Download 2015 - Day Two review

WAKING up with a massive rumbling sound in you head is never nice and it takes me longer than it should to work out it's an aeroplane coming into land rather than my hangover.

The other noise I hear is rain. It started the night before and - as I will come to learn - it will not stop all day. At least I'm prepared now with a jacket and wellies rather than the hoodie and Converse that got ruined during last night's torrential downpours.

Faith No More - picture by Scott Salt/Download 2015

But enough of my moaning, today I am enticed into the arena by the harmonious vocals of festival favourites The Lounge Kittens whose pitch-perfect set includes covers of Marilyn Manson's The Beautiful People, Metallica's Sad But True, Slipknot's Duality and a Download megamix.

And now I'm ready to start the day. And first up on the agenda is Funeral For A Friend - a band I think should be bigger than they are. They've produced so many good songs over the years - and play them here. 

Maybe they're victims of "the next young things" knocking them down the ladder, I don't know. But upstarts Chunk! No Captain Chunk! steal some audience from them to the nearby Maverick stage - me, admittedly, for a bit - while Mallory Knox then come on the Main stage and get a much bigger reaction.

That's not to say Mallory Knox or the boys in Chunk don't deserve their plaudits. Each give energetic performances, as do Hands Like Houses, who could be the next pretenders to the radio-friendly alt-rock crown.

Next up came one of the disasters of the weekend. Hollywood Undead. 

Whereas Slipknot's masks can't hide the fact they're a top-class metal band, Hollywood Undead's masks can't hide the fact they're totally crap.

It's like the bastard mongrel offspring of bad Beastie Boys and Papa Roach tribute acts with lyrics by Sean Paul. It was just awful. They may have been saved if there was even the remotest hint that they knew this was all a bit silly and tongues were in cheeks, but I got the impression they think they're the best and coolest band in the world. They ain't.

And it rubs salt into my earlier wound of a band like Funeral For A Friend two spots below them on the Main stage bill.

But every cloud has a silver lining and that was making my way from the car crash of Hollywood Undead up the hill to Jake's stage where I found Crobot. Proper musicians, playing proper rock music.

A Day To Remember - picture by Justine Trickett/Download 2015

Their track Skull Of Geronimo was the highlight with Brandon Yeagley nailing the vocals.

A bit chirpier, I went back down the hill to some real heaviness with Upon A Burning Body in the Maverick tent and Parkway Drive on the Main.

Like yesterday's slight let down when Rob Halford failed to join Five Finger Death Punch for Lift Me Up, I was disappointed that Ice T didn't show for UABB's set-closing Turn Down For What despite his Bodycount playing later in the day.

His recorded vocals were played out though and the track still lifted the tent off the ground.

Rise Against were next for me on the Main stage and then Motionless In White on the Zippo Encore before A Day To Remember made it, well, you know. 

Their powerful and energetic performance began with the duda duda dudahs of The Downfall Of Us All and also included a cover of Oasis's Champagne Supernova. There were a few groans from the metal hardcore when they first began to play it, but they were soon singing along to all the words "...in the skaaaaayyy".

I saw a little bit of Bodycount, but not enough to report on. Then came the biggest let down of the weekend. Faith No More.

Angel Dust is one of my favourite albums and they have made so many other good songs over the years. Yet there was something missing from the performance. Decked out all in white and surrounded by flowers, they didn't look like us. Maybe that was it. Or the smuggish sneer on Mike Patton's face. I don't know. But the performance seemed too routine and the interaction with the crowd forced. 

Marilyn Manson
- picture by Danny North/Download 2015

By now, of course, we're at the business end of the day and I decide to split my "headline" time between two stages.

I start off with Marilyn Manson on the Encore stage and he had what Faith No More lacked. Magnetism. You just have to watch him. He's an enigma. And he's got a hell of a voice too.

