Saturday, January 26, 2013

Events : UK : Nottingham : Download Festival

Events : UK : Nottingham : Download Festival

When : June 14th-16th 2013
Where : DE74 2RP Castle Donnington, Nottingham, United Kingdom (donington Park)
Time : 9:30am-2:00am
Phone : (512) 467-7979
Price : Weekend Ticket Arena Only With Disabeled Access : $228.89 (Purchase Tickets) | Weekend Ticket Arena Only : $228.89 (Purchase Tickets) | Weekend Ticket +3 Night Disabled Access Camping : $262.55 (Purchase Tickets) | Weekend Ticket +3 Night Family Camping : $262.55 (Purchase Tickets) | Weekend Ticket +3 Nights Camping : $262.55 (Purchase Tickets) | Weekend Ticket +5 Night Disabled Access Camping : $276.01 (Purchase Tickets) | Weekend Ticket +5 Night Family Camping : $276.01 (Purchase Tickets) | Weekend Ticket +5 Night Camping $276.01 (Purchase Tickets) | Car Parking Permit : $26.93 (Purchase Tickets) | Campsite Locker : $20.20 | 3-Day Guest Arena Passes : $133.29 (PurchaseTickets) | Big Green Coach Travel | Big Green coach Travel : $32.31 (Purchase Tickets)

The Download Festival was conceived as a follow up to the Monsters of Rock festivals which had been held in at the Donington Park circuit between 1980 and 1996. Rather than run as a single day event Download was initially a two-day event, expanding to three days in 2005.

The name Download was chosen for the festival for two reasons. Downloading was a dirty word in the music industry at the time, due to file sharing, and rock is seen as a rebellious genre of music. Also Download was to be a Monsters Of Rock for the 21st century and the internet would provide connectivity with its audience.

The 2003 festival tickets had a code on them, which would allow festival goers to download tracks from bands which had played. Although this idea has been dropped in subsequent years, the festival organizers have nurtured an online community through the Download Festival Forums. Initially a sounding board for the fans (and critics) of the festival, the boards have become an integral part of the festival organization with regular contributions from Festival Director John Probyn and Promoter Andy Copping. The forums also provide face to face feedback through the Fan Forum meetings (started in 2006) and organise the Boardie BBQ (2006 on) and the Boardie Takeover night (2009), football tournaments and a pub quiz for the R.I.P. campers who arrive on a Wednesday night.

When Download began, it took place on the Donington Park circuit infield as had Monsters Of Rock. However in 2008 developments for Formula One meant that the infield was no longer suitable as a festival site. 2008 saw a move to the "Sunday Markets" site to the west of the circuit. Although adequate, numbers were limited and the location of the campsite meant that getting from tents to the arena was quite a hike. 2009 saw the festival move to a much more suitable location to the south of the circuit. Security for the festival has constantly been undertaken by professional crowd management specialists Showsec, although the campsite area has had various contractors throughout.

Since 2009 there has been on-site radio broadcasting from Rock Radio on 87.7FM. This RSL broadcast has aired music from festival bands, interviews and news to the festival site and the surrounding area, with the signal reaching as far as Nottingham.

Download festival By Ian Gittins : The Guardian
Now into its 10th year, attracting close to 100,000 fans and sprouting more stages, Download is becoming the heavy metal Glastonbury. The elements conspired in this process this year, with torrential rain on the opening Friday delaying the start for two hours, turning the site into a quagmire and – every cloud has a silver lining – trapping 80s poodle rockers Europe in gridlocked traffic.

The downpour also put paid to sets by Cancer Bats and Rise to Remain, but Slash fired through a set of LA sleaze-rock solo numbers interspersed with Guns N' Roses hits such as Sweet Child O' Mine with his usual blase elan. The Prodigy and Chase & Status's testosterone-fuelled techno was thrillingly brutalist enough to distract fans from rival attractions with names like Nightwish and Axe Wound.

Saturday saw copious US bands such as Trivium and Killswitch Engage churn out guttural thrash by the yard, but also embraced comedy. Steel Panther's expertly executed spoof on Sunset Strip hair metal had female fans baring their breasts on the big screen, but after 18 years, Jack Black's Tenacious D's joke of being the world's best acoustic metal duo may be wearing a tad thin.

UK melodic rockers You Me at Six have two top 5 albums to their name but drew the short straw of competing for a crowd with headliners Metallica. The LA band played their taut, frill-free 1991 Black Album, a sacred text of metal, in reverse track order: as ever, applauding it felt like clapping a piece of high-tensile industrial machinery.

On Sunday, Megadeth's born-again-Christian vocalist Dave Mustaine appeared content to fire out finger-shredding thrashes such as She-Wolf to a sea of devil horns, before the re-formed Soundgarden's grinding set emphasised they were always the most gothic of grunge's major players. Like most of the weekend's bill, they also owe a huge debt to the final night's headliners.

Black Sabbath's bleak, turgid and blisteringly loud take on the blues set the template for heavy metal more than 40 years ago, when Ozzy Osbourne was an angst-ridden, self-destructive rock god rather than a lovably befuddled reality-TV star. Reunited except for original drummer Bill Ward , they turned in a sharp and compelling set, with the shambling Osbourne dancing like a rag doll but in strong voice and fully engaged with monolithic, dolorous slabs of sound such as Iron Man and War Pigs. As the baleful Paranoid brought Download to a close, it appeared that the original metal monsters are still the best.

2013 Line Up
HIM | Jimmy Eat World | A Day To Remeber | 3 Doors Down | Volbeat | Airborn | Motionless In White | The Hives | Amon Amarth | Converge | Waling Papers | Vision Disorder | HellYeah | Hardcore Superstar | In This Moment |The Sword | Heaven's Basement | Earthtone 9 | I AM I | Hackvist | Last Witness | Goldsboro | Buffalo Summer | Huntress | Black Dogs


Contact Download Festival
Address DE74 2RP Castle Donnington, Nottingham, United Kingdom

Contact The Guardian


1 comment:

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