Most of the mainstage boasted lots of more current metal bands such as Five Finger Death Punch, Hellyeah and Deftones, but apart from the last band of the day, we spent our time in the Pepsi Max tent, which was a good move as the sun was blazing. Here's what we saw...
We thought we had arrived early for Reckless Love (***) but they came on stage just as we entered the tent. An entertaining enough set followed but the sense for me remains is that the band is Steel Panther but they are being serious. The set was coated in cheddar, but was an entertaining enough way to start the day. They played...
- One More Time
- Badass
- Love Machine
- Romance
- Beautiful Bomb
A band we had no real plans to see were Genitorturers (**) and they pretty much freaked us all out. A generic industrial sort of sound buoyed by half naked female singer and masked bikini clad dancers. A lot of songs about bondage by the sounds too (Take It, Strip Doll and thankfully they neglected to play the charming sounding Cum Junkie...well I think they did) only the Rob Zombie-esque 'Devil In A Bottle' really stood out.
Suprise of the festival had to be Rock Sugar (*****) who, essentially, are a covers band but with a mash-up twist. Generally splicing together a rock song and a pop song from the 80s with tremendous effect they hit the stage to the chords of Metallica's 'Enter Sandman' but with the lyrics of Don't Stop Believin' by Journey. A mass singalong ensued, helped by the hilarious frontman Jess Harnell (who's impressions of Paul Stanley are superb). Hits from Ozzy, Queen, Motley Crue, Paula Abdul and Rick Springfield all followed. These guys came very close to stealing the festival. They played...
- Don't Stop The Sandman (Metallica - Enter Sandman and Journey - Don't Stop Believin')
- Crazy Girl (Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train and Rick Springfield - Jessie's Girl)
- Voices In The Jungle (Guns N' Roses - Welcome To The Jungle and 'Til Tuesday - Voices Carry)
- Straight To Rock City (KISS - Detroit Rock City and Paula Abdul - Straight Up)
- We Will Kickstart Your Rhapsody (Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody/We Will Rock You and Motley Crue - Kickstart My Heart)
Sadly the same praise cannot be heaped upon E'Nuff Z'Nuff (*) who redefined the term 'phoning it in'. Playing half the time preceding band Halestorm played for, singer Donnie Vie looked bored witless most of the time, even checking his watch 2 or 3 times throughout their set. A song I had been waiting a long time to hear - the epic ballad 'Fly High Michelle' was sung with the same vigour as someone reading out of the phone book. Truly one of the poorest performances I have seen in my 7 years of attending the festival.
Luckily the same cannot be said for Y&T (***1/2) who, while not dropping any jaws, put in a solid 40 minutes of hard rock goodness, even acquiescing to the demand of a drunken biker fan who they met earlier in the day and played cheese rock classic 'Summertime Girls'. Went down a treat.
Sadly, due to stage clashes we were only able to see 3 or 4 songs from Skin (****) (That mark based on what we heard), but they seemed as tight as ever and drew a great crowd. We left for the mainstage to the strains of new song 'Stronger'.
So, for the second time in the week, it was time for Rage Against The Machine (*****). Hard to say what the better show was when I compare it to the show at Finsbury Park the Sunday before. The show at Finsbury had more of an 'event' feel about it, a true one-off thing. But the Donington had a bit of drama as the band kicked into 'People Of The Sun', as Zack De La Rocha was suddenly halted by security and informed that people were getting seriously hurt right near the front. After he instructed everyone to take a couple steps back, they restarted the song.
Another plus was the setlist at Donington was two songs longer and included 'Wake Up', a song I had kinda missed when they played in London.
Again, Rage were on fire and proved what an outstanding live band they were. Only fault was where I was stood the crowd weren't quite as hyper as they had been at Finsbury Park. Rage played...
- Testify
- Bombtrack
- People Of The Sun
- Know Your Enemy
- Bulls On Parade
- Township Rebellion
- White Riot
- Bullet In The Head
- Calm Like A Bomb
- Guerrilla Radio
- Sleep Now In The Fire
- Wake Up
- Freedom
- Killing In The Name
1 comment:
Hope the bad organisation didn't spoil your weekend too much... sounds like you enjoyed the majority of the bands though, and I'm enjoying reading your reviews :)
Post a Comment