It’s not only British artists that are selling out more and more. The festival scene is also treading a very thin line. When it comes to giving the masses what they want, festival organisers increasingly buying into what they think will shift tickets, as opposed to what the punters really want.
With the British festival scene as a whole making a drastic decline in popularity though the late nineties, festival organisers have a ludicrously short time to get their acts together and pull it back.
In 2003 a glimmer of hope emerged in the East Midlands. The venue: Donnington Park. The concept: Britain’s first exclusively metal festival. The crowd: Around 90,000 of Britain’s most hardcore metal heads as far as the eye could see. With the potential to rival some of its long established European counter parts Download had the balls to take on the failing festival scene and return it to its former glory.
However on its 6th year, there really is nothing to shout about. You would’ve thought that the organisers would have learnt from 2006 mistakes. It doesn’t take 4 days of near carnage, bear like metal head men caging up emo kids no bigger than my 9 year old niece, a mass water deficit and a full blown riot on the last day, to know that EMO bands playing a METAL festival – is bound to result in disaster.
But not only is there in increase in the number on emo bands playing in this year’s line up, to add insult to injury two of the headliners just happen to be so god damn emo even the mere thought of them both in the same place makes even the most hardcore metal head, want to break down in tears.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see the end product of this year’s Download, but as much as I like to be natural over such matters, I hope the metal heads put up a fight the Lemmy would be proud of.
