Download Festival welcomes WWE NXT UK to Donington Park for 2019

Download Festival, the champion of rock events, is pleased to welcome WWE NXT UK to the hallowed
grounds of Donington Park across 14-16 June 2019, as well as SEVENTEEN further bands including
supergroup Simple Creatures, The Wonder Years, and Dinosaur Pile-up.

WWE United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne, NXT UK Women’s Champion Toni Storm, and Tyler Bate will
be among the NXT UK stars parading thrilling displays of dynamic athleticism during the bonafide full-scale
ring bouts in the festival arena, which for the first time ever will be taped and aired as part of the weekly
NXT UK show on the WWE Network. Superstars Trent Seven, Walter, Rhea Ripley, Jordan Devlin, NXT UK
Tag Team Champions The Grizzled Young Veterans, Travis Banks, Gallus and many more to be announced,
will descend upon Download for a weekend of high flying maneuvers, action-packed matches and
unexpected surprises. NXT has made a massive impact at the festival in previous years, performing to
capacity crowds throughout the weekend, featuring impressive debuts, shocking returns and exciting
moments. This is the ultimate win for wrestling fans!

Joining headliners Slipknot, Tool and Def Leppard and a host of acts already announced for the annual rock
spectacle, are SEVENTEEN other amazing acts. In a UK Festival Exclusive is supergroup Simple Creatures,
comprising of blink-182’s Mark Hoppus and All Time Low’s Alex Gaskarth, who will headline the Avalanche
stage on the Saturday night. Known as legends of the pop-punk scene, the pair will give an unmissable
exclusive and first UK Festival performance at this year’s Download. Already releasing two infectious singles
‘Strange Love’ and ‘Drug’, Simple Creatures will release their debut EP Strange Love on March 29th.
Simple Creatures said: “An evening of Trash-Pop reverie awaits you at Download Fest. There will be
Creatures. They will be Simple. There will be singing and dancing in a big tent. What more could you possibly
want?”

Also added are Dinosaur Pile-up who have spent the better part of two decades as purveyors of riff laden
ginormous rock and are well versed in whipping the crowd into a frenzy, the powerhouse blend of
psychedelic with grunge from Allusinlove, and Liverpool’s Queen Zee who are ready to cause a commotion
with their inspiring anthems through their fluid expression of brash queer punk. The Wonder Years will
smash a punk shaped whole through Donington with a raucous set of anti-suburban anthems, and they will
be in good company with UK pop-punk upstarts Roam, known for their energetic and frantic live shows.

Norway’s Kvelertak are on their way to lead the crowd through a relentless onslaught of exciting ‘black n
roll’ and join this year’s line up, as are the aptly named Hot Milk who are one of the hottest upcoming names
in UK rock, Finland’s own thrash prodigies Lost Society bringing with them their relentless insanely fast metal
for head banging aplenty, the grime meets punk London duo Nova Twins, and dirty blues rockers The
Picturebooks. Graveyard will be making their welcome return seamlessly blending rock, soul, 60’s acid fuzz
and of course a big dash of heavy metal into an infectious musical stew, alongside Mongolian internet
sensations The Hu which is a genre you didn’t know you needed in your life. Goodbye June, Vambo, Cloud
and Kim Jennett also set to play.

DOWNLOAD 2017 – Saturday Review

With an overcast sky and the threat of rain in sight, today’s Download crowd is considerably more covered up and there are a surprising amount of people dressed in bucaneer-swag heading towards the Encore stage…

Alestorm are one of those bands who are both musically talented, and seem to be in it for a laugh. What’s not to love about a band who comedically rhyme anchor and wanker in song form? Wenches, parrots and pirates alike are jumping around to the likes of ‘Keelhauled’ and ‘Magnetic North’ (if you haven’t seen the Alestorm/Lady Gaga mashup ‘Magnetic Telephone’, get on youtube this instant. It’s marvellous.) and the quips on the origins of their material are, interesting… “This song is about that time Tom hanks got lost on a desert island and fucked a volleyball… Shipwrecked!”.

As crowd surfers fly overhead on various inflatable sea creatures (kudos to the guy managing to stay aloft the orca all the way to the front) vocalist Chris Bowes yells “Do you know why we are here download? We are here to drink your beer!” and the arena goes mental for ‘Drink’ followed, obviously, by ‘Hangover’“This is for anyone feeling a little. Bit shit today, for anyone who woke up in a puddle of their own vomit”.

Suicide Silence put on a rowdy set yelling at the crowd to “motherfucking jump around” ticking the box for proper metal headbanging and hair lashing today, Of Mice & Men are ripping up the main stage and Kvelertak (the most mispronounced band all weekend) bring dark Norwegian metal (and lots of owl themed décor) to the now slightly gloomy arena. Brief spells of rain see Downloaders immediately reaching for the ponchos, it seems after the last few years everyone has come prepared for the worst.

Pierce the Veil are living up to the piercing part of their name with extraordinarily shrieky vocals, so we’re off to the Encore stage for a good dose of heavy metal with Max & Igor (Cavalera) with thousands of other Sepultura fans looking for their fix. They do not disappoint, Roots Bloody Roots is absolutely insane and the arena is rammed with headbangers.

In the main arena, it seems a lot of people are crashed out on the hill eating food – Download hasn’t been home to crappy ratburgers for a few years now, but highlights this year include gooey Mac & Cheese, duck fat potatoes and on two ends of the spectrum – vegan maki sushi rolls and giant shredded brisket sandwiches. AFI are on the main stage but it’s hard to hear when you’re in a food coma.

