15-06-09 – DJ Lethal brought it on / UFOs bring people together.

Christ, this has been a jam-packed week. It entailed:

- Making a new tutorial video for how to make the At Lightspeed outro synth on boyinaband
- Heading up to Kieran’s and Watching Predator for the first time
- Uh… oh yeah, Download Festival!!!
- Inevitable LOLcat.

Since most of this week was download festival, I’ll try and do the whole week day-by-day, since I think it might be fun!

Monday – Blog day.

After posting last weeks blog, I gave Kieran a call and sorted out going to his the following day, offering to pick him up from outside his place of work then head back to his house. I blogged on biab about the YAWA EP and dropped off the online orders for it at the post office.

Tuesday – K day.

In the morning I realised I wouldn’t have another chance to blog for the rest of the week, so I made a tutorial for how to make the At Lightspeed Gated Lead synth outro. Check it out!

It makes me laugh how suddenly it cuts off the music, but I’m not sure anyone else has noticed that’s a joke. Such is the problem when you have such an obscure sense of humour I guess!

After that, I hopped in the car and made the hour and a half trek to Kettering to grab Kieran, which ended up being two and a half hours due to the gayness of the M6 (2nd Busiest road (I think) in the UK to those who aren’t from ’round these parts!). My Sat Nav took me into Kettering town center, but not outside Kieran’s work. It was pouring down with rain at this point, so Kieran ran 10 minutes through the rain from the cafe he’d been hanging out in since I was late (He had a really girly milkshake. With a straw. Just thought I’d mention that.)

Back to his we went, where his little brother (Awesome kid) introduced me to a random Flash game, stating his and Kieran’s high scores and challenging me to beat them. I beat them, then chilled with K for a bit, eating milkybar yoghurts that he’d bought for me (I knew I was his friend for a reason.) He played me a 12 story fall song he’d been working on, which was pretty cool, I imagined a drum and bass backing to it, but I imagine a drum and bass backing to most things these days.

We grabbed chinese food (of course) and watched Predator with K’s homeslice David Maggs. I learned the importance of the phrase “Get to the Chopper!”. Frickin’ funny film. I’m glad I saw it, that phrase would be of use later…

Wednesday – D day.

I said my goodbyes to Kieran and headed back to Telford to prepare for download. I packed, grabbed Eamon and Siobhan and drove to Download, listening to Busted, Britney and Same Difference. We needed to top up on pop to survive the metalness of the weekend ahead.

The journey from the car park to our campsite was an arduous one. After already waiting about an hour and a half in the traffic jam in donnington, we endured another lengthy wait. Turns out everyone wanted to get there early this year; Eamon informed us it was usually the Thursday that people turned up. Download is getting more popular.

After finally passing the security (I had my bags searched, and the dude asked me 3 or 4 times whether I had any illegal substances – I must really look like a druggie.) We found the first space available that wasn’t completely unuseable (It was on this bumpy hill. Who needs a good night’s sleep anyway?) and set up camp. Good thing we did, it immediately started to rain.

When the rain died down a bit, we went for a wander through the swamp (It was crazily muddy) that was download and familiarised ourselves with the layout. We met Jamie at some point, I wished him happy birthday and found his campsite, where he was camped with his mates Zlat (the dude I recorded a few weeks back) and Simon. Eamon and Siobhan had gone with Siobhan’s mate Susan to the campsite for a bit, agreeing to meet in the cinema tent to watch the footy (lol) so I headed back to the village on my own. I saw a guitar hero Metallica competition going on, and watched this one dude kick ass on expert mode, followed by 4 people sucking at the game, after which I went for another wander.

The Cinema tent was filled with people. After 5 minutes of watching chavvy men kick things and David Beckham looking bemused, I found Eamon outside the guitar hero tent, where they were doing the nightly heavy kareoke. Someone was murdering One Step Closer if I remember correctly.

We then went back to some of Siobhan’s mates’ campsite, chilling for a while and at 3am we headed back to camp and had our first night’s sleep. It was cold. I had my jacket and sleeping bag on and I was still cold. But all in all, although exhausting, it was a fun day and we were all ready to go for download!

Thursday – Free Day.

I woke up to Eamon coming back in the tent. He’d been out telling everyone the football was off due to the soggy ground. Since Eamon didn’t have his download football managing responsibilities, we headed to the boardie BBQ, where people on the download forum got free food.

