Download Festival
11th March 2019
Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, Australia.
Review by Joshua W. Turk. Photography by Megs Moss.
After years and years of waiting patiently while we watched the Download festival treating our brothers and sisters in the UK to some of the most amazing line-ups that Punk and Metal festivals have to offer, us younger cousins in Australia finally saw the festival hit our shores in 2018. Clutching my pearls tight, I couldn’t wait to see what kind of amazing bands they got through the gates to headline – would we be lucky enough to also get headliners like Guns ‘n’ Roses? Marilyn Manson? Metallica?
The headliners, of course, were Korn and Limp Bizkit.
So today was my very first Download festival experience, on account of a set of headliners that I could actually sink my teeth into – Ozzy, Judas Priest, Slayer? Now that’s more like it! Sadly, Ozzy fell ill a month or two before and had to cancel the whole Australasian leg of his tour, but even without the Crown Prince of Darkness gracing our shores the line-up for the day was leagues ahead of last year’s (admittedly still incredibly successful) showing.
I’ll get the basics out of the way first; regarding the actual festival organisation, Download is doing things right. Held at Melbourne’s Flemington Racecourse, the layout seemed chaotic and crammed in at first due to the sheer amount of stalls and stages, but once you got the lay of the land, navigating the grounds became second nature. As always, the most important part of any festival is access to water and toilet facilities, and these guys had both in spades – you were never left short of a stall and there were water facilities posted near almost every stage (not to mention encouraged at the festival bars). The only complaint for me was the volume; despite being a heavy music festival, this might have been the quietest festival that I have ever attended. The sound was crystal clear, don’t get me wrong, but there wasn’t a moment watching a band where I couldn’t hear absolutely every thing that happened around me, which proved to be very distracting at times. It’s better than having your ears pummeled into submission by overwhelming decibels, I guess? I just wanted my chest to rattle a little, I’m old like that.
First cab off the rank was Australia’s own Luca Brasi, who did an amazing job of warming up the ever-growing crowds trickling in with their infectious brand of singalong Pop Punk – a lovely little appetiser for those coming through the north gates past the main stage. For those of us coming through the south gates at the same time, you might’ve been lucky enough to catch Tasmanian Black Metal overlords Ruins tearing the sky in half instead; horses for courses and all that, but for my money, THIS was the opener to see.
Following that were Detroit’s own I Prevail who were never in short supply of dense, tech-inspired riffery or soaring singalong hooks and had the slowly growing crowds eating out of the palms of their hands. War On Women were handling some business of their own on the other side of the festival, with lead singer Shawna Potter so visibly happy to be here that it almost took the teeth out of their set. Almost. The Beautiful Monument were crushing the Ascension Stage at the same time, bearing down in the now ever-present festival sun and sweating through an incredibly well-received half-hour of melodic metalcore.
Of course, if melodic metalcore doesn’t tickle your pickle, Airbourne were making damn sure you had yourself a strong alternative, serving up filthy BIG RAWK riffs and 20ft. fireballs in equal measure. They might cop a lot of flack for sounding exactly like AC/DC, but if you’re gonna make a career out of sounding like acca dacca, you’ve come to the right country to do so. Roadrunner Records’ newest label darlings Fever 333 were treating the rest of us to a workshop in How To Put On A Fucking Good Show, with singer Jason Aalon Butler splitting the crowd down the centre as he bee-lined for the sound tower at the back of the tent in the first song, ascending the tower mid-riffery to end the song hanging and convulsing from the scaffolding to howls of delight.
High Tension were my first big highlight for the day, offering up slab after slab of filthy homegrown heaviness that was just the doctor ordered to loosen up these dusty old bones. The stage antics and amazing claw work of Karina Utomo had the whole crowd eating out of the palm of her, err.. claw. Which is metal as fuck. She hit the crowd hard on fan favourite ‘Bully’, spending the entire song in the pit leaving most of us only to imagine what carnage was unfolding before those lucky enough to be in the centre of the mayhem.
