Anna Hyams

Strolling nonchalantly onto the main stage without so much as a howdy-do, eighties synth superstars New Order start off their headline slot with slow 'Elegia' and an extraordinary amount of smoke blasted in front of them.

After more than a few years of their on again off again status, this is a rare treat for Bestivalites, despite the absence of original member Peter Hook, and the arena is full to the seams. As they reel through classics 'Crystal' and 'Age of Consent' the crowd get down to some serious new wave bopping. '5 8 6' is accompanied by geometric swirling visuals and yet another full covering from the smoke machine, whilst 'The Perfect Kiss' gains an appreciative roar from the crowd.

It's hard to be too enthusiastic about a band who are so obviously absorbed in their own music rather than attending to the audience, but a bit of Joy Division's 'Isolation' is the musical equivalent of frosting, it covers up the  cracks in the cake, and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves as they power through 'Blue Monday' and 'Temptation'.

Closing with more Joy Division, 'Transmission' and 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', New Order leave the stage having satisfied fans and maybe gaining a few more along the way. It's not the full force performance many would have liked from a Bestival headliner, especially after the hyperactivity of some of the previous acts in the day (The Cuban Brothers, De La Soul) but they didn't exactly disappoint either.

The night is pitch black and clear, stars speckle the darkness and fringed silk flags ripple in the breeze as the main stage area fills with expectant faces.

Florence Welch strides gracefully on stage to a deafening scream from the thousands strong crowd, wearing a Poison Ivy-esque getup – a floaty green dress contrasting violently with her bright red hair which is bedecked with trailing ivy. 'Only If For A Night' warms up the crowd, whilst fan favourite 'The Drumming Song' does indeed get "louder and louder" as Florence belts it out in her distinctive vocal style.

New track 'What The Water Gave Me' is almost at anthem status as a chorus of terribly off key ladies and gentlemen around attempt to sing back up for lady Flo'. After encouraging the crowd to hop up onto each others shoulders, Florence gives a little parenting advice along the lines of "Raise Them Up" as 'Rabbit Heart' invites a lot of eyes-closed swaying from flower-garlanded girls. Candi Station cover 'You've Got The Love' sparks a swathe of fancy dress animals cuddling up to each other and 'Shake It Out' sees some fairly impressive ass wiggling (mostly of the male persuasion).

The last time Florence and co graced the Bestival main stage back in 2008 unfortunate sound problems plagued the whole set and it was a bit of a wash out, but this year sees the redhead's powerful voice triumphantly resonate across the site, mingling with the screams and cheers of a well and truly enthralled crowd. Closing with an epic, pogo-ing 'Dog Days' Florance flounces out with style.

As hot day turns into teeth-chatteringly cold night, Forty thousand thursday Bestivalites attempt to squish themselves sardine-like into the Big Top for Besti favourites Hot Chip, at midnight.

Opening with 'Shake a Fist', Hot Chip begin a musical journey through some of their lesser known tracks before giving the anthem craving crowd a taste of 'Over and Over' with an extended intro just to whet the whistle. Oldie 'The Warning' and 'One Life Stand' also see raucous applause, whilst new single 'How Do You Do' has the karaoke effect amongst the fans. For those that haven't seen the band before, the fact that pretty much all of them can play any instrument on any of their songs is rather amazing, and watching as they glide seamlessly between guitars, keyboards and drums can be quite confusing.

As a Tiger sails overhead towards the front barriers the heat and lack of breathing room becomes stifling, so we venture outside for a burrito only to be disappointed by the lack of decent sound past the pillars. 'On The Floor' seems to go down well with the sardine-can-clan but for those out of the fold it just isn't the same. A closing cover of Fleetwood Mac's 'Everywhere' is pretty special, but for all those who didn't make it into the tent, the magic is well and truly gone.

