Reviewed by Martin Baker
Coming back in for another day of incredible bands and lapping up the festival atmosphere it’s true each day gets better and better.
The first band we saw was Koyo, who with the unique and completely different sound managed to capture the audience and definitely intrigue us all, some great music from these guys.
On the Zippo Encore stage we got the chance to see Greta Van Fleet who turned up the funk with their classic style of music and awesome performance.
Stepping it up a notch and giving us their madness and ridiculously high energy were Dead Cross, who you could watch on stage for hours with the great delivery.
Staying at the Zippo Encore stage we had Body Count featuring Ice-T, who added more fuel to the madness with their awesome chunky riffs and stupidly catchy lyrics.
Over to the Avalanche Stage for Black Foxxes who delivered an incredible performance full of raw passion and you could really engage with them, making it a memorable time on stage.
A quick trip over to the Dogtooth stage for Myrkur which was well worth it, if you haven’t seen or heard of these guys do it, the nordic style vocals with cut right through you and fill you with a primal feeling of calmness, and the awesome heavy metal music to go with it aswell. Seriously impressed.
It was time for the big hitters up next, first off Marilyn Manson came out on stage and rocked everyone out of their minds with a tight performance of some amazing classics, topped off for me with Manson literally dropping his mic after every song and the technicians scurrying around after him to place it back in the stand.
It was nice to see the interaction with the fans, even getting one super fan up on stage for one song, but I couldn’t help but feel that Manson is looking a bit tired and old nowadays. Having said this though it takes practically nothing away from the performance of his songs.
To top off our Download experience it was time for Ozzy to step out onto the Main Stage. With an absolute sea of hungry fans it was a sure relief when his intro started to play and we eagerly anticipated the arrival of the man himself.
Finally we got the whole band out on stage and after a few of Ozzy’s “let me hear you” chants we got Bark at the Moon to get our teeth stuck into. What a well rounded and incredible night it was with all our favourites and even a good 7 minute set of solos from Zakk who still manages to impress us with playing behind his back, with his teeth and whilst down just in front of the crowd too.
The real star however was of course Ozzy, who despite his age and the seeming frailty of his physical appearance delivered a near flawless performance with a genuine warm feeling for everyone who was there.
The only thing I’m sad about is what will happen to Download when we no longer have our Ozzys, Mansons, Guns n Roses etc to give us the classic 3 hours of glorious music in prime headlining slots?
Possibly a very sad day for us all but as far as this year is concerned another year of every single person involved in the making and running of Download contributing to make it another of the truly great festival memories for every person who went. Thanks to everyone involved and see you guys there next year!