Looking back, it all started for me with a battered old VHS tape. AC/DC Live at Donington. I wore that thing out. Angus, Brian, fire cannons, sweat — the whole place looked like rock n’ roll chaos with a soundtrack which struck a chord inside me.
Then came the cassettes: Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe, The Wildhearts, Metallica, The Offspring — all bought with every scrap of pocket money I could scrape together. Those tapes weren’t just music; they were a musical road map, pointing the way toward the world I wanted to listen and travel in.
Thirty years later, with sixteen Download notches carved into my belt, nothing’s changed. I still spend every penny I can spare on riffs, records and the road. Because this life — this eardrum-destroying, soul-stirring life — is the one I was built for.
I’ve been to the Download Festival fifteen times – so far! Fifteen wild, muddy, unforgettable pilgrimages. And 2026 will mark my sixteenth. This week Download dropped a stunning payload of bands and this insane first wave of acts has kicked my excitement into overdrive; it’s got me more excited than any time in the past. Music taste is subjective but for me this is genuinely the greatest line-up I’ve ever witnessed. And believe me, it’s only just beginning.
My love affair with Donington and Download began way back in 1996. I was only 15 and back then it was of course Monsters of Rock — a one day of rock festival that would, in time, evolve into what we now know as Download. My big brother and his mates set off on the long journey south for that mega-day, screaming riffs and flying beer cans all over the place. They came home with a gift for the wee jealous kid at home, a 1996 event line-up shirt which I still wear to this day.
I remember I was so jealous, determined that one day I would be there. When Monsters of Rock ceased and the festival was eventually reborn as Download, the timing meant I didn’t make it until 2006. But from then on I’ve only missed the annual pilgrimage three times in nearly two decades.
I was born and still live in the Hebrides of Scotland — beautiful islands, windswept, golden sands, wild skies, but with real challenges to attend as many gigs as I would like nowadays although I still try to make two a month. But for twelve glorious, chaotic years, my life was bookended by Glasgow — a rock hotspot in the UK and that’s where I cut my teeth as a music journalist, working as chief reporter and interviewer for Rock Radio, RockAAA and TeamRock. I was lucky enough to spend time on the Download Radio crew too, back in the day for a few years — living and breathing the festival from the inside out.
I moved back to the islands but my soul remains in the East Midlands. Every trip south to Donington from the Hebrides is a pilgrimage of passion: two days there, two days back, all driven by the same thing that’s powered me since that first VHS spin — the music. My commitment to Download is unshakable and unwavering – underlined by my TWO Download Festival tattoos. What other festival sees people get their logo/them inked on them for life?
And when a line-up drop hits like this 2026 has, it doesn’t just excite me — it reawakens the entire reason I fell in love with rock in the first place.
I’m not the lone warrior making that long haul. Joining me are my festival brothers-in-arms: Crawfie, Mad Louie, Donnie Heartless, Ricky Beastie and Allan Monty. Only now I realise how everyone out here ends up with a nickname.
Though Download 2026 is still seven long months away, you’d think the gates were already flung open. The excitement is already ramping toward fever pitch just at the thought of seeing our beloved bands storm the quartet of stages, watching our ears devour thunderous noise until we fall in love all over again with the artists who’ve wooed our musical souls.
Looking ahead to Friday 12 June 2026—that sacred moment when main man and rock-n-roll maestro Kamran Haq (aka Download’s booker-in-chief) unclenches the padlock on the hallowed gates of Donington Park and sends the horde of rock-n-roll brothers and sisters charging in. For three days and nights we’ll stake our claim, make history, reinforce the legacy of Download in our hearts, minds and souls.
By the time the gates open, thousands of us will already be one with the site. Many campers will have spent the night before — or even two nights — setting up their sanctuaries: deck chairs pointed toward the sun, a fortress of tins held in reserve. The Download family welcomes us all home.
Download is the Mecca for metal, the paradise of punk, the heaven of happiness and the promised land of rock-n-roll. Haq has assembled a weekend stacked with star names so blistering the festival poster should be lit in neon – or ten feet of fire writing.
The cheque-book at Live Nation might be freezing in shock. Because the world’s premier rock festival is unleashing a blockbuster weekend for our listening—and our living—pleasure.
The turf at Donington is holy ground for rock bands and rock revelers alike. Over years, it’s hosted Monsters of Rock and, later, Download, shaping generations, embedding rock horns deep into our musical hearts and souls.
This time around, the first night at Download will be a heady rush of joy, fireworks, ear-shredding rock tunes and maybe a tear or two (in a good way). One killer moment: Limp Bizkit finally getting their flower-crown and headlining the festival they’ve played so many times—but never in that slot. With hits like Break Stuff, Nookie, Rollin’… their pyro-packed show on the main stage is guaranteed. Miss it and you miss a moment.
