3 of my favourite bands occupying high spots on the bill (Megadeth, LoG, 5FDP) and I had always wanted to see Rage, and the day duly delivered in large quantities of metal awesomeness. Both Megadeth and Rage performances will live long in the memory, and both brought back memories of Slipknot from last year (Megadeth for the general chaos and crush down the front, Rage for the sheer masses of people and the huge singalongs). One of my best single days of Download ever.
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