Maybe Gama Bomb finally got their wish and a giant, zombie Kurt Cobain is terrorizing the English countryside.

Sorry, my sarcasm chip went into overload.

SEETHER played. But they sounded more like Nirvana than Nirvana. The singer even held his guitar the same way, had his hair cut the same and sang a thoroughly convincing Stars in Their eyes impression of Cobain from beginning to end.
When he announced they were going to play a Nirvana track, I pissed myself and shouted out "Haven't you been doing that for the past half hour"?! I then got told to fuck off by a fourteen year old which made me laugh even harder.

Anyway, without even trying, I managed to wangle a free guest pass for yesterday so I went again...

BLACK STONE CHERRY
Excellent southern rock band with a stack of top tunes. A great set that was ruined by a diabolical, bass heavy mix.
8/10 - For the music
A good kicking - For the sound engineer

ROSE TATTOO
Only caught the end of his set but Angry Anderson can still belt 'em out like he used to. Nice Boys Don't Play Rock and Roll indeed.
7/10

AIRBOURNE
Band of the day, absolutely no question. Only one other band came close to Airbourne today. From the moment they ran onstage they had the entire 2nd stage crowd in the palm of their hands. Frontman Joel O'Keefe is a total bloody loony, never stopping still for a second. The energy of the bloke is phenomenal.
Halfway through "Girls in Black", he got off the stage (still with his guitar on), walked into the crowd and grabbed an aussie flag. He then climbed the height of the stage, tied it onto the top and played the solo 30ft in the air.
The only tiny quibble was the slowing down of two of the tracks. My mates and I bumped into Justin, the bassist later on in the afternoon and asked him why they did it. "Ah, it's the drummer. He thinks they sound better slower".
I don't know. All that talent and they listen to a drummer.
Still, he upheld the aussie stereotype of being completely and utterly pissed 100% of the time. The poor chap could hardly stand, let alone walk, so where did two of his mates lead him? Yup. The beer tent.
10/10 - For the set.
10/10 - For the performance
10/10 - For ignoring the frantic hand signals of the stage crew trying to get them off before they could play their last song because they'd run over time by about two minutes.
10/10 - For dedication to drinking.


WITHIN TEMPTATION
Missed the first ten minutes getting stuck in the sea of Airbourne fans but I was happy with what I saw.
7/10


IN FLAMES
Delivered exactly what you thought they would. A mix of oldies and newies with no shocks or surprises.
And still no Behind Space!
7/10

THE WILDHEARTS
Second best band of the day. Catchy as fuck songs and a frontman who missed his vocation as a comedian. Total rock and roll performance right down to having the plug pulled on them for inciting the crowd to throw as many bottles (and other objects) at him as possible.
9/10

CHILDREN OF BODOM
See In Flames. (Not the Behind Space comment though, obviously)
7/10

CAVALERA CONSPIRACY
Or, as they should be known, Sepultura Conspiracy. Three songs in and they're already playing Territory. Why bother with all this CC bollocks? just reform Sepultura, it'd just be a lot simpler.
5/10

After wandering away from Sepultura Conspiracy, my mates wanted to go and check out JONAHAN DAVIS' solo set. I was bored after twenty seconds and even they, loyal Kornists as they are, didn't take too long to start agreeing with me.
What a pretentious twat.
He sat for the whole set in a gothic looking chair with plush red velvet cushions and sang all the songs that the rest of Korn were too embarassed about to play themselves.
At one point he introduced a song from the (truly terrible) film "Queen of the Damned", saying the studio cut his song because it mentioned something about the book in it's lyrics. Hey, Jonathan. Let me let you into a little secret. It wasn't left out of the film because of that, it ws because it was droning, self indulgent piffle.
When he got a violin out, played one note over and over again much to the delight of his horde of overexcited, baying sycophants, we decided it was time to make our excuses and leave. Quickly.
0/10

We wandered past the Lostprophets on our way back, stopping for one song. Awful song, awful sound.
1/10.

The fact you gave more out of ten to Buckcherry and Airbourne and the same amount to Within Temptation, In Flames and Children of Bodom leads me to assume you do not know the SHEER BRILLIANCE THAT IS ROSE TATTOOO

Lev - Pulverizer wrote:The fact you gave more out of ten to Buckcherry and Airbourne and the same amount to Within Temptation, In Flames and Children of Bodom leads me to assume you do not know the SHEER BRILLIANCE THAT IS ROSE TATTOOO

Buckcherry?
Only caught 3 half of RT but Angry didn't hold the crowd like Ginger or Joel O'Keefe. 7/10 for me is a good indication of a well played set but nothing awesome and that's exactly how I saw Rose Tattoo.

Fail.

Man, i'm so glad I didn't go, there's not one band you've reviewed (bar Priest) that i'd really give a piss about seeing at all.

Darkweasel wrote:Friday (As much as I'd love to have seen Testament, it was the only day worth going for).

Where to begin...

So, the rape of the old Monsters of Rock festival is complete. What we have now is a full blown attempt at being a mainstream Glastonbury type festival, complete with fun fair, EA Games hub, on-site marriages, clothes stores etc, Powder Rooms (?!) and other such stuff. Not to mention that in between bands the songs being played were virtually all indie or dance music!
In fact, I can pinpoint the exact moment I knew the Donington I loved had died was when the whole crowd sang the entirety of Blur's Parklife louder and with more passion than they sang along to Priest or Motorhead.
That really pissed me off.

The way it's set up this year is horrendous. There's a huge distance between the 2nd and 3rd stage (I know it was never the shortest of walks before but this is definitely longer), and the main stage is now situated at the foot of an incline, albeit not a steep one, but enough to question it's placement considering it was only a slightly steeper incline where 2 kids got killed at Donington back in 1988.