The lazy Sunday vibe is washing over a warmed up crowd at Hyde Park as they wait in anticipation of tonight’s headliner, musical maestro Paul Simon (of Simon and Garfunkel fame). There’s an overtly different feeling in the air compared to last night’s Bruce Springsteen show, fans this evening are relaxed and calm as well as being of an over-all older age group and there’s something rather nice about it.

Opening with soft bluesy ‘Kodachrome’ to a round of appreciative but grown-up cheers and applause, Paul Simon steadily rides through the song in his so-laid-back-he’s-almost-horizontal way but the sound gets a little bit washed out in ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’. He is then joined on stage by “… a great hero of mine, Jimi Cliff” (sporting gold sequinned trainers no less!) who gives the reggae edge to the proceedings with ‘The Harder They Come’ and ‘Many Rivers To Cross’.

Moving on to Simon’s decisive African Township influenced ‘Graceland’, which caused quite a stir back in ’86, is tonight reverential, and is felt all over again as the formidable Ladysmith Black Mambazo take to the stage to do it justice. There’s no formal ceremony about this show, it’s unassuming but special, and the likes of ‘Homeless’ and ‘Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes’ seem to take the breath away from the awed onlookers.

When Hugo Masekela comes out for a spirited ‘Mandela’ as the sun shines down, people are warming up their dancing feet and with two encores featuring the likes of Simon & Garfunkel hit ‘The Sound of Silence’ and ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’, he rounds off the Sunday jam session with an easy casual manner. This was undoubtedly Paul Simon at his best, but it smacked of a quiet comedown for Hard Rock Calling rather than a sensational out-with-a-bang type of affair and the crowd definitely began to wane from around 9pm in favour of early tubes and soft beds.

There’s a reason 76 thousand people turned up to Hyde Park in this, the most miserable of summers, and that reason is the man, the legend, Bruce Springsteen. After a tense 30 minute wait (in which time we managed to sardine ourselves between a very jolly man yelling ‘Bruuuuuuuce’ at random intervals and an extremely short couple trying to swap saliva as if it were life-force) The Boss rocks up wearing his signature jeans and waistcoat combo with serious swagger and no pomp or fanfare whatsoever. This guy just commands attention on his own.

Dropping the lights to a single beam, Bruce breathes into the mic “This is the first song I played when my feet touched British soil” and opens with an absolutely epic acoustic rendition of super-hit ‘Thunder Road’ which honestly, nearly brought a tear to my eye. Straight into ‘Badlands’ and pushing on through ‘We Take Care of Our Own’ (plagued by a temporary fit of poor sound, which is overridden by the thousands of chorus voices) Springers already has us enthralled. ‘Wrecking Ball’ is punchy and the Bill & Ted style guitar wind-milling shows us that the 62 year old rocker is anything but past it. Bruce welcomes on stage friend Tom Morello (of Rage Against The Machine fame) “and his furniture” for ‘Death to My Hometown’ and ‘My City of Ruins’ heralded by sage words “It’s about the things that leave you, it’s about the things that never leave you, the things you remember for the rest of your life. This is for my old faces in the crowd.” Bruce walks off the stage and into the clamouring arms of his fans, even putting one lucky (?!) punter in a friendly headlock.

As Bruce sings a little thought along the lines of “Who’s in the house tonight? Are your legs hurting, and your ears hurting and your sexual organs… stimulated? It’s in the smallprint of your ticket…” he stands up against the crowd barrier with a security guard hanging onto the back of his pants for dear life, at serious risk of de-kegging the rockstar. Back up on the stage steps, he takes time for a little recline next to E Street saxophonist Jake Clemons as they duet, and are then joined by the great John Fogerty, who played the main stage previously.

