After opening with the delicate Spanish-style guitar fiddling of “Soldier Side – Intro”, lead vocalist Serj Tankian flashed a knowing smile before SOAD ripped off the seal to their package of cacodemonic riffs in the form of “Suite Pee” and “Prison Song”. The Prophets left the microphone vacant as a symbol of respect and mourning.įriday’s Main Stage headlining crown was swiped by System Of A Down. ![]() However, Prophets of Rage’s set became a little more sedate for their heartfelt tribute to former-Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell, who departed from our world in May, with an instrumental cover of Audioslave number “Like A Stone”. Via the condemnation of Theresa May and Donald Trump and the exaltation of Jeremy Corbyn, the Prophets left the crowd boiling over with resistance, detonating their set with the infamous “Killing In The Name”. A particularly apt main stage band given the bedlam that followed Thursday’s UK general election, the politically-charged Prophets of Rage unshackled the consistently downtrodden political mentalities of the crowd in an explosion of Tom Morello’s signature overdriven funk riffs via tracks such as RATM’s “Bulls On Parade” and new track “Unfuck The World”. Next up came Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, Public Enemy and Cypress Hill Frankenstein-alike hybrid Prophets Of Rage in their live UK debut. With Moody having announced an instant departure from FFDP at a gig in the Netherlands just days after their Download performance, it’s possible that the historic importance of this performance for fans has now increased ten-fold. Emitting tracks like “Burn MF” and “Under And Over It” fronted by Ivan Moody, whose presence could make the most fierce of army generals a quivering mess, the gates to the crypts of hell truly slammed open at FFDP’s command just so Satan himself could cock his ear at the exquisitely metallic high-speed riffs and monstrous bellows befalling Donington Park. In contrast to the punchy, happy-go-lucky tunes performed by Good Charlotte, the Main Stage took a slightly more sinister turn with all-around heavy metal bad-asses Five Finger Death Punch, who brewed circle pits within the crowd with the ease of seasoned warlocks. Just as frontman Joel Madden highlighted, the crowd and Good Charlotte “grew up together”, with 15-year-old UK Top 10 tracks “Girls & Boys” and “Lifestyles Of The Rich And The Famous” being greeted by spectators’ inner-teenage shrieks. Over in the realm of the dust-embalmed Zippo Encore Stage, pop punk Peter Pans Good Charlotte exuded a wash of nostalgia over a sizeable amount of fans. Lost Society presented with the characteristic organised chaos of thrash metal with apparent ease, whilst Exodus let loose a wall of sound that emanated at least ten freight trains hitting you smack on the nose. The serene blue and cerise lighting of the intimate Dogtooth Stage provided a moment of tranquillity within the eye of the Download storm before thrash metal monsters Lost Society and Exodus were unleashed. Whilst the weather remained very tame on the first day of Download’s line-up, the music did not. The British weather deities even approved of the offering, with this year’s festival being less ‘Drownload’, more ‘Downright-nice-weather-load’. With over 100 acts plucked from the vast spectrum of today’s rock music scene, Download 2017 served a three-day buffet of musical delights that left no one feeling hungry but compelled everyone to crave even more. A swarm of 80,000 rockers garbed in the implicit black or ‘get your freak on’ dress code attended this year’s Download in the hope of catching the electrical storm that was predicted to be generated by main stage headliners System Of A Down, Biffy Clyro and Aerosmith. Donington Park opened up its lush, soon-to-be-stomped-to-a-pulp fields this year on the 7th June for its fifteenth hosting of Download Festival.
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