[kj] KJ at Download

[Matt Platts]

I thought the download set was amazing, atmosphere was electric.

I managed to persuade a mate i hooked up with, who really just listens to 
very extreme death/black metal to forfeit metallica and come and have a 
look for 'at least a couple of songs'. Hes only 17, and stayed for the 
whole set and walked out saying it was about the best thing he'd seen all 
weekend haha! (And spent the majority of yesterday finding tracks and 
videos on the net of course..)

Jaz's getting us all to shout 'lets get the fuck outta here' was a slagging 
of the UK in general as far as i remember, going on about the government, 
taxes etc. He also had a good rant about Christianity before unspeakable, 
dont know if anyone remembers what he was saying? Id missed all sleep the 
night before due to guitar teching for ginger the previous night, then 
equipment drops all over the country and only just got back in time, and 
most of it's a bit of a blur, just remember it being brilliant!

I did see the rest of Metallica who Id never seen before and who actually 
amazed me with a storming set throwing in the entire master of puppets 
album in the middle and maybe only one or 2 new songs. They certainly knew 
what the audience really wanted - classic tracks - and delivered just that.

The trouble on the sunday night was probably brought on by a very pissed 
off audience for two reasons. Firstly the prodigy played the 2nd stage and 
really should have played the main. I saw thousands turned away from it due 
to lack of room, it was ridiculous, the tent was literally bursting, people 
were standing in places where they really couldn't have seen a thing. I 
finished up perched at the top of a hill listening to it. Thousands tried 
to watch from outside, and security had to cordon off the entire area 
around the snickers stage, directing further thousands of people coming 
through back to the main stage. Secondly, all that was left after that was 
Guns n Roses, who rather than take a leaf out of metallicas book managed an 
utterly piss poor performance with several long gaps in the set with no 
explanation - no continuity whatsoever, and every time it built up into 
something it just flopped straight after. Apparrently there were technical 
problems, but what those were is anyones guess as the sound was fine 
whenever they were on stage. There was no build up and no atmosphere - 
maybe there was for the real fans at the front, but a lot of people just 
walked away, everyone i met was slagging them. There was rioting in the 
camp sites later, im assuming fueled by both the aforementioned events as 
either prodigy or gnr should have been the culmination of the festival.

Matt



At 10:38 12/06/2006 +0100, Paula Cook wrote:
>KJ played a banging set at Download - absolutely loved it and well worth 
>the effort to get to / endure the festival.
>
>As for the tent being half-full I didn't even notice - too busy dancing 
>like crazy down the front! Jaz was in fine fettle, black and white face 
>paint and khaki boiler suit and Geordie was unusally animated, waving his 
>arms around and pulling faces at the start of the set. (Something not 
>right I suspect, he did become his normal self after the second song!). 
>And when Jaz got us all to shout "Let's Get the f*** out of here!", that 
>completely cracked me up! Much better than "Make Poverty History" and no 
>truer word was ever said by Mr. Coleman - boy was Download an endurance 
>test, I was out of there like a shot afterwards! (Not what he meant I'm 
>sure! ;-) )
>
>Really great to hear "Unspeakable", and "Gratitude" is now my new 
>favourite from the new LP.
>
>Even more gutted I missed the UK tour now and looking forward to 
>"Beautiful Days" - even if that's going to be another endurance test! Are 
>there any US / Europe dates being lined up, anyone?
>
>By the way - I've heard rumours of trouble at Download last night - any 
>truth in that?
>
>Regards to everyone,
>Nuclear Girl
>
>
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