Coheed and Cambria are over on the second stage throwing down some heavy melodic sounds, followed by the Ace Ventura of metal – Devin Townsend. There is no extreme expression his elastic face cannot convey, he goes from cheeky to mean in a fraction of a second and this makes him undeniably interesting to watch – even apart from the fact that he fucking shreds. Simple Plan have packed out the Avalanche stage and it looks like the entire tent is bouncing as one to ‘Welcome To My Life’ and Sean Paul collab ‘Summer Paradise’.

Headlining the Encore stage for the second time at Download is heavy metal shock doctor Rob Zombie, whose stage shows always go above and beyond and the biggest crowd of the weekend have turned out to see him. Rob appears on stage rocking the shiniest outfit I’ve ever witnessed in metal. Hell, he wouldn’t be out of place in a Lady Gaga video or on RuPaul’s drag race. Silver mirrored discoball flares are topped with a silver studded and spiked leather jacket with added fringing, a glittery Stetson and a Frankenstein flag hanging out the back of his pants… Rob you have seriously outdone yourself on this one. I want to be you.

Leaping around between three lifted podiums, in front of LED screens showing images from horror movies, Rob screams through hit after hit – 'Living Dead Girl' is wild, and the crowd responds by sending wave after wave of crowd surfers over the barrier. Rob spends a little time joking around about the arena offerings he can see “I wanna fucking party. Do you wanna party or do you wanna eat fucking noodles. Steakhouse. Extreme largeness… what does that even mean??” and briefly noting the current state of affairs in the world… “these challenging political times… I’d like to address a very serious subject that no-one else wants to talk about. What the fuck is going on with alien abductions?” asking “who here has been abducted and anally probed?” before asking stage security to help him crowd surf a blow up alien to the back of the arena.

With a face meltingly large amount of pyro, demon sidekicks sporting LED guitars, grilles and vampire wings – Rob brings a slice of B-movie madness to Donington that really deserved to be lit up on the main stage to be honest. As giant inflatable balls are thrown out into the crowd and foam snow is sprayed from the top of the stage, White Zombie super hit (and Guitar Hero go-to track) 'Thunder Kiss ’65' has a bassline that makes your soul shiver as Rob laments “I remember playing this back in the early 90’s at Castle Donington… were any of you there? You dont remember me but you’ll probably remember Metallica huh”.

After a quick dip into The Ramones’ ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ because… well who knows… it’s back into Thunder Kiss and straight onto a cover of Alice Cooper’s ‘School’s Out’ whilst parading around in a union flag as a cape. Rounding up with the one everyone’s been waiting for, ‘Dragula’ is truly epic, as this whole show has been.

Over in the main arena, Biffy Clyro are also finishing up on their multi-tiered LED lit stage, tops off, sweaty as hell. It’s awesome to see them top the bill here, and they are fantastic, but it would have been cool to see what horror shenanigans Rob Zombie could have brought to the table. Fireworks light up the night sky above the stage and the arena clears for the campsites, see you tomorrow metalheads…

Thunder, Devin Townsend and more added to Download Festival

Download Festival continues to score out of the park with the announcement that a further 25 acts have been added to this year’s line up, including Thunder, Kvelertak, Devin Townsend and We Are The Ocean.

Headlined by Slipknot, Iron Maiden and Rammstein, Download Festival takes place 14-16 June 2013 in Donington Park. Weekend and day tickets are available at www.downloadfestival.co.uk.

Having last played Download as one of festival promoter Andy Copping’s ‘secret acts’ in 2009, classic rock favourites Thunder will be returning to Donington soil on the Saturday – hopefully guitarist/singer Luke Morley will have recovered from riding 161 miles on a pedal bike from London to Donington as part of the “Heavy Metal Truants” charity bike ride organized by Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood! For more information about Heavy Metal Truants go to www.heavymetaltruants.com.

Following their Download debut in 2011, hardcore Norwegian punkers Kvelertak will be back with a vengeance to perform tracks from their new album Meir. The inimitable Devin Townsend will also be back at Download, this time taking it down a notch to perform on the acoustic Jagermeister stage. Also confirmed for this year’s Download with a wealth of new material to please the crowds at the Jagermeister stage will be Essex four-piece We Are The Ocean.

No stranger to Download, London’s Zico Chain are confirmed for the Friday, fresh of the back of their support slot on Steve Harris’ solo tour. Hot new metal act Blood Command – another Norwegian export  – will be looking forward to showcasing their live act this year. Blending stoner metal and garage rock, Black Moth are confirmed for the Saturday, as are hard riffers The Wild Lies.

New London punk band The Howling are confirmed, alongside local Birmingham pop-punkers Page 44 and the fierce Wounds.

The acoustic Jagermeister Stage at Download is a great chance to catch up and coming rock acts as well as stripped down performances from acts from the other stages over the weekend. In addition to Devin Townsend and We Are The Ocean, the Jagermeister stage will see the following acts: Hear Kitty Kitty, Toseland, Rob Lynch, Acoustic TV, Straight Lines, Fahran, The Killing Floor, The Afterparty, Pig Iron, Night x Night, Crash Mansion, The Graveltones, Arthemis and Avosetta, alongside acoustic performances from Walking Papers, Buffalo Summer, Crowns, Heaven’s Basement, Skin and Red White & Blues.