He started with new track Deep Six, then hit us with an old favourites Disposable Teens and mOBSCENE. His covers of Sweet Dreams and Personal Jesus were also included and he finished with the superb Beautiful People.

Muse, meanwhile, were showing just why they are one of the world's biggest rock bands. Yes they are a lot more commercial than a lot of the other bands on the bill, but they write amazing songs and perform them in a spectacular show - even if we only got the scaled back version.

Their set included a number of songs from their new album Drones, but plenty of the classics such as Hysteria, Supermassive Black Hole, Time Is Running Out and Stockholm Syndrome before closing their encore with Plug In Baby and Knights Of Cydonia.

So more than 15 bands seen in one day - a day it rained constantly - and my must-see of the weekend early on the bill tomorrow. Time for bed.

Reading Festival - Day One

Paramore's Hayley Williams..pic by Marc Sethi

IT'S not often you get joint headliners so different from one another as we did on Friday night.

Paramore were up first - upbeat, young, fresh, vibrant. Then it was Queens of the Stone Age - slower, older, cooler and more laid back.

But it worked.

Delayed by motorway traffic and the nonsense of having to park a half hour's march (at best) away from the festival site, RealSoundsOK arrives too late to see Mallory Knox on the NME stage- the first 'must see' band of the weekend.

The wonders of modern technology have now allowed me to watch a cracking set. But it would've been great to be there. And so our first band of the day are Twin Atlantic, who do just the job of getting me back in the mood with poppy-rock offerings.

We also took in a bit of Jimmy Eat World on the Main stage, but not enough to write home (or to you) about. 

We're back there soon enough though for Enter Shikari who are an early highlight. Although the setlist was missing a few of my personal favourites, the likes of Sorry, You're Not A Winner had the crowd bouncing.

There were a few confused faces as frontman Rou Reynolds later paid tribute to the NHS - mainly among those who miss the band's political messages in song - but the band were very well received.

Enter Shikari's Rou takes a jump...pic by Joshua Halling

But after a highlight came something of a lowlight. Aside from A-punk and Holiday, I don't know many Vampire Weekend tracks but was open to hearing a much-praised band. However, as much as I wanted to like them, the music was just too laid back and - to be honest - I got bored.

And so I was looking forward to being geed up by pop-rockers Paramore at the business end of the day. Having seen them play at Wembley Arena a few months before, I knew what to expect - and they delivered, despite the sounds troubles thrown at them.

Kicking off with the incredibly girly Still Into You, they followed with classics like That's What You Get, Ignorance and Decode before the troubles set in. About to slow things down, Hayley Williams' mic went midway through one of her passionate speeches to fans. 

She looked miffed as the boos rang out - against the silence, not her - before she was informed of the cut.

Long story short, she was handed the only working mic and began to sing The Only Exception to all intents and purposes a cappella. She was accompanied by acoustic guitar and bass, which the crowd only started to hear halfway through the track. The drums and other guitars coming in late on actually made for a perfectly framed performance and the whole experience showed what a class frontwoman Williams is.

With the sound back up, albeit substandard, they continued with the likes of Brick By Boring Brick, Misery Business (with fan help as per) before finishing with Proof and Aint It Fun.

There were no such problems for Queens Of The Stone Age - even if the start was a little underwhelming.

Queens Of The Stone Age close the day...pic by Marc Sethi

They kicked off with You Think I Ain't Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire, a track screamed brilliantly on their Songs For The Deaf album by former bassist Nick Oliveri. But the track sounded gound, the vocals didn't transfer well to Josh Homme's mumbled style.

But that feeling of disappointed was soon smashed away as Homme came up trumps with No One Knows, My God Is The Sun and Burn The Witch.

While Homme's fan interaction wasn't a patch on the talky Hayley Williams before him, the bands superb catalogue made up for it. Little Sister, Feel Good Hit Of The Summer, The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret, I Sat By The Ocean and Make It Wit Chu all followed before they finished with Go With The Flow and Songs For The Dead. What a finish to the day.