A wavering sign in the crowd attracts the attention of Springsteen, a fan who has been following him around the world repeatedly requesting the little played song ‘Take Them As They Come’ gets his wish as Bruce shouts “Tonight you’re gonna hear this damn thing, It’s your song buddy”. As the skies begin to cloud over and darken, aptly named ‘Because The Night’ brings on a few drops of rain and an extreme case of tone-deaf karaoke from the girl a little way behind us. No dear, dogs in Hounslow can hear you, but Bruce can’t. Guitar slung nonchalantly across his back, bopping an inflatable Mr. Blobby back into the crowd, Bruce asks security guards to drag a small boy out onto the stage with him to sing ‘Waitin’ on a Sunny Day’ with him. That lad’s life has hit its peak, what else will ever be as good, I ask you? Following this lighthearted act, ‘The River’ sends the thousands strong throng into complete awed silence, the like of which is rarely witnessed in the music world, and there is something entirely mesmerising about his gravelly voice soaring out across the silhouetted faces of all these people.

Morello re-joins the group for ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ and blasts out a face-melting solo with insane harmonics, after which Bruce drops ‘Born In The USA’ and fan favourite ‘Born To Run’. ‘Glory Days’ sees Bruce and E Street’s Steve Van Zandt shaking their asses to the crowd at the top of the steps and the incredible ‘Dancing In The Dark’ is cue for Bruce to grab a young lady from the crowd and pick her up for a spot of dancing… er… in the dark. She may never marry after that!

Bruce needs no intermission, no encore, the man is a veritable machine. How many other musicians do you know who can pull a 3 hour set without a break, let alone one who’s been gigging for as long? To cap off an already celebratory show, who should turn up but pal and UK rock-legend Sir Paul McCartney. Yes that’s right, Sir Paul McCartney. This unbelievable occurrence  sees more than a few around me rubbing their eyes in astonishment as they do Beatles hit ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and a cover of The Isley Brothers’ ‘Twist and Shout’ before finishing up with a jumping cheese-tastic ‘La Bamba’.

Okay, so you might have already heard a fair amount of bitching about the plug-pulling incident, but here’s my take. It was only 5 minutes of La Bamba – funny but not great by any stretch of the imagination, it’s the song played by crap DJ’s at weddings, right? It’s a shame that Bruce didn’t get to say his goodbyes (heck, he didn’t even know the sound was off for a while) but the man gave us unadulterated power and polished rock n roll for over 3 outstanding hours. Despite various celebs tweeting about the ‘incident’ (even Boris Johnson weighed in) this shouldn’t be the final word on what was otherwise an utterly astounding set. Springsteen has one hundred percent earned his title of The Boss and this is just a tidbit of news on the back of one of the best shows ever to grace Hyde Park.

A damp day in London’s Hyde Park and a subdued, sparse crowd awaits 90’s grunge titans Soundgarden. It’s not the best of situations but Chris Cornell’s obvious nonchalance as he walks on stage to a fanfare of grimy amp feedback, seems to please the avid fans at the front (cue girls screaming). With an intro like ‘Searching With My Good Eye Closed’ it’s clear they intend to roll out the hits tonight, in their two hour headline set, and follow up ‘Spoonman’ is hurt either by dodgy sound quality or an un-warmed vocaliser a la Cornell, it’s hard to tell.

Luckily, the further into the set we get the better. As clearer vox on ‘Jesus Christ Pose’ and chart hit ‘Black Hole Sun’ start to warm up the crowd, Cornell laments on the 15 year hiatus and proclaims that they’re “Happy to be back”. Despite the joyful sentiment, the weather has other plans and chucks buckets on the already soggy scene, and despite the very public notices about an arena umbrella ban, up go the multicoloured domes to shelter the London crowd. Two drenched hippies in a state of distress (and miss-dress, they were wearing an extraordinary collection of woven garments which must have sucked up ALL the rain) stagger past holding each other up and screaming “I don’t know what you’re saying” over ‘Let Me Down’ and ‘Pretty Noose’. The melancholy sentiment now matches that of the dwindling crowd.

