It came, we saw, they conquered

After months of hype, grief, excitement, anticipation, tears, beers, Cyril Sneers, and potatoes, Download 2008 is no more. What a flucking weekend.

Stopping at the service station en route we were greeted by a number of sleeved-up metalers and one fat topless chap eating a civilised cooked breakfast - they were obviously headed the same way. A breakfast bap and Big One Brekkie later and we hit the road again.

Day 1 - Hostile impressed from the Gibson stage, and the gruelling death metal of Black Dahlia Murder certainly proved that we were at Download. For all those forum geeks (myself kinda included) that thought the festival was losing it's metal heritage, hush thy mouths. A personal highlight for me was seeing Rise Against perform classics Ready To Fall and Prayer For The Refugee - they ripped the crowd a new one with a perfect mix of hardcore and pop punking keeping us all confused as to whether to dance like a bell or throw the horns. Fuckin' A.

Disturbed continue to be one of my favourite bands; ever since I first saw Mad Davey come onstage in his Hannibal Lecter clobber 8 or so years ago when they supported Marilyn Manson, I've been a fan. THere is nothing as rousing as 10,000 fists in the air when they sing, um, 10,000 Fists. Particularly in the chorus, when the aforementioned fists go in the air...

But it was all about KISS on day 1. You can't beat slightly flabby, topless, middle-aged men in facepaint shooting fire out of their guitars for two hours for entertainment. Not playing Crazy Nights was a bit odd but throw Detroit Rock City and I Wanna Rock And Roll All Night in there and it was virtually a perfect gig. Pure theatre, these boys.

Day two was more beer-fuelled mayhem. Bullet, 36 Crazyfists, A Day To Remember - all sweet as. Biffy Clyro were sub par but what can you do?

I must apologise for this blog post. It's one of those ones where there's too much to write and I've lost my mojo with it. Plus, writing about Download reminds me I'm not there any more, which sucks huge hairy balls.

I can't help but feel this could go on and on and get a bit boring. So my summary is as follows:

Beers - 37
Best bands - HIM, Alter Bridge, BFMV, KISS, Disturbed, Municipal Waste, Black Stone Cherry
Worst bands - Biffy, Madina Lake, Job For A Cowboy
Food of choice - cheseburgers, some weird potato dish
Oddest image - men dresed as monkeys sodomising each other whilst the Elephant Man watched
Best hat - a chicken