With just under six weeks to go before the tenth anniversary of the largest rock festival in the UK, hundreds of thousands of heavy metal fans will venture to Castle Donnington once again to experience possibly the greatest parade of rock and metal acts on the planet.
This year promises to be the biggest line up yet, marking a special and significant anniversary for the Download Festival. In the early years Download promoted itself as having the absolute honour of staging its dedicated and highly impressive rock feasting at the location of the classic Monsters of Rock Festival. The famous venue where 15 legendary events took place between 1980 and 1996, showcasing vintage classic rock acts including AC/DC, Van Halen, Deep Purple and Blue Öyster Cult. However after eight years of the three-day music based festival and a solitary year of the UK’s incarnation of Ozzfest in 2002, the music event will irrevocably see itself mature and become a legendary festival of its own accord.
Initially viewing this years line up, its hard not to dispute that the organisers have worked overtime to produce a vibrant and vast mix of sublime rock and metal acts that will see Download evolve into a quintessential rock festival. A deserved reward after a decade of consistently brandishing the biggest bands in the world. Headliners including The Prodigy, American rock giants Metallica and most impressive of all, a reformed Black Sabbath, illustrate the immense effort by festival organiser Andy Copping and his team. All three will perform on the main stage dedicated to Jim Marshall, the founder of distinguished guitar amplifications, Marshall amps, who sadly passed away earlier this year. Add to that, Jack Black and Kyle Bass’s comedy band Tenacious D, heavy metal trio Machine Head, Trivium and Black Label Society, reunited grunge act Soundgarden, thrash rockers Anthrax and Scottish indie act, Biffy Clyro, and you get a clear indication of how big Download 2012 will be.
Some of the announced bands including Dubstep duo Chase and Status, gothic rock act Black Veil Brides and the non-original additions of regular performers, Lamb of God and Megadeath over fresh acts, have heralded criticisms from die hard fans. However the inclusion of Black Sabbath, arguably the band that established the genre of Heavy Metal will overcome these dispiriting attitudes and no doubt become the highlight of the weekend. Almost every band on the line up owes an incredible debt to the musical influence of the Birmingham based rock quartet and while this festival is an annual celebration of hard rock and heavy metal, this year will be focused essentially on the events’ 10th year anniversary and Black Sabbath’s illustrious legacy.
With the cancellation of other mainstream festivals including Sonisphere and High Voltage due to economical issues and genuine bad luck, Download will be the last remaining rock festival of the summer. With such a respectable and appropriate line up on show and at a substantial moment in the festival’s history, it will no doubt indulge and delight fans as well as re-establish and captivate the Heavy Rock faith in the country.
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