Something about an event in the heart of London seems to breed a disinterested attitude towards outdoor music, a guy next to us said that five of his friends who bought tickets today, didn’t bother to come because of weather forecasts. It’s easy to ditch and hop on a tube home here, unlike a normal camping festival and people seem to be embracing it, as Soundgarden move through to their more self indulgent numbers. ‘Super Unknown’ is a glistening gem in this moody close but encore track ‘Rusty Cage’ is met with indifference from the majority of listeners as they spend an age playing around with their pedals and messing about with feedback and resonance. The sight of these grown men standing resolutely holding their guitars up to amps like some teenage garage band, is a little funny to tell the truth. There’s a fine line between cool and cock, and this definitely crosses it. Soundgarden put on a good show, but not an epic one, and possibly weren’t the best fit for this festival, however – die-hard ‘garden fans got exactly what they came for.

Photo courtesy of Hard Rock Calling.

As the now decidedly smelly arena fills up with people for the final day of Download, the welcome sight of SUNSHINE nearly brings a tear to the tired moshers eye. Yes it’s true, there’s a little bit of sun and a little bit is clearly enough as we can already see a couple of lobster-coloured faces and it’s only been about half an hour.

A welcome snarl sees DevilDriver’s pit-carnage churning out limp bodies, and August Burns Red do their very best to see that no-one is left un-moshed whilst smashing out popular ‘Back Burner’. NYC metalheads Anthrax are thrash-tastic over on the main stage with a massive crowd going wild to ‘Fight ‘em till you can’t’ and ‘I am the Law’, but in the jam-packed Pepsi Max stage German power-metallers Edguy are giving it all the passion they can muster and a loud, melodic ‘King of Fools’ sees Edguy fans come out grinning all over.

Black Label Society’s mainstage set is heart-thumpingly loud, with the wailing fret-wankery of Zakk Wylde (who comes to the fore wearing a giant Indian headdress) who plays through a gratuitous 10 minute guitar solo and a host of hair-windmilling songs. They’re good solid metal and you can’t fail to enjoy it. Lamb of God draw a similar sized crowd who are already creating a cattle-rodeo-like circle pit before the band even reach the stage. Their guitars are a little bit lost in the wind but the rolling drums are clear as frontman Randy Blythe shrieks “You might be from England but you’re all just a bunch of fuckin’ REDNECKS!” and they drop into ‘Redneck’. The circle pit might have now become some sort of messy conga line, but everyone seems to be having a great time.

Megadeth must be pleased at their ability to still entice the ladies out of their bras, but then again it might just be because the sun is out and the cameras are on. I’m sure those ladies mum’s are going to be awful proud when they see the highlights!  The melodic guitar duets and chants of ‘MEG-A-DETH’ are piercingly loud around the arena and fans go absolutely mental for Guitar-Hero favourite, ‘Symphony of Destruction’.

Soundgarden’s return to English soil was heralded by many when the announcement came, but to be honest they come off a little stale. They’re the Bjork of metal. You know that it’s clever but it’s all a bit too experimental to be something you really enjoy romping in a field to. ‘Black Hole Sun’ goes down a treat as expected, but there’s a tinge of boredom to the rest of the set. On the second stage Dropkick Murphys are nothing of the sort. Despite some pretty shoddy sound at the beginning they punk the hell out of ‘The Irish Rover’ and ‘Take ‘em Down’, sparking jigs galore and more than a few catastrophic attempts at leprechaun style heel clicks. The incredibly drunk and incredibly Irish man in front of us was having the time of his life, as he bellowed along to ‘Sunday Hardcore Matinee’.

The main event, the big one – Black Sabbath at Download, loud and proud. These guys MADE metal, and seeing them live is something you could never forget. They might be sans-Ward in the drums department, but Tony Clufetos is a great replacement choice and Sabbath open their Sunday reign with dark namesake ‘Black Sabbath’. A veritable hit-parade (how could it not be?) of tracks such as ‘Snowblind’, ‘War Pigs’ and ‘Fairies Wear Boots’ keep the party going, and Tony Iommi “The real Iron Man” according to Ozzy, absolutely demolishes the guitar solos in ‘Iron Man’ and closer ‘Paranoid’. Ozzy is as mad as ever, legging it around stage like a man half his age and half his lifetime drug and alcohol intake. He’s nuts but we love him. Though you couldn’t say that they were at their musical peak anymore, there’s something ethereal about a Black Sabbath show. You know you’re witnessing something great that will stay with you forever, and those guys still rock harder than most of the bands in this world, so we salute them.

