Its June 2024, and MMH reviewers Stan and Rachel have just got back from a very muddy and entertaining weekend at the UK’s premier metal festival. What started out as a relatively dry weekend of camping and music, soon turned into our duo finding themselves cramming chairs under a gazebo to remain dry with a handful of other cold and mildly moist campers. Realistically this is the ultimate British camping experience and anyone who expects anything different needs to reevaluate the countries they go camping in. So now we know the general gist of the weather and with that we can safely assume that there were absolutely no issues whatsoever all weekend because in Britain we’re so used to the rain that we know how to deal with it. Well, you’d be wrong.
Plagued by technical difficulties, lack lustre headliners, and with sets cut short as the festival crew tried, and failed to make the grounds suitable for the tens of thousands of happy metalheads, Download 2024 was arguably a state from the moment it started.
But despite all that, somehow the iconic festival managed to provide an amazing weekend that was a lot of fun.
An improved Village from previous years that offered more than just club nights and a morning fit class went a long way to providing a festival that had more than just the music available. Axe throwing, Hammer horror marathons, and a hippy teaching people how to breathe in a way that would reduce anxiety were amongst the new village additions that helped festival goers have just a little bit more to experience. On top of these new additions, we were blessed with a silent disco, which if you’ve never been to a silent disco, is fantastically dangerous fun. It’s a great club night experience that is guaranteed to leave you with more than a few horrifically cringeworthy videos of you not only singing along badly, but singly along badly with absolutely no background music that can be heard. None. Whatsoever.
But enough of the non-music aspects of the festival. We’re here for music, right? So, with that we’ll begin our look into the first day of music.
The first band of MMH’s week was Hanabie, opening the Opus stage on the Friday, and Rachel had this to say about them:
“From the get go, frontwoman Yukina delivers excruciatingly harsh screams and for the most part this is a set that would make any heavy metal fan who believes that a band of young Japanese women can’t make a heavy metal band, choke on their words. The best part about this set though is that it delivers just enough genre bending to make things interesting, with the odd nu-metal style rap, J-pop style clean vocals, and thrash riffs, but yet they don’t overdo any of these to the point where it become a gimmick. If you see these gals on a festival lineup you’re going to in the future, give ‘em a try, you won’t be disappointed.”
-Rachel
Now, what is worth mentioning is that while Hanabie were performing the crowd were very quick to notice that to the side of the stage were legendary funny men Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan, two people that if we’re to be honest we did not expect to see at a metal festival. This kickstarted a bit of a Romesh and Rob spotting game for a lot of festival goers, and more will come of this later on, but for now we move onto the next band, Halocene. Fronted by lead singer Addie Nicole Amick, Halocene pulled off a set of well-known covers that went down a treat with their audience.
At this point our reviewers split off for a period of time to catch both Scene Queen and also Dream State, who:
“Pulled off a great, energetic set full of emotional crowd pleasers that had everyone in the Avalanche stage singing and screaming along at the tops of their voices”
-Stan
Meanwhile, back over on the Opus stage Scene Queen was bringing her brand of girl power out for an extremely hyped and devoted crowd.
“Whilst her lyrics are definitely an acquired taste, it’s hard to deny that she puts on a fun show. She was there to scream and dance (and twerk) and encourage the whole crowd to do the same.”
-Rachel
Continuing MMH’s day of phenomenal bands, led by remarkable front women, were Vukovi.
“This really was a band that was high on my list of priorities, and as with every time I’ve seen them before, the Scottish alt rock powerhouse pulled off a flawless, intense set with nothing but brilliant songs from start to finish, special mention to I Exist and La Di Da, which have a habit of making for an awesome atmosphere with any crowd. This was no exception”
-Stan
Whilst MMH did make the effort to go and see Pop Punk icons Bayside, the set felt somewhat lacking mostly due to technical issues regarding the levels of the vocals, which made songs just that little bit harder to enjoy than they should have been. However, their performance of Sick Sick Sick made up for a lot of these issues and went down a treat with the crowd.
Continuing our pop punky Download quest, reviewer extraordinaire, Rachel, landed herself a coveted spot inside the Avalanche tent for Busted’s ever so slightly packed out set and had this to say:
“I’m not exactly sure how I managed it but I somehow managed to squeeze myself into the Avalanche stage tent for Busted, and I’m glad I did. Busted have always been deemed a pop band, but it was easy to see from their flawless guitar playing during their set that they are, and always will be, a pop rock band. As fun to watch and sing along too as any other pop rock band (Bowling For Soup for instance?), the entire crowd was high on the energy during their whole set, even when they played slower songs from their catalogue (3am and Sleeping With The Lights On). If you’d told me before this that I’d be watching a lot of bearded men who are clearly heavy metal fans, having a great time watching Busted cover Hanson’s “MMMBop” I wouldn’t have believed you, but that is exactly what happened. I for one hope Busted will be back on Download’s lineup again in the future, hopefully on Apex or Opus stage so even more metal heads can let their inner teen out to jams such as “Crashed The Wedding” and “Year 3000”.”
At this point you might be thinking “Yo, MMH where’s the REAL metal in your review?” because we’re sure one or two of you won’t count Hanabie, because they use J-pop style choruses between their metalcore verses, or Scene Queen because she’s just a little bit too pink, or Busted because… well let’s be fair… they’re Busted (and at least half of our 2 writers for this review will agree with you on this one). So, to appease your carnal desire for true metal, Stan made the effort for all of you, to head off on his own, get high (trust us, this was very much the correct approach), and watch about 15 people wear traditional Norse costumes, make bird sounds and perform a Nordic ritual on the Opus stage. We are of course talking about Heilung.
“If I’m to be entirely honest, this was one of the most profound performances of the entire weekend. When my friend had told me Heilung were a band I’d enjoy I knew very little about them, but by the end of their ritualistic set, I felt like I had been on a journey that resonated deep within my ancestral roots, despite having no ancestral roots to Nordic culture. At times scary, and at others very calming, the historical musical act put on a fascinating display from start to finish, complete with Nordic soldiers. Could I name a single song? Absolutely not. Could I google any lyrics? Also, no. But will the feeling of their set stick with me for a long time? Very much so.”
-Stan
And with that we reach our final band of the day. Funeral for a Friend.
“Funeral for a Friend was the last band of the Friday for me (Sorry QOTSA), and I almost could not quite believe what I was hearing and seeing as I staggered closer to the stage only to see and hear CHARLIE SIMPSON singing with them for “All the Rage”. Charlie’s deep clean vocals and unclean vocals blended extremely well into this song and my only wish is that it had happened a bit later in the set so I hadn’t missed the start (it took a while to get out of the tent after Busted). The rest of Funeral for A Friend’s set went off without a hitch as the band played as on point as the other 11 times I’ve seen them. However, a bit of an unpopular opinion from me, is that I’m not a fan of Lucas from Holding Absence on vocals for them. Matt has always had a very distinct voice and whilst Lucas is by no means a bad vocalist, it just didn’t feel quite right having someone filling in who didn’t also have a very distinct voice.”
-Rachel
“Funeral for a Friend was for me a very fun experience, and one that felt right at home headlining the Opus stage on the opening day. With a set list of consistent crowd pleasers and closing off with massive hits, Funeral for a Friend was everything I wanted it to be throughout, and a pleasure to watch before the long moist march back to my tent.”
-Stan
Photo’s courtesy of Stacey Lingard 📸