I got in as “Winning Football Team 2″, which made me giggle – Eamon used a free slot that the winning football team would have had to get me in I met a bunch of people here, including Paul, a mate of Eamon’s who came to check out YAWA years ago in Alton. Really nice dude.

We got in the BBQ and I had a free burger, a water (the dude passing out free beer seemed confused when I asked for water instead) and a free Muller Rice! I eat those things loads anyway, so this was mini-christmas for me. We watched a band play some metal, I had 3 more muller rices and after some more chatting in the now sunny field, we went back to the village to look at what was on in the tents.

A few bands played, I met Eamon’s friend “Nat”, who works as an animal carer at Alton Towers. She has the rabbit bite to prove it. After waiting outside the tent a while (No-one wanted to go in since they stopped allowing people with beer in there after some asses threw beer cans at the cinema screen (No idea why bands were playing in the cinema tent instead of the one with the stage.)) we went back to the blue camp to chill with some more of Eamon’s and Siobhan’s boardie friends.

After meeting a bunch of people who I’ve already forgotten the names of, Nat and I went back to red camp to get some sleep (she was also camped in Red). Getting to sleep was more difficult than the night before – I was wearing two jackets and my sleeping bag and still shivering. It was at this point I discovered a newfound respect for central heating.

Friday – Novelty rap day.

I woke up sopping wet with sweat. It was sweltering. Freezing at night, boiling in the day. England was turning into a tropical country. Anyway, we went to the stages for the first time, just in time to see hollywood undead take to the main stage as the first band of download. I grabbed Eamon and we went to the front, since we wanted to be down where the energetic crowd was.

Hollywood undead – Ace set, really had fun. I knew a load of the words since Eamon had given me a bunch of their songs and I’d already found them on myspace a few years ago. Imagine 5 eminems and a singy scene kid doing some pop-hip hop with chunky guitars. Great start to download.

Next up were…

The Blackout - Scene as hell. I wasn’t really into the emo-y music, but they were funny guys, mainly because of their amazing Welsh accents. I enjoyed the between-song banter and they played well enough. Can’t remember any songs, even though they tried their best to make them catchy with their woahs and ohs.

At this point Staind took to the stage, so we headed over to the 2nd Stage to see…

A Day to Remember – a Heavy band, it was all breakdowns and screaming. Which was pretty cool – as a general rule, I find genericness irritating, but with some things, like gangstuh rap, epic trance breakouts and stupidly heavy breakdowns, I still enjoy it because it’s so freakin’ cool. Can’t remember any songs, mind.

Parkway Drive - Another hardcore band. Tight metal with some awesomely heavy breakdowns. Crazy Australians!

Part way through Parkway Drive, we went back to main stage since some of Eamon’s friends wanted to see…

Billy Talent – What an irritating voice he has. That said, it suited some of the songs, it was an interesting Punk band, never thought I’d hear such a thing. I recognised 3 of the songs from watching the music channels in my youth, and playing Tony Hawks games. Nice refreshing change from the other bands on the lineup.

Now things got fun.

Killswitch Engage - Frickin’ Awesome. The guitarist is a hilarious guy, constantly doing unnecessary amounts of pinch harmonics and saying some disgusting yet loltastic banter between songs, I remember the frontman laughing and saying “Don’t ever say that again” after one particularly graphic description. He also came on stage in a cape. The music was really tight and I’ve always thought the singer was brilliant. Great band, great performance.

At this point, Eamon and I got braced for what we hoped would be the best band of the weekend.

Limp Bizkit – A cool hip hop beat opened up as DJ Lethal took to the stage. Everyone cheered as he did some awesome scratch solo over it, then the rest of the Bizkit came on and opened with Break Stuff. Jesus christ. Every song they played bar 2 (“Livin’ it up” and “Show me What You’ve Got”) were hits. It was a MASSIVE sing along. The whole set I was moving and dancing, especially to Rollin’ – I looked back and the crowd was absolutely huge, all doing the rollin’ dance moves. gotta be 3/4 of download there if not more. This random girl started chatting to us in the set, saying she loved the bizkit, so we started dancing with her too. It’s such an ace feeling turning to someone you don’t know, singing all the words in the verses to a song, smiling madly and then both jumping like maniacs as the chorus kicks in. Limp bizkit were actually amazing. Screaming “DJ LETHAL, BRING IT ON!” with Eamon was BRILLIANT. Also of note – Durst got this dude on stage who was singing all the words in the crowd and let him finish off one song, after which he did this massive scream and the whole crowd cheered, followed by Fred saying “Someone get that guy in a BAND!” It was one of *those* moments. Check it out:

After the awesomeoness that was the bizkit, I chatted with the random girl for a bit – Emma, I believe her name was. She’d lost her friends in the crowd and so we chilled for a bit, talking about how ace bizkit were and all kinds. Then we both got psyched for…

KoRn - An awesome set by KoRn. Last time I saw them in 2004 John Davis was fat and tired. Now he was really energetic. They played a lot of new stuff which I wasn’t familiar with, but the old stuff I knew 90% of the words to was great. Emma and I were screaming, headbanging and jumping like mental again. Watching J.D. Doing the mindless babble in the middle of Freak on a Leash is always a brilliant moment.

After KoRn, Emma managed to get through to one of her friends and we said our goodbyes and parted ways. I headed over to the Second Stage to see Motley Crue with Eamon, since he’d already gone there and it was a band he loved. I magically found him as he was leaving the crowd. He told me they were dire. The singer couldn’t sing and they were using the screens usually reserved for camera footage so people can see the band clearly from far away for effects, so he couldn’t see a thing. I didn’t mind since I’m not a big classic rock fan anyway, so we headed back for Faith No More.

Faith No More - I wasn’t sure what to expect. I only know one song, Epic, and the stuff from Mike Patton(the lead singer)’s other bands that Ogre has shown me (which was really cool). They opened with a slow lounge song. Not such a good choice for a download crowd methinks. They looked really old barring Patton himself. It was weird. I gave them a few more songs, but the songs were slow and didn’t have that many edgy or catchy bits. Not really my thing. So I went to the Third tent for the first time to see…

Meshuggah - I’ve watched a few of their tracks online and I knew they were heavy, but JESUS they are talented. The most talented musicians I’ve ever watched live. Eamon left after the 2nd song since they are music you really have to think about while you’re listening to due to the amount of polyrhythms going on and he was too drunk and tired to do so. I found Jamie mid-set and we were loving it. As Jamie put it – it sounded like the world was ending. I still wouldn’t really call the tracks they played “Songs”… more “Pieces”. It was incredible to watch though. Really enjoyed it and they were so tight and talented.

Headed back with Jamie past FNM, gave them another song and then left, since it still wasn’t my thing. We got to Jamie’s camp and I had a sausage roll and some crisps (I’d already spent about £15 on overpriced food and drink so I was glad to get something free ^^) and we chatted about the bands, before Jamie got some sleep and I went back to camp to sleep myself.

Saturday – Heavy day

Going to sleep freezing, waking up boiling once again, we got down to the stage in time to see the end of Five Finger Death Punch, which to be honest I really don’t remember. I think they were heavy. Didn’t stand out to me. Next up were…

DevilDriver - Loltasticly metal, they got another record-breaking circle pit going (as is their download tradition) which was spectacular. Other than that, didn’t really stand out. Can’t remember any songs.

HateBreed - I used to like these guys for a while (not sure why!), they’re really angry angry men. For the frontman, think fred durst without the cap and rap. It was pretty funny, but we headed over to the second stage mid set to catch the whole set of…

Fightstar - I really enjoyed these guys. Being Kieran’s favourite band I’d already been exposed to them a lot, so I knew a few of the tracks which was cool. What made me laugh was the frontman (Charlie) and guitarist were quite pleasant when talking to the crowd as a general rule, then the bassist was ridiculously metal, telling the crowd to f**ing go f**ing mental in the f**ing pit. Reminded me of another band (Well, not so much the talking, but the metalness of the bassist in comparison with the rest of the band). Anyway, during the set, Eamon texted Kieran telling him fightstar had pulled out, the rumour being that they’d broken up. Kieran texted back saying “No way, please be kidding” etc. He was at work so he couldn’t confirm it. Eamon gave him a call later, Kieran answered asking if he could call back later as he was working, so Eamon said “Yeah, just call me back after fightstar.” We’re mean. Best song was “War Machine” off the new album, since all the symphonic and choral elements were sampled over the live guitars and drums, making it frickin’ epic as hell. Great set.

We then went to Down, meaning I missed Static – X, which was lame, but Down were hilarious, with the frontman being all texan and folding his arms and looking metal in the heavy riffs. Next were…

Dragonforce - FREAKIN’ LOL. Every song bar the ballad sounded the same. Some of Eamon’s mates sellotaped bits of cardboard rubbish into the shapes of swords and had a swordfight, followed by a guitar which they played rubbish hero III on. Hilarious band.

Pendulum - 3rd best band of the festival. 95% of the crowd seemed to be moving – more than any other band of the festival. They were mental, the MC was much better this time, actually MCing during some of the songs. They played Tarantula as well! Frickin’ awesome band. Well enjoyed it.

Marylin Manson – Lol. He is such a disgustingly egotistical Diva. He had people dressing him and towelling him down between songs, a guy for picking up the mic stand which he kept knocking over and all these random props on stage. After playing a bunch of songs we didn’t know, our group headed over to prepare for the Prodigy.

We only saw half of the first song of Prodigy since they were late on and we wanted to go see all of Slipknot’s set. Which sucks – I wanted to see Prodigy. They seemed energetic for the brief moments I saw them, but I get the feeling you need to be in the thick of it to appreciate them fully.

Slipknot - Woah. In 2004, the last download festival I attended, seeing Slipknot live was what made me stop hating them and start really appreciating screamy, heavy music. They have not lost an ounce of their energy, and Corey’s voice sounded ace. Every song was a massive sing-along, which was so strange since I never thought of them as that kind of band, but they really are. They have so many hits that everyone knew. Corey Taylor kept saying how much he was amazed at where they were, how much he appreciated it and how awesome the situation was, which was great, I love to see a band who isn’t egotistical or just saying it for the sake of it say those things. He really radiates honesty and everyone respects him for it. Best part of the set though was the last song in the Encore – Spit it out. If you aren’t familiar with it live, they get the whole crowd to sit down and then “Jump the f**k up” on Corey’s mark. Usually in the live videos and when I saw them it takes a while to co-erse the crowd into sitting down. This time, he said it and all 80,000 people sat down straight away. The people left standing up got bottled if they didn’t sit down. Eamon and I were loving it, smiling like mad and when he said the words, everything erupted. It was the most movement from the most people in the whole festival. It was also a record for the most people to get down on the f**ing ground right f**ing now. Another one of *those* moments. Brilliant. Check it out:

After the knot, we made the slow trek back to the camp with all the other thousands of people. Now is the time to mention what I call the “Festival Memes” – There were so many random shouts of “BUTTSCRATCHER!”, “GET TO THE CHOPPER!” and “TIMMEH!” it’s unbelievable. Along with the more team-oriented “SPARTANS, WHAT IS YOUR OCCUPATION?” “AROOO! AROOO! AROOO!”, “OGGY OGGY OGGY” “OI OI OI” and the awesome mexican screams which radiated up and down the crowd every 5 minutes, it was good fun.

Eamon, Nat and I sat outside our tent for a while chatting, until we noticed a weird light moving in the sky. We stood up to see it – it was too fast to be a plane or helicopter, so Nat said quite loud, several times “What the f**k is that?!”. The people in the camp next to ours thought we were talking to them, so came over and asked what was going on. We explained, then started chatting to them. I can remember their names too – D, Sarah, Sonny, Kia and Ian. D and Sarah were Jrock fans – I asked if they were into JPop too, and D said she liked Arashi. Due to my sister’s obsession, I know a reasonable amount about JPop and so we had a mini Arashi sing along. We also mentioned a few other JPop boybands, where I said I loved the rapper. We then moved on to how much we liked rap music, games and internet memes. They also live in Birmingham. I ended up talking to them ’til 4:30am. It was ace.

Oh, and Eamon realised the UFO may have been an illegal firework, a type he’d seen previously at other festivals. Dissappointment. I still say we met these dudes from a UFO sighting.

But yeah, D gave me her card (great idea to have personal details cards) and I now have her on MSN. She also works with bands so she said she’d help YAWA out. I actually met 2 other people who wanted to put on YAWA this weekend as well; it’s been quite the networking opportunity!

Sunday – Cooldown day.

There weren’t that many bands on this day that I really wanted to see. After peeling myself from my sleeping bag, I ended up chatting with Eamon, Siobhan and Susan (Who was camping next to us) for several hours which was really cool, before strolling down to the stages.

I saw a lot of bands that didn’t really stand out to me. I don’t even remember black stone cherry’s set, but …

Journey - were epic for an old rock band. Not the kind of thing I’d listen to, but it was a great sing along on “Don’t Stop Believing” and they had a great atmosphere live.

Dream Theatre - Jamie’s favourite band. Some ace riffs and cool time signatures, unfortunately let down for me by too much soloing and a piercing-voiced singer. Talented as hell though and I am encouraged to give them another listen.

Shinedown - Eamon and co seemed to really enjoy these, but tbh I thought they were meh. The vocalist kept saying all these rock star-ish things that are meant to make you think about what’s really important, but it just came across as arrogant. Not massively arrogant, just a little egotistical. Maybe because he was wearing rock star shades too. Musically, it was nickleback-esque rock to me. Not really my thing.

ZZ Top – Lol. They were so hilariously rock. The little bluesy guitar licks between songs made me giggle, and the song where they kept singing about a girl with “Cheap Sunglasses” was considerably entertaining.

Clutch - My mate Dan likes these. Good voice on the singer, but again it seemed like much of a muchness with a generic rock feel for most songs. And the same auto-wah effect on every solo.

Buckcherry - The frontman really irritated me in this band. Such an arrogant person, kept saying about how he’d done cocaine and all the songs were about sex or drugs… gah, can’t stand people like that. And the music was generic rock. Gah.

Papa Roach - I’d been so close to going back to camp, but Papa Roach was what kept me waiting through the mediocre rock. I’m so glad I waited – they were frickin’ AWESOME. Such an amazing sing along to all the songs, again – so many hits. Eamon was MASSIVELY drunk since he had to finish off his alcohol that day, so he danced his way with me to the front and we accidentally started a massive mosh pit, in which he got kicked in the chest by an idiot scene kid, who promptly crowdsurfed out. I hate idiot scene kids. Anyway, some awesome songs, I even enjoyed the newer stuff – “hollywood whore” has an AWESOME riff. Jacoby (Frontman) worked the crowd brilliantly, especially the “Do we have any old school papa roach fans in the house?!” to which I replied “AAAAAAAAAA” with several thousand other people. Dead Cell and Last Resort followed, ending an awesome set by P.R. Really enjoyed it.

Trivium - Lol, they’re metal. I like Trivium though, some great breakdowns. Best parts were singing “WOO-OOAH, WOO-OOAH, YEE-EEAH, YEE-EEAH!” for the lol, shouting “BOAT! RUDDER! STRANGE!!! MOUNTAIN!!!!!” during pull harder on the strings of your martyr and an awesome surprise when after their set they put on “One Winged Angel” – Sephiroth’s theme tune from Final Fantasy 7 on the PA. No-one around me appreciated it though.

I caught the end of Def Leppard on the way back. They had a tribute to the one armed drummer which was cool, people in the crowd started crying haha. Then the singer said “Okay, well before he starts blubbing over his cymbols lets play you another number”, which made me laugh since it sounded exactly like how my parents speak. “Blubbing” and “Number” are too Brummie colloquialisms, you see. Good ol’ Brummies.

We chatted with the random Geeks next to us again that night as they wisely packed away and left for the train station – people had already begun starting tent fires and exploding gas canisters (even though they aren’t allowed in Download…)

Fortunately we avoided being roasted alive in a literal sense and after a long chat in the tent with Eamon, Nat and I, we finally slept.

Monday – The return.

So we packed up, headed back home and I had the best shower of my life. I’m pretty sure half of the dust from download was stuck in my hair. I also noticed my sunburn from the weekend for the first time.

Before:

After:

Funny stuff.

Anyway, I passed out after recounting the event to my family. And so ended a frickin’ awesome weekend. I’m pretty much sorted for going to gigs for a long time! So – Top 3 bands.

1 – Limp Bizkit
2 – Slipknot
3 – Pendulum

But it was close.

Next Week on Dave’s Blog

Back into real life! No random naked people running in the rain, dudes dressed as women or girls with no self respect flashing the audience whenever the camera is on them here. I’ll get to

- see Kieran again
- get my blog on
- Sleep in a real bed

And that’s good enough for me.

Ta-Ta!

Oh, AND THE BLOGLY QUESTION: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen at a festival? (Or if you haven’t been to a festival, at a gig?)