Arguably, the worst part of it for me was also probably the most trivial. For me, one of the best things about going to Donington is that it's instantly recognisable as Donington because of the giant Dunlop tyre. It's just one of those things where you go somewhere but don't feel you're really there unless you can see a certain, special landmark. Stupid, I know, but it just didn't really feel right yesterday because you can't see the tyre from anywhere.

Right then, to the bands...

NIRVANA.
Ran through a selection of Seether's most popular songs much to the enjoyment of people who enjoy pedestrian, bland, tuneless, derivative drivel. I was not one of them. The hilariously ironic playing of In Bloom was the only highlight of the entire set.
Tedious shite. 1/10

MOTORHEAD.
Does what it says on the tin. With added Wurzel.
8/10

JUDAS PRIEST.
Does the new material come over well to an audience who (largely) don't know it? Yes. Does the old material send youngsters not old enough to have been around when even Painkiller was recorded into a frenzied moshpit? Yes. Were they just fucking awesome from beginning to end with no problems with sound or choice of songs? Yes.
So why only give them 9/10?
Because of...

You wanted the best, you got the best. The hottest band in the world - KISS!
Fuck me. From the moment the curtain went down revealing Gene, Paul and Tommy on a platform suspended 60-70 or so feet in the air above the stage to the moment where they ended the show with more fireworks than a christmas episode of Eastenders, it was nothing short of spectacular. Seriously, that is one of the best shows I've ever seen in my entire life. Breathtaking. All the staples of the old Kiss Alive shows were there - Gene's firebreathing, blood vomiting and flying up into the top of the stage, Tommy Thayer mimicking Ace's old guitar solos perfectly right down to the fireworks coming out of the top, plus Paul flying above people's heads to play on a platform 200ft away from the stage for Love Gun and enough pyro and explosions to put Rammstein to shame.
Now THAT felt like Donington of old.
10/10.

My first day went exactly like that

Seemed like 2 miles of dusty path just to get from the campsite to the 3rd stage, fucking horrible!

They don't use the track anymore cos apparantly it's still greasy like 2 weeks after, asnd motorcyclists don't like it really

I saw Firewind on the friday aswell as those ones, they were fucking superb, great sound, energy and the guitarists were on fire!!!

KISS was pretty much the best tihng I have EVER seen... EVER it was unbelievable!

Second day saw Ace Freheley, playing a set mostly made up of songs KISS played the nigth before, he wasn't bad, but not really worth bothering, just sat around and had a smoke during this! Straight after was Pendulum (lol) it was kinda not that good... apparantly the pit was brutal Then a bit later SAXON were on the 3rd stage, it was completely packed, the marquee was overflowing, they played an awesome set and it seemed everyone was having a goooood time! Testament were next, but they sounded crap, well, they would have been amazing if the sound wasn't COMPLETELY fucked, but you could barely hear any riffs or harmonies over the horrible 'guitars are too loud' sound, the vocals were really quiet in comparison! They played and awesome set, and it was cool when he gave a shout out to all the bands they started off playing gigs with, and nice to see Paul Bostaph drumming his face off! Shame they were completely let down by the sound

Next day, Municipal Waste at 12:30, on the second stage... which was in a CAR PARK... got really pissed and had a great time, good set from the waste, though they seem to have completely omitted any Waste 'Em All tracks from their set! Pit was mental, just soo many people, and I kept seeing people falling down, brutal shit on tarmac Great way to start the day, only saw Wildhearts and Bodom the whole rest of the day, Wildhearts were really (surprisingly) great, the throwing of stuff was much fun aswell! Bodom were ok, not the best, not shit, and the set was quite alright... just didn't do anything for me!

I had a fucking awesome time, despite the HUGE distance to get from campsite to stages, but it's a fucking shame to see how bad its got this year even compared to last year... so many trendys, emo kids and wannabes... bane of the festival, that and people shouting 'TIMMAY' all the time (truly pathetic, most of the people didn't even seem to know what it's from, I even heard someone saying 'TO ME' and telling people that they were saying it wrong... ), also the fact that EVERY day I heard the same 10/15 tracks repeated over and over again, in the campsites, on download radio and playing at this stupid shitty 'party tent' thing... I still had great fun though, I just want it to change, like maybe in a good way.... FUCK, I just remembered the SADDEST thing I have ever seen EVER EVER EVER in my life, A FUCKING GUITAR HERO TENT... aaaaaaaaaand there was a fucking queue, a really long queue of like hundreds of people, at a fucking "metal" festival, to play a fucking SHIT game.... mannnn

I'm glad I didn't go really, sounded a bit whack.

Municipal Waste in a car park sounds like a right laugh!

yeah, it was awesome, and there was this ramp (like a speed bump) all the way down the middle, covering the cables between sound tent and stage, so many people fell over, some people were looking pretty bloody by the end of it! the pit was so wussy, there was a circle pit, but NO-ONE was really moshing, just running around in a circle pushing a little bit, the wall of death was jokes too

yeah, it was awesome, and there was this ramp (like a speed bump) all the way down the middle, covering the cables between sound tent and stage, so many people fell over, some people were looking pretty bloody by the end of it! the pit was so wussy, there was a circle pit, but NO-ONE was really moshing, just running around in a circle pushing a little bit, it was the least pain I've ever felt in a pit, NOFX in Bristol was more hardcore than that the wall of death was jokes too

Atom wrote:I'm glad I didn't go really, sounded a bit whack.

Definately worth it for the bands that I saw though, I mean how much would it cost to see all of them individually? I didn't seem like download though, Slayer weren't playing

Kerry King was there though.

He's the crappest member of Slayer though, and the fattest

Dave and Jeff, not to mention Tom, are pretty crap too.