Download may be over for another year, but this 10 year anniversary sure is a memorable one. Hideous weather, controversial bookings, arena issues and camping equipment casualties, whatever else you remember this year’s festival for – the moshing good time you had should be top of the list.

After a drier night, the arena is looking decidedly less slippy (good) but quite a lot stickier (gross) and the feeling of being sucked into the depths of hell pervades ones’ thoughts if you stand still for any length of time. A dusting of woodchip and a dumping of hay around site has matted most areas into a lumpy farmyard but hey, it’s a little less perilous than yesterday so we’re not complaining.

Norwegian deathpunk glamsters Turbonegro, wake up the second stage sleepyheads with enigmatic newbie Tony Sylvester emerging in a sparkly Union flag cape and regal crown for a roaring ‘All my friends are Dead’. Over on the main stage Steel Panther steal the hearts of the ladies in the crowd with their 80’s rock personas and hip-thrusting action. The arena is rammed with lookalikes in bouffant wigs and zebra print lycra, screaming along to the likes of ‘Asian Hooker’ and ‘Supersonic Sex Machine’. It’s kitsch, it’s corny, but it’s all good humour and behind the filthily funny lyrics they are actually a fairly talented bunch.

However, it’s the stand out comedy-meets-rock performance of Tenacious D that gains the real respect of the crowd, even if you don’t much favour Jack Black, you’ve got to admire their story telling ability and straight up phallus-worship (in the form of a giant blow up cock and balls, made out to be the head of a colossal firey phoenix – in reference to their new album ‘Rize of the Fenix’). Fan favourites ‘Fuck Her Gently’ and ‘Kickapoo’ are mere warm-ups to the arena-wide exultation of band epic ‘Tribute’ and a chorus of “Nay, we are but men… ROCK”, as the D put it – they “made love to our ear-canals” and gave us “eargasms”. Jack Black declares Download was on their list, the “Last one before the world explodes” referring to the Mayan calendar ending in December and Tenacious D leave the stage to a confetti ejacuation emanating from the head of the ‘phoenix’.

Skindred’s second stage set is met with unfortunate sound problems – largely due to the wind, but once gold-suited Benji Webbe exploded into heavy ‘Doom Riff’ any fears of a failure were well and truly gone, and their skit of ‘All the single ladies’ (with proper bogling) was extremely giggle-worthy. Wild crowd love for ‘Game Over’ and ‘Trouble’ as well as ‘Nobody’ see the band going mental and it’s tshirts off for the Newport Helicopter during ‘Warning’. If you were anywhere else in the world – you were missing out. Even the security guards at the side of the stage had their phones out videoing the mania.

Biffy Clyro go off with thousands of dedicated fans, and the return of Killswitch Engage provides raw power with ‘Life to Lifeless’ (circle pits galore) and an extremely memorable cover of Dio’s ‘Holy Diver’. Main stage monsters Metallica are greeted by an arena FULL, front to back, side to side, of sardine-canned-fans. What it must feel like to look across that sort of a crowd one can only guess, but ripping into an intro set including ‘Master of Puppets’ and ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ – they prove why they’re such a Download stalwart and deserve to top the bill. The reverence of The Black Album is felt like shivers down the spine of the collective crowd as the band begin to play it in reverse order, and an epic singalong (and lighter swaying) for ‘Nothing Else Matters’ may well have been heard by low-flying planes. Following up with the likes of ‘Battery’ and ‘Seek and Destroy’, Metallica detonate well before the pyrotechnics do. This is their 7^th Donington performance, and despite some dodgy sound at the back – it’s one you’ll tell your kids about, for all the right reasons.

Once upon a time there was muddy swamp seated in the backwaters of the Bayou… oh wait a second, sorry, scratch that… it’s Drownload Festival 2012!

