With a howl of “ Cut down the altar”, the Canadians wasted no time in showing what they were made of gigantic riffs, scream-along anthems and one of metal’s most commanding new frontwomen in Courtney LaPlante ensuring Spiritbox first UK show was the most legendary Download debut since Trivium played the Main Stage in 2005. For the hardy souls that stuck it out though, the payoff was a set from Iron Maiden, promoting their latest album The Book Of Souls, that stuck two fingers up to the conditions and rewarded those committed enough with a set of uncompromising heavy metal brilliance.Īlmost two years after they became a viral sensation with Holy Roller, Spiritbox proved the buzz wasn’t purely digital when they packed out the Avalanche Stage tent in 2022. By the end of the Sunday the site was a quagmire, all rivers of thick mud and endless damp patches as far as the eye could see.

A shell-shocked Nathan Gray of Boysetsfire, the band directly on afterwards, asked: “Did Metallica just support us?” Yeah mate, they actually did.ĭownload 2016 felt like the end of days – almost certainly the worst weather that the festival has ever had to endure. Metallica stepped out and decimated a packed tent, before heading off into the distance. With no pyro or light show and a crowd twice the size of Finsbury Park RATM put on an ferociously intense and electrifying spectacle.Īt the first ever Download, rumours started to circulate that the unoccupied slot in the middle of the day on the second stage was going to be filled by metal’s biggest band. The band agreed to thank Britain with a free show at Finsbury Park, but their greatest moment in this period was a week later when they headlined Download’s Main Stage. Rage Against The Machine – Main Stage, 2010Īt the end of 2009 a campaign from UK rock fans, sick of Simon Cowell’s X-factor guff monopolising the Christmas No.1 for so long, took Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name to the top of the British charts.

Download festival 2022 lineup