Overview of Download Festival 2015

So, Download Festival! This is the 4th year in a row I've gone now, though I had been before that too as a camper.

On the Friday we were hyped to set off so we got up quite early, put ourselves in our best rock festival outfits and were in the queue to get in by 12.00, ideally, as the gates were about to be opened! We ended up waiting in the queue for an hour and a half...ouch! They have a new system of cashless payments which require your tickets to be registered to the wristband you are given, and it turns out it takes a while x.x
Once we were finally in though we set about exploring. Not too much changes between years but you have to explore about to make sure, right? ;p And one of our party hadn't been before so it was a learning curve for her too. We didn't really have any plan to see a particular band until Lacuna Coil so we had a good afternoon wandering about looking at the merch and seeing random bands we passed.

One of the highlights of the day was getting to see Five Finger Death Punch. They had a great show last year and it had encouraged us to look up their music and we've become fans XD This year was another good show! They played quite a few I knew and we left feeling good for seeing them x3
Later on as we were watching Dragonforce the rain began. We'd been expecting it so we weren't super disappointed but after not being able to get into the tent we decided to go find a poncho in an attempt to at least stay a little drier. Unfortunately we later found out we missed their collaboration with Babymetal which was a shame. Face's hair stayed up really well in the rain surprisingly but after a while the rain became too much and we actually had to push it down so he could wear his hood XD I'd really wanted to bring my camera in to get some decent quality pics but I'd wimped out at the last moment which was good really as now it was safely back at the hotel, staying dry without me having to baby it! It does mean that all these pics were taken on my phone though, hence the not-so-great quality x.X
The rain eased off later, not enough that we could dry off, but at least enough that we could watch Black Stone Cherry and Slipknot without getting loads of rain in our eyes! They were both good shows too, Slipknot is always awesome though. We had the massive plus after the bands had finished of being able to trudge back to the car and go back to the hotel for a warm shower and dry clothes and beds. Just that night made us remember why we don't camp anymore!

It rained all night and into Saturday, where when we woke up we just weren't willing to go get drenched again. We looked at the lineup and although there were bands I would've liked to have seen like Parkway Drive and Hollywood Undead, there wasn't anything I was willing to get drenched for, and the others felt the same. So we first went to hang out in a Loughborough Wetherspoons for lunch, then we were going to go mooch around Nottingham again but on the way there we learnt there was a major incident in town holding up all traffic for nearly an hour each way, which would've made it pretty pointless, so we went back to the hotel. I broke out the 3DS and hung out with the others in the lobby area as they all played pool and ate sweets x3 I got a game in too, and it wasn't long before we realised we had better get going if we were to see any of the bands we had planned to go in for!

When we got in we saw some of A Day to Remember, then walked over to drop off all these cups that the others had collected last night! If you collect cups you get a pound for 10, and they were trying to save up for some merch xD They'd done pretty well, making about £25! We watched Marilyn Manson for a while before noticing that Muse's show had started a little early so headed over there.
Even if it had been raining solidly we wouldn't have missed out on Muse, they're such a big band and we'd not seen them before, but luckily the weather was mostly calm and it was a brilliant show! I know there was quite a lot of sniffing going on around the internet this year that Muse shouldn't have been there, but judging by the crowd and their reaction, they were very welcome! It was a great show and we went back to the hotel happy that we'd not given up on the day completely, and ready to pack up all our stuff to put in the car the next day (fun!).

Sunday was looking a lot drier and as we were booted out the hotel at 11 we went straight to Download to see who we could see, although there was really only one band I was interested in for the final day! We wandered about and checked out the stalls more as we'd not had a really good look before that. On our way over to the other side of the area I decided to drag everyone into the fourth stage tent (previous years this has been the Red Bull tent) as it had begun spitting, and we watched LTNT, who I'd never heard of before but were really good! I really like the atmosphere in the smaller tent so it only improved the band, one I will definitely be looking up soon x3

We browsed some more and got some dinner, I was super impressed by this one place that did Katsu curry that I had to take a pic of the place just so I remember to look it up again next year! In fact it's something I think has really improved over the years at Download- the variety for food available and it's higher quality rather than the usual standard of festival food xp

Then came the band I'd been looking forward to all day- Yellowcard! Having not seen them before I was really looking forward to seeing what kind of show they put on, and they didn't disappoint! I had a great time, as did Face, even though I'd had to drag him along to watch, he even admitted halfway through 'that they weren't so bad'! Haha. They didn't play one I'd really hoped to hear but the rest of the show was good enough I'll let them off ;p

Then, all too soon, it was time for the final mainstage headliner, Kiss. None of us are keen on Kiss, but they headlined a few years ago when we were still camping and we walked away, then I watched what I could see of the fireworks from our tent. I always regretted not staying, even if just to watch the show itself, so this time I was determined, even though everyone else was ready to leave. I made them stay and I think they wer alright about it in the end as we all got to watch the finale of fireworks x3
It was a brilliant weekend, even with the weather not being top, I can't wait for next year already! Download is like home.
Did you go? Would you buy your tickets without knowing the lineup like we do? Let me know! x3



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