THURSDAY
With 100,000 hard rock fans converging on Donington Park over a sweltering heatwave weekend for Download’s especially extended, double-Metallica, 20th-anniversary edition, what could possibly go wrong? Apart from six-hour traffic jams, sweltering dustbowl conditions, long queues for drinking water, and heatstroke. That said, once we finally get on site, the headbanger Glastonbury again works its magic as metal’s greatest fancy dress party. For those about to heavy rock, we salute you.
Jinjer’s Tatiana Shmayluk wields immense power, slithering across the stage, obliterating all within inches of her path. There’s a haughty swagger too, as she smacks her leather-clad hips and swirls her hands, lunging through the barrage of cork-skewering riffs and thundering percussion. Together, Jinjer are an unchallengeable and towering force of the highest calibre, faultless and all-consuming.
A welcome jolt of high-energy raunch on Thursday afternoon, Halestorm play a compact set heavy on songs from last year’s huge-sounding Top 10 album Back From the Dead. The Pennsylvania pop-rockers are long-time Download regulars, but more heartening this year is that kick-ass rock queen Lzzy Hale is just one of many strong female performers on the bill. She really should wear a crown next time.
As penguin-suited figures in bald caps gambol across the stage, Puscifer’s Maynard James Keenan stirs up further chaos, strutting as though possessed by the ghost of David