Sharing the top-slot as headliners: Guns N’ Roses on Saturday night and Linkin Park on Sunday. If anyone knows me, they know Guns N’ Roses are my all-time favourite band. Yes, the new record’s overdue, but damn… their back-catalogue is legendary and Appetite for Destruction remains my favourite album ever.
It’ll turn forty years old in 2027. Shame they’re not doing an Appetite special at Download (like some legendary bands have done for anniversaries). But I know the crowd will go ballistic. And yes, if I’m wrong, I owe ten of you a pint—but I won’t be. Who could resist stomping a mud hole in the turf, swinging their mate (or partner) around to Sweet Child o’ Mine as the sun sinks with 80,000 fellow rock revellers?
Guns aren’t just rock royalty—they’re one of the greatest bands of all time and they’ll have the biggest crowd of the entire weekend – mark my words.
Donington Park stands proud as the premier UK rock-site, perhaps even the world’s. The playground of rock stars, home to the annual Download Festival—fist-pumping, head-banging, a phoenix reborn from the ashes of Monsters of Rock. There is literally nothing like it. Festival season brings out the best in rock fans—and Download brings you the best on the planet for your musical pleasure.
In about seven months we’ll be shoulder-to-shoulder with over 80,000 like-minded rock revelers on the sacred turf for the next edition of the best weekend of the year. And this year is shaping up to be better than ever.
We can already picture it in our musical hearts: the sun sets, the sky fades from deep sea blue to purple above the East Midlands. On stage are the bona-fide future headliners—like Halestorm (surely ready to leap from upper-slots to true headliners) bringing their blend of metal and melodic hooks. Or Ice Nine Kills, Electric Callboy, Babymetal taking prime slots, performing under a dusk sky to oceans of grinning rock fans. Downloaders scattered across Donington’s vast expanse.
Standing in a field full of your musical brothers and sisters, shoulder-to-shoulder with your best mate or other half, sun on your back (hopefully), cold drink in paw, the other hand thrown skywards in the traditional rock horns salute. And on the stage we have over one hundred bands to tickle all your rock and metal fancies.
When the gates open to the promised land on the Friday, we’ll charge across the turf like an army of ants who stumbled onto a spillage of Red Bull and Creatine with wide ear-split grins. We’ll find a spot, plug in to the chaos as the bands crank up and the music begins. A wall of noise surges from the stage like a ravenous beast claiming its territory. In the crowd you stomp your foot, swing your hips, lift your spirits and break into a face-splitting smile. Download Festival welcomes us home.
This cycle repeats for three glorious days. For most of us it flashes by in motion-blur, over too quickly—but it leaves its musical boot-prints on your soul until the countdown starts for the next Donington raid.
This June the metal masses, the rock rebellion, the festival fun-seekers will descend on the Donington area for this year’s musical marathon—volume pumped, adrenaline spiked for one unforgettable weekend.
Headliners aside, the likes of The All-American Rejects, Bush, Ash, Drowning Pool and The Pretty Reckless sit atop a bill stuffed to the rafters with bands you’d do just about anything to catch. And the rest? Well, they’re just new favourite bands waiting to be discovered.
For me, one of the most anticipated moments is the maiden Donington appearance of Californian punk legends Social Distortion. One of my two final bucket-list bands (the other being Sunset Strip glam icons Poison. Please, please Mr Haq give them a call). I’ve never managed to see Social Distortion — so finally, I’ll scratch that So-Cal punk itch. Story Of My Life and Reach For The Sky sung live under the East Midlands sun? Yes please.
But that’s the beauty of a festival with four stages and a massive number of bands: there’s always something to see, always a new love waiting. Each band you haven’t heard of yet is just your next favourite band.
The weather is the one thing we festival-revelers both moan about and look ahead to with trepidation or hope. But to be honest—at Download we couldn’t give a damn. Sun, rain, sleet, hail—we’ll show up, raise horns, and still fall in love.
At the risk of repeating myself: Download is the best weekend of the year, every year. The countdown has already begun at Bring The Noise UK. We’re prepping: baby wipes, portable phone power-banks, stockpiling tins and steeling ourselves to make another head-and-heart-full of memories.
Because after all—tune into the vibes of Guns N’ Roses’ Estranged, Welcome to the Jungle, Coma, November Rain—songs from a legendary band that turned so many of us onto this gloriously muddy path to festivals like this in the first place.
It’s festival season. The gates to paradise are nearly open. Time to go to the promised land once more.
And if that wide-eyed teenage version of me — the kid sat cross-legged in front of the TV wearing out his AC/DC Live at Donington VHS, saving pocket money for rock and metal cassettes and pinned Kerrang posters on the wall — could see forty-something me now he’d be jealous as hell. Because I’m standing on the hallowed turf of Donington, beer in hand, watching the bands that built my soul while discovering new ones that keep it alive. The fire’s still there, maybe burning even brighter now. This isn’t nostalgia — it’s a life lived in decibels. And I wouldn’t trade a single ringing ear for anything.
Horns up. See you in the pit.