Download Festival Review: Friday

Download Festival has been considered one of the UK’s biggest rock festivals for some years and 2015’s edition of the festival featured a whole wealth of talent across three days of rain-soaked metal mayhem. With such a wide variety of bands of various sub-genres under the rock umbrella performing across the weekend, we at Distorted Sound couldn’t review every band performing, so here is Distorted Sound Magazine’s review of Download Festival 2015!

CLUTCH – Alex Piercy

CLUTCH oozed with personality and charisma, pulsating the crowd and raising the bar for the acts that followed.

The response from the crowd intensified, resulting in so many feet stomping the ground, it could have caused an earthquake. There could not have been a single person at the main stage not getting involved in the mayhem, proving why hard rock and heavy grooves belong at Download. Considering CLUTCH regularly swap up their set lists, they show through their performance that they understand the important of gauging the flow and mood of their current audience, creating a fluent experience built for purpose.

9/10

JUDAS PRIEST – Jessica Howkins

JUDAS PRIEST, one of the pioneering bands in British heavy metal and from the moment vocalist Rob Halford graced the stage in all his leathers, the crowd of Download knew they were in for a treat. Playing all of the known greats to coming on stage on a beautiful bike, JUDAS PRIEST knew exactly what they was doing and they was doing it at breakneck speed. If they wasn’t Breaking The Law, they was being The Painkiller and the crowd at Donington couldn’t ask for more from the greats of heavy metal.

8/10

FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH – Jessica Howkins

Over the years, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH have gained a dedicated following and with a performance like Download’s it is no surprise as to how. For a band with so much anger in their music, there is so much love on stage and that is beautifully projected to the crowd, especially as FFDP bought three youngsters up on stage, describing them as the next generation. Their only downfall was having no Rob Halford for Lift Me Up, but it takes an incredible performance like FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH’s for that to not matter at all.  They have fought and proved themselves to the thousands in front of them with this performance that one day, they can and they will headline the muddy grounds of Donington Park.

9/10

SLIPKNOT – James Weaver

SLIPKNOT have become a band that is commonly associated with Download Festival and despite grumblings over repetition of headliners, SLIPKNOT’s performance remains testament to the fact they are one of metal’s titans. With an adrenaline charged performance covering every aspect of the band’s back catalogue the hits were pummelled out from start to finish. Tracks from the band’s latest studio record, 5: The Grey Chapter, sounded immense live yet it was fan favourites that were met with thunderous applause. Musically, the band were on tight form with Corey Taylor, in particular, on explosive form. Taylor commanded the stage from his first roar to his consistent commands of telling the mass crowd to lose their minds. For example, ordering the 80,000 drenched crowd to get on the floor for Spit It Out is an incredible achievement and proves evidence to the fact that SLIPKNOT have risen to the status that is commonly shared with the first generation of metal bands. The nine masked men will and consistently remain as one of metal’s strongest acts.

10/10

Reviews of the Sunday of Download Festival Coming Soon!

Check out Saturday’s review of Download Festival