For early birds in the campsite on Wednesday, crowing over their favourable release from the workplace, it may have seemed like a rock-filled dream… until Thursday. The heavens opened and smite was heaped from on high with almost constant downpour from the get-up. Campsites quickly turned into duck ponds with many having to evacuate tents in favour of sleeping in the car or even leaving the festival entirely, and going to the portaloos was practically a mud-slalom event worthy of the Olympics. Welfare tents overrun with various ailments and incidents, fallen victims staggering about like bilge-monsters from the deep, and forlorn looking metallers with sodden dreadlocks were the scenes of Thursday and Friday morning.

But wait, this is Britain and these are The British. This nation was practically built on the ability to keep calm and carry on, or in the average Download goer’s case – get wasted and rock on. However, spirits aren’t exactly lifted with a two hour pushback for the arena opening, forcing some bands off the bill entirely and others to play later slots, as well as having ‘cleverly’ closed off nearly every available motorway junction to the event, creating great backlog for folks trying to get into the site. Those caught in the hours long traffic included Swedish rock legends Europe, presumably doing the final countdown to missing their slot completely. As sludge-ridden fans waited for the absent band a huge karaoke Final Countdown was paid in homage.

It is the warm/violent embrace of a circle pit that welcomes the first mainstage band Fear Factory (due to Cancer Bats and Rise to Remain being shimmied around) who proceed to rip through to closing favourite ‘Replica’ with gusto and Fat Mike of NOFX brings a little comedy to the mix whilst they roll out the likes of ‘Dinosaurs Will Die’ and ‘Perfect Government’. Billy Talent invite Cancer Bats on stage for a collaborative effort on ‘Hail Destroyer’ and over on the Jägermeister acoustic stage Skindred’s Benji Webbe is showing off his Michael Jackson dance moves and singing whole songs in ‘little kid crying’ style… just for the craic. Oh and he forgot the words for Doom Riff. Call it a warm up for tomorrow.

Machine Head’s explosive performance was foretold by reports of their not-so-secret Ten Ton Hammer gig in London earlier in the week but there’s something utterly great about seeing a band thrash it out in the open like wild things and the huge sweaty mosh pits tell a tale of a ruddy good show. ‘Imperium’ is received in exactly the manner it’s intended – a war anthem with the cry of thousands of fans going berserk.

Controversial dnb booking Chase & Status are hands down a triumph, the thumping basslines of ‘Eastern Jam’ and ‘Hypest Hype’ can not only be heard, but felt all around the arena, and Nightwish’s ‘Amaranth’ on the Encore stage is completely overshadowed by the London duo’s ‘Pieces’. The rest of Nightwish’s set though pretty, is largely uninspiring. Sure ‘Last of the Wilds’ is a beautifully haunting piece, but vocalist Anette Olzon doesn’t stack up to axed band member Tarja Turunen’s operatic style in old tracks ‘Wish I had an Angel’ and ‘Nemo’. It’s not that she’s bad, it’s just that if you already own the albums – it’s a bit disappointing. The pyrotechnics and Tuomas’ giant Phantom-esque pipe organ is interesting but they just don’t have the spark that their Tarja fronted Download appearance in 2005 did.

Encore headliner Slash wails like no-one else on earth and the second stage arena is awash with shred-fans for GnR song ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ and Velvet Revolver’s ‘Slither’. Friday’s mainstage headliner The Prodigy finally get underway 30 minutes late, opening with ‘World’s On Fire’ and enough decibels to reanimate the dead. Super hits ‘Breathe’ and newest album tracks ‘Thunder’ and ‘Omen’ are instant fodder for rave hungry revellers, but classic ‘Firestarter’ is the body-thrashing anthem everyone has been waiting for. ‘Smack my bitch up’, ‘Diesel Power’ and ‘Take me to the Hospital’ are as firey as expected and The Prodigy go out with an almighty bang. That’s one flame the rain couldn’t dampen.

Review by Anna Hyams