In true festival fashion, the crowds for the opening bands on Sunday morning is much smaller than the other days, but this doesn’t stop York based metal band Glamour of the Kill. Sounding a lot like Bullet For My Valentine and having silly member names like Avenged Sevenfold, they must surely be set to burst onto the modern metal scene and fit in perfectly, and with a performance like this, this seems like a real possibility.
Rating: 7/10

From First To Last follow, and aren’t bad, but a Sunday morning at Donington doesn’t seem like the right place for their whiney ‘emo-with-screams’ music. A club show with their own fans may do them more justice.
Rating: 5/10

Next up on the main stage are Fightstar, and some people still haven’t forgiven Charlie Simpson for being in Busted. The few in the audience that were throwing bottles soon gave up though, possibly because Fightstar are a damn good band! They’re heavier than people would expect on record, and even heavier still when you see them live. It took all of two songs for the bottles to stop flying an the throwers to join the mosh pit, which was quite impressive. Overall, a great tour from some nice guys who know how to kill zombies in the best way. (see interviews)
Rating: 7/10

Following Fightstar’s fantastic set is a trip to the second stage for he must-see act of the weekend, Lethal Bizzle. His audience was split into three groups; the small group that genuinely wanted to see him, the majority that wanted bottle him and the few that went just too see how the rest of the crowd would react. The reaction? To say there was a sea of bottles would be an understatement, to say that about 90% of the days beer sales had their containers saved up to throw at Bizzle would be more accurate. The funniest thing of it all, Lethal Bizzle conquered Download! He won over the majority of the crowd, but there was still the small section that weren’t impressed. Bizzle’s reaction? Get the rest of the crowd to shout “Fuck You! Suck my dick!” to this small minority. THE highlight of the weekend without a doubt.
Rating: 10/10

Back to the main stage to check out how good four blokes with cello’s playing metal can be, and, as it turns out, rather good indeed. Apocalyptica are simply stunning, and when they bring out a special guest, a lot of the crowd are once again, stunned. There are a number of reasons for being stunned by this guest, not only is she a big star, she’s beautiful and she’s got a great voice; it’s none other than Lacuna Coil front-woman Cristina Scabbia. You’d be surprised what you can do with a cello and a love of heavy metal.
Rating: 8/10

Within Temptation are a good band to follow Apocalyptica, and they too put on a fantastic show. They had an impressive stage set up with quite a gothic set of statues which complimented their performance no end.
Rating: 7/10

You can’t help but feel sorry for Elliot Minor after their set at Download. They we’re out of place on the line up and bottling was a given, but no one must have expected them to get this much stick. Security even had to enter the crowd and remove people there were that many things being thrown, but they didn’t give up. Front man Alex even did something which more bands should do by throwing a bottle back into the audience. Despite the fact that they shouldn’t have been on the bill in the first place, they did well. They completed their set and completed it well. Fair play to them for not giving up and walking off like many bands would have done.
Rating: 6/10

The last ten minutes of Coheed and Cambria wasn’t enough to change my mind about how bland they are live. Other than the occasional shake of Claudio Sanchez’s monster hair just simply isn’t a good enough way to showcase their catalogue of songs, which at the end of the day, is much better than their live show.
Rating: 4/10

Jimmy Eat World were the second to last band of the festival on the main stage, and while they were a nice break before LostProphets, and while they played their songs really well, the word ‘boring’ springs to mind. I was before, and still am a fan of Jimmy Eat World, but their early emo sound mixed with stadium rock was a little too bland for the timing. As the festival is coming to a close, people need something to get them going and something memorable, not something which they could quite happily sit on the grass and chill out to.
Rating: 5/10

LostProphets were a funny one. They were really good, as always, but they were trying too hard. To see them in a lower slot when they’re just going out having a laugh is great, and they played to the same level of quality in this set, but it was obvious how hard they were trying, which made thir performance seem a little strained. Maybe switch them with Lethal Bizzle next year?
Rating: 7/10

Date Added: Monday Jun 30th, 2008