While all this was unfolding on a sidestage, polish metal gods Behemoth were raining hell down on an otherwise perfectly sunny afternoon. These guys are honestly astonishing live; even on a festival stage in the brutal Australian sun, they managed to make the whole show feel like a satanic congregation. With the uncomfortably intense yet incredibly endearing Nergal as our master of ceremonies, the band blistered through one of the heaviest sets I’ve ever witnessed – even at the low volumes offered by the mainstages strangely quiet sound system. As far as big black satanic heavy metal concerts go, they don’t come much more metal than this.
Of course, if heavy metal antics like that ain’t your bag, perhaps San Francisco’s most notorious covers band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes could offer some reprise. If you’ve never heard of the band, you could probably pronounce yourself clinically dead at this point so I won’t bore anybody with an explanation of what they do. Sporting all gold jackets like the best cabaret band you’ve never seen, Spike and co. absolutely belted through an hour of all-time classics – my favourite of which has to be the ukulele cover of Australain Rock royalty Billy Thorpe’s eternal classic ‘Most People I Know Think That I’m Crazy’. An incredibly touching moment. Swamped in a sea of bands that arguably take themselves far too seriously, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes exemplify time and time again that you don’t even need an original song to be successful in the music industry, you just need to connect with your audience. God bless ’em.
That having been said, if heavy metal antics are your bag, then you were probably still at the mainstage feasting your eyes on the heavy metal glory that is Anthrax. The energy these guys can give after so many years on the road is astonishing, with Joey Belladonna (my favourite of the Anthrax singers) belting them high notes like he was still a fresh-faced young punk out to prove something. This was my first live Anthrax experience, and hearing such an adoring crowd chanting along to ‘I Am The Law’ with the gleeful abandon of their teenage selves is something I’ll never forget.
Even though facing off with a giant like Anthrax on a festival bill is no small feat, Hardcore heavyweights Converge weren’t here to pull any punches. They absolutely crushed the stage from the moment they walked out, with that sludgy intensity and their three-pronged vocal attack sending waves of chills down every spine in attendance. Lead vocalist Kurt Ballou is a god damn monster, attacking the stage like it was built just for him, and by the time they hit their last note it felt like nobody else had a chance of playing that stage again – they practically closed the pool for the day. Brutal.
Australian melodic hardcore heavyweight counterparts The Amity Affliction were holding their own back on the mainstage, with their adoring fanbase clearly ecstatic to have their favourite band back on the road. But if you’re a true patriot like me, you weren’t there, because you were over at the Dogtooth stage watching one of the best live bands that Australia has ever produced – the mighty Frenzal Rhomb. Acutely aware of the lack of Ozzy Osbourne on the bill (as we all were, sadly), the band decided to take it upon themselves to deliver on the festival’s promise of some fucken’ Ozzy maaan, with guitarist Lindsay McDougall playing both Ozzy and the late, great Randy Rhodes on a ripping rendition of the timeless classic, ‘Crazy Train’. If you didn’t get your money’s worth right there, I don’t know if we can be friends.
New Zealand’s own heavy metal darlings Alien Weaponry weren’t slouching on the patriotic representation either, running their own masterclass on How To Metal that, quite frankly, a lot of Australian bands could do with attending. These guys are so damn good that before you know it, Australia will be trying to claim them as their own and act like New Zealand doesn’t exist like every other artist that ever came from there. Ahem.
Mind you, I’m betting if you were part of the chaos that was Converge‘s set earlier, you missed all of this goodness because you were back over at the Avalanche stage waiting for the chaos to ensue again when our new heroes of hardcore, Code Orange hit the stage. And holy fuck did chaos ever ensue. I’ve been around the traps a couple of times, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve never actually witnessed a band hardcore dancing before. Oh, I’ve seen plenty of audiences hardcore dancing in my time; in fact, I’d like to take this opportunity to formally welcome the funniest of all crowd interactions back again after a ten-year hiatus. But in all my days, I’ve never actually seen a band pulling full roundhouses mid-riff – until today. Led by lead singer and drummer Jami Morgan, the majority of the band at the front of the stage are off -mic, leaving them free to cartwheel and roundhouse to their heart’s (and the crowd’s) delight. And did I mention the riffs? These guys sound like the hell-born offspring of The Locust and Agnostic Front, delivering jarring bursts of hyper-speed noise and unsettlingly heavy half-time breakdowns in equal measure. Definitely a sleeper act of the festival.
Rise Against were over on the mainstage holding court for themselves, but I have to be honest – after Code Orange, it felt like the teeth got taken out of their set a bit. That’s one of the pitfalls of festival-going – sometimes a band can be so intense that they put you in a headspace that doesn’t translate well once you’ve re-entered the rest of the festival, and this was definitely one of those moments. So I took the moment to visit Sparrow’s Philly Cheesesteaks and get myself a delicious freshly-made pretzel and a can of [GENERIC COLA], then lay on the grass with the rest of the kids and die for a minute instead. Necessary.
The only thing that could have gotten me back off the grass at that point was the promise of finally getting to see Alice In Chains live. I was living my own teen fantasy come to life watching Jerry Cantrell and the boys nailing the soundtrack to my youth like they wrote the songs yesterday, with singer William DuVall bringing his own swagger to the role while making sure not to step on any toes in his duties filling the boots of one of the most iconic vocalists in rock music history. By the looks of the faces in attendance around me, I wasn’t the only one who was finally realising a lifelong dream; the sound of a thousands-strong audience singing the intro to ‘Man In The Box’ is the kind of stuff that dreams are made of. Life Goal Achieved.
As if that wasn’t a ridiculous enough life goal to have achieved for the day, what we were to witness next was undeniably god tier – the heavy metal royalty that is Judas. Fucking. Priest. The audience spilled out into the walkways, stretching out as far as the eye could see as people ran from everywhere to catch even a glimpse at the King himself, Rob Halford dressed head toe in a shimmering silver tassled two-piece that had him looking like he was dipped in British Steel. They hammered out all the classics with the ease you would expect from such masters of their craft, and by the time they got to ‘Breaking the Law’, it felt as if there wasn’t a fist left to pump or a head left to bang – you could have ended the festival there.
For the young punkers in attendance, though, names like Alice In Chains and Judas Priest means absolutely nothing – they were having their own revelatory double-header experience back at the Avalanche stage watching So-Cal Punk Kings Pennywise followed by Canadian Crown Princes Sum 41. The transition was like watching some mad professor present the results of his wicked experiments to the world, with Pennywise firing through a power set of skater punk classics that had the whole tent singing at the top of their lungs. Then the boys in Sum 41 emerged like the bastard children of skater punk to knock down the pins the former set up for them, complete with their own younger generation of rabid fans singing along to every word. It was a great moment to witness; a passing of the baton of sorts. How very pleasant.
As much as we were spoiled with overseas content this year, we can’t forget the great Australian content that was still destroying the smaller stages at this point. Thy Art Is Murder take out the award for biggest circle pit of the day, absolutely crushing the crowd with blastbeat after breakdown after blastbeat after brutal-as-fuck breakdown until the punters participating in the circle pit had to start stepping out to take a couple of breathers themselves. Hats off to any band that can wear out a crowd better than these guys. Not to be outdone, Melbourne’s own genre-bending monsters Twelve Foot Ninja hit the stage like it was built just for them, banging through a mind-melting set with an energy matched only by that of the rabid fanbase in attendace that had been waiting for this moment all damn day.
But that was it for the Dogtooth stage for me sadly – apologies to Halestorm, but unfortunately you had some gigantic competition. For the younger set, their headliner for the evening came in the form of the enigmatic swedish demigods Ghost. The dense drone of ‘Ashes’ filled the air, with the hauntingly beautiful sounds of singing children echoing eerily throughout the crowd. A pair of silhouettes project against the curtain, dropping as the band launch into the fan favourite ‘Rats’, and the whole tent fucking exploded. It’s pretty clear that Cardinal Copia and his band of Nameless Ghouls have a fanbase that go beyond the mere tee-shirt buying set that regular band members have; half the crowd were dressed up as ghouls themselves, and there wasn’t one person around me that didn’t know every word to every song. The show itself is amazing and ridiculous and spectacular and worth every penny; part metal concert, part cabaret show, part church ceremony? You’re damn right it’s all of those things and more. But I’m not about to give up the ghost here (ayyyyyy, a pun a day keeps the doctor away – thank me later). If Ghost come to town just buy a ticket and take the ride yourself; you won’t be disappointed.
But the true headliners for the evening were not Ghost. No, the final headliner was for those of us old enough to remember the days of the Slayer Guy. You younguns might not have ever had the indescribable pleasure of meeting this now elusive creature, but once upon a time you couldn’t go to a concert anywhere, of any kind without somebody yelling “PLAY SOME FUCKING SLAYERRRRRRR”. It was par for the course, for every gig, forever. Then at some point, the Slayer Guys went quiet, and stopped making themselves known.
Well not tonight. Tonight was their fucking night. For miles around, people flocked like seagulls screaming at the top of their lungs; nobody else in the world mattered. Metal heads skipped arm in arm, four deep, smiles for miles as they danced their way to see the truest of all metal gods in existence in their final Melbourne show of all time. Ladies and gentelmen, it was time for some fucking SLAYER. Just the sight of the banner alone had punters practically pissing themselves with excitement; I truly don’t know if a metal band could generate this much excitement ever again. I think Metallica could match it; I’m not convinced from what I witnessed that they would exceed it. Once Tom, Kerry and co. hit the stage, it was just pure bedlam, opening with the aptly titled ‘Repentless’ and only descending deeper into their catalogue of classics from there. There was fire, there was smoke, there was everything but literal raining blood (they tried that once, didn’t work out well). Hearing the metal roaring and screaming from every angle as they unleashed beasts like ‘Disciple’ and ‘War Ensemble’ elicits a feeling of deep satisfaction that is hard to express in words. By the time they got to the ‘true classics’ portion of the set, giving us one last ‘Seasons in the Abyss’, one last ‘Dead Skin Mask’, you could have crowd-surfed on the energy present alone. After a brief hiatus (let’s not even call them encores anymore), they came back to bring the hammer down one last time for us, delivering a four-punch combo that would kill any being alive; ‘South of Heaven’, ‘Raining Blood’, ‘Chemical Warfare’, and the one that started it all for me, ‘Angel of Death’. By the time they finished up, there was barely a dry eye in the room, with Tom Araya soaking up the sounds of the crowd for a good 10-minutes before saying his final goodbyes. The lights fell, Download had ended, and so had Slayer. God bless us all.
BUT WAIT, THAT’S NOT ALL!
I have one last award to give out! That award is for ‘The Download Best Band Of The Day’, and it was none of these bands that I had mentioned. Not Judas Priest, Not Sum 41, Not Ghost or Slayer, or any of your favourite bands. The band of the day came at approximately 1:05pm, gracing the Avalanche stage. The band in question are SLAVES. I’ll plead complete ignorance; I’d never heard a lick of their music before Download. I’d never even heard the name. I entered the tent completely blind, and left feeling like I’d had my whole perspective bent to the left. The band are a garage two piece from the UK with an energy and attitude like you’ve never seen before, and I can not implore you enough to make a point to change that. You know what? I won’t even explain. Don’t even google a single song; do yourself a favour and just buy yourself a ticket to their show as soon as you can and go in blind like I did; you won’t leave unchanged. Treat yourself, lovers.
Were you there at Flemington Racecourse for this massive Heavy Metal extravaganza? Or have you participated in a Download Festival some other time? Tell us about it in the comments below!
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