You don’t count the years at the Download Festival. You feel them — in your bones, in your soul, in the off key growl and chorus of strangers who become family the moment you cross the sacred threshold at Donington Park. 

This year will be my 15th Download, and I still get the same tingle in my chest when I see the black flags whipping in the wind, when the rumble of soundcheck hits your sternum like a viking drum, when the air smells of rain, dust, riffs – and home!

Donington is more than a venue. It’s a pilgrimage site for heavy music. Before it was Download, it was Monsters of Rock, and the echoes of those legends — AC/DC, Ozzy, Priest — still linger in the grass, like old spirits nodding in approval at what their legacy birthed. 

Since 2003, Download has become the beating heart of rock and metal in the UK — a gathering of the faithful, a fortress of sound, a celebration of the unique, the loud, the loyal.

Download emerged — not as a replacement but as a rebirth. And every year since, it’s only grown more vital. This festival isn’t a product. It’s a rite. The line-ups evolve, the genres mesh and shift, the weather remains the same fickle tyrant — but the spirit remains unshakable.

I’ve stood in sun-cracked fields, swigging warm cider under skies so blue it felt like cheating. And I’ve waded through the swamp that was Download 2016 — when the rain didn’t just fall, it descended, biblical and relentless. We were knee-deep in sludge, tents half-sunk, socks and boots simply written off. And yet no one left. Because no one wanted to. Because mud is nothing compared to magic.

You see, for us — the ones who wear band tees like armour and who see beauty in distortion — Download isn’t just a festival. It’s belonging. In a world that so often misunderstands heavy music, Donington wraps its arms around us and says: Here, you are – home.

I remember Slipknot in 2009, masked and feral, commanding a crowd so vast it felt like a living organism. I remember Metallica playing the Black Album in full — that clean, devastating, faultless assault on every nerve ending. I remember Biffy Clyro’s first headline set, how some raised eyebrows, but many raised fists — and how now they sell out arenas across the globe. I remember the 2018 Guns N’ Roses reunion, how Axl, Slash, and Duff walked back onto that same Donington stage they’d last shared decades earlier. Time folded in on itself, and 80,000 people held their breath. 

Over the years, I’ve seen nearly every band I ever dreamed of. Ozzy Osbourne — majestic, eternal. Avenged Sevenfold, animalistic and transcendent. Aerosmith, Limp Bizkit, System of a Down, Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden and, even Electric Callboy in a tent with less room than a sumo match in a lift, 

I owe Download everything for that.

Well — almost everything.

There’s still one gap in my musical bucket list. One name missing from the back patch of bands I’ve finally seen. Poison!!!

Call it nostalgia. Call it glam. Call it what you like — but for me, it’s unfinished business. I know Andy Copping, Download’s main man and booker, is a fellow glam rock aficionado. He’s given us Tesla, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Whitesnake, and Skid Row over the years. One day, maybe, he’ll complete the glam rock ‘n’ roll rainbow and bring Bret Michaels and co. to Donington. I’ll be the first one down the front, fringe jacket, hairspray and all.

Forget the weather. One year it’s sunscreen and dust clouds, the next it’s mud up to your shins and bin bags for ponchos. Doesn’t matter. We’ll stand there grinning, arms around soaked shoulders, because no storm can touch the fire we carry inside.

Yes, the toilets are medieval – especially by day three. Yes, the rain sometimes feels personal like Mother Nature has her hands on her knees mocking us. But when the lights hit the stage and 80,000 people scream the same lyric, none of that matters. Because in that moment — soaked, sunburnt, and deliriously happy — you’re part of something much bigger.

There’s something sacred about hearing your favourite song ring out over that hill, something primal about singing along with thousands of strangers who know every word, every note, every scream. We camp, we laugh, we share tins, duct tape, and phone chargers. We sleep beneath flags of Creeper and Marilyn Manson, we swap war stories at 3am over a can of warm cider, and we become something bigger than ourselves.

This year — 2025 — it’s Green Day, Sleep Token, and Korn taking up the mantle. A triple-headed monster built on chaos, catharsis, and craft. Green Day, punk royalty, returning with the roar of stadium anthems. Sleep Token, the mysterious collective who whisper and wail their way into the marrow of your soul. And Korn, the godfathers of nu-metal, still bending sound into something raw and real.

I’ve already packed. Baby wipes, shorts, trainers, rain poncho and power bank, hope. I’ve counted the days. I’ve replayed the setlists in my head. And I know — truly know — that I will walk through those gates and feel whole.

Fifteen years in, and it still feels like the first time. The butterflies. The buzz. The boots on tarmac walking toward that hill.

Because this isn’t just music.
This is Download.

And I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

By Eric Mackinnon