Donington Park, 13–15 June 2025. Rain, riffs, and ridiculousness.
🌧️ THURSDAY: THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM (SORT OF)
Pre-Party Chaos 🏕️
Download 2025 kicked off Thursday night with the usual “quiet night” that turned into “tent-on-fire, someone-lost-their-shoe, cider-river” mayhem by 7pm. It’s tradition. It’s beautiful. It’s disgusting. It’s Download.
🔥 FRIDAY: RIFFS, RAIN & REVELATIONS
MAIN STