The omens were good: not too much traffic on the way, the German branch of the Hell’s Angels cruising past me on the motorway and sunshine forecast all weekend for the Download Festival at Donington. We were going to rock. A gentle start saw us head to the main stage to see Soulfly playing a combination of old and new tracks, pleasing a mixed crowd and sounding good in the sun. Momentum began to build with a bit of Clutch on the Snickers stage, hundreds of people gathered to hear a great show and perhaps take a look at the Snickers promo twins who were doing excellent work. Poor girls must have been a bit warm. The Deftones came up trumps, again playing a crowd-pleasing mix of old and new and testing out some material for their much-anticipated new album. Soulfly's Max Cavallera joined the band on stage to perform Head Up which really got the audience jumping around. A long gap between the Deftones and headliners Tool worked the crowd up into a hot, sweaty mass of expectant music fans. We had to wait for the sun to go down – not for any soulful reason but simply to be able to fully appreciate the mass of lights and special effects Tool had lined up. And boy was it worth the wait. Stinkfist, the pot, vicarious and schism were performed with class and an inherent sense of musicianship. The only criticism was that they did not play for long enough, just made it to over an hour but they have enough material and were on such good form, the crowd was left gasping for more.  | | Main stage at Download 2006 |
Saturday drew a slightly different crowd. Old rockers who could not get the time off work on Friday mixed with gangly emo-kids whose parents had allowed them to head to the festival at the weekend. The sun belted out heat almost as strongly as some of the bands belted out their tracks, mixed only with a faint hum from the planes taking off and landing at East Midlands Airport. Too old and hot for camping, we arrived back on site in time for Alice in Chains. We were treated to a set comprising all their old material and if you closed your eyes, you could imagine that Layne Staley was reaching out from beyond the grave. Or at least new frontman William DuVall was doing a great impression. We had a few moments to watch the second half of the England Vs Paraguay match although all that was to pale into insignificance with the evening of music that lay ahead. After taking on some water to dehydrate -unlike the England football team- we caught some of Avenged Sevenfold who were quite pleasant to listen to until they played a Pantera cover, Walk, in tribute to Pantera’s guitarist, Dimebag Darrell, who was shot and killed at a gig in the US. The crowd woke up and got down and dusty to an excellent rendition. Trivium also passed the time in the afternoon, a pretty good American rock band who played well. We then crossed the continents and headed to Within Temptation who were typically over the top but played brilliantly. They put on a great show and hit all the dramatic, rock-warble high notes. A bit of disappointment followed for some fans who were waiting for Korn perform on the main stage. An announcement revealed lead singer Jonathan Davies had been taken to hospital for reasons unknown and the band would play a shorter set with a variety of guest singers. It worked pretty well but there were a few unhappy faces in the crowd. But then everything faded into the background when rock gods Metallica opened with Creeping Death and thousands of people jumped around in unison to worship at the altar of James, Lars, Kirk and Robert. Sounding as good and professional as ever, the boys went on to play a few more tracks including Fuel. But then something beyond my wildest dreams happened. A faceless voice announced that the band would be playing the entire Master of Puppets album to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its release. A moment of dumbstruck silence was followed by an enormous cheer that erupted around the crowd. Apart from a few 15-year-olds who just didn't get it. Lights, whizzes, bangs and of course the music demonstrated why this band have earned themselves the reputation of being one of the greatest in the world and can still sell out a festival for thousands of people. After two and a half hours of pure rock bliss, the gang drew the gig to a close, having been joined on stage by guests from the bands who had played earlier on the day and performing greats such as One, a Misfits' cover and ending on Seek and Destroy from their very first album. I bounded back to the car covered in dust, sweat, other people's drinks and who knows what else. I almost pitied the bands performing on Sunday as Metallica were, frankly, awesome. As one Welsh fan said: "If Axl Rose wants to top that, he'll have to set himself on fire on stage to come even close to Metallica." I couldn't have put it better myself. | 
