Pretty cool weekend - by Kos...
As far as weekends go getting to see The Pixies and a day of Download has to be pretty cool!
When I found out I was going to see The Pixies I was excited in a "Believe it when I see them play No 13 Baby" way, I expected them to break up again or some major debilitating muscle disease to strike me but luckily none of these things happened so I finally got to see one of the all time classic bands play a greatest hits set that has to rank up there as one of the best gigs I've ever seen.
We didn't see the support act (Graham Coxon) due to people drinking beer and a lot of staring at the merchandise stall and the very pretty girl working there as well as the ones walking past, this was one of the prettier gigs I've been to.
I've never been to the Brixton Academy so I was kind of excited about that and was well into the weird house things that were built into the venues roof.
It'd be almost impossible to pick out a favourite moment but an encore section that included 'Into The White', 'Gouge Away' and 'Debaser' has to rate up there...
Another favourite moment was when Joey Santiago started a solo, caught a drum stick from Dave Lovering, abused his guitar with it and then threw the stick back to the drummer who caught it can carried on playing seemlessly, truly the spirit of Nigel Tufnell lives on...
So yeah a great gig, how can you go wrong with a fat bloke in turn ups screaming "Debaser" at you and nearly the whole of the balcony doing the "we're not worthy" from Waynes World bowing thing at the end of the main set?
I broke another duck this weekend by going to Download at Donnington on the Sunday, several of my favourite bands were playing that day (much better than the disjointed line up on the Saturday) and as I'd never been to Donnington before I was looking forward to it.
When I was growing up the Guns n Roses video for 'Paradise City' had that amazing view of a huge crowd when they played the Monsters of Rock gig so I was a little disappointed when I got there and it didn't seem as HUGE as I'd hoped.
We set up for the day on a hill at the back of the main stage and started to bake as the day wore on, these are the bands that I saw;
Ill Nino - Meh, middle of the road Nu Metal, with an extra percussionist and saw Latin style guitar thrown in, I've only heard a few of their songs so it all sounded a little samey but they were on for half an hour so it wasn't too offensive.
Turbonegro - I really like these, they're the band The Darkness should be, great rocking tunes, hilarious lyrics that don't totally grasp the English language fully (how can you not love a band that has the chorus of "I get errection"?) and far too much lippy and blusher. Well worth a look and they should of got a better reception than they did.
Soulfly - I've never been that into these and first song into their set it was like Ill Nino had never been away but after a bit I started to warm to them as they were a lot heavier and had more varied material and when you can throw Roots into your set then that's pretty cool.
Damageplan - This is where I started to have real issues, these got bumped onto the main stage as Slayer were having problems getting their gear on site so they ended up playing one of the other tents later in the day.
These things happen but when you have to wait an hour getting burnt to a crisp to see a poor mans version of Pantera then that's when my hatred of festivals is reaffirmed. To finish off the set they pulled out Walk to get everyone back on side, I can see through such a ploy, the man can't stick it to me that way...
Machine Head - These were similar to Soulfly, one of those bands that I've heard a few songs by but never bought an album, that's not going to change after this set but I like them more than I did previously. They were the first band of the day to have pretty much the crowd onside all the way through and they seemed genuinely touched at the reception they were getting.
Slipknot - This had to be the most violent set of the day, there were bodies flying all over the pit and on stage, mainly concentrating on the hits from the first 2 albums and a couple of the new one this was a really tight set that didn't let down, even the old trick of getting the crowd to bounce up and down like frogs during 'Spit It Out' was still funny.
I'm really biased cos I like this band but these were probably the band of the day for me although this runs close with the next band on...
Korn - I know it's really fashionable to knock the Nu Metal bands now but this was a great performance and the crowd were really into them with a huge pit for 'Blind' which was thrown into their set half way through.
Another greatest hits set and when you look at some of the songs that includes then they aren't doing too badly, Jon Davis still needs to get back onto the speed but the way he was throwing himself around it looked like he didn't need it.
I needed an ice lolly at this point and wandered around trying to find the mythical ice cream van that wasn't marking everything up 300000000000000000%, no joy unfortunately and ended up getting stung for £2.50, it's a sad state of affairs when you see a small tray of chips that in the real world you wouldn't pay more than 90p for and think that £2.00 is actually pretty reasonable...
Metallica - Now the waiting began, you always expect a bit of a wait for the headliners but not an hour and a half... We were debating that Lars Ulrich had got trapped under the site vending machine after not getting his creamychoc drink and he pulled it on top of himself.
Eventually the band came out (just as I was about to wander over to see the Suicide Girls Burlesque show (I think this meant they had tape on their nipples)) and said that Lars had been taken ill, rushed to hospital and they didn't know what was up (*cough* too much coke *cough*) but they were going to play with some of the drummers from other bands.
They ended up playing 2 songs with Dave Lombardo from Slayer, one with Lars' roadie and the rest of the hour and a quarter set with Joey Jordison from Slipknot.
I'm not the biggest Metallica fan but this was pretty enjoyable in a "What's going to go wrong?" way, you could see they were really nervous and it made for an interesting experience and Joey really proved that he is THE man, a very small man maybe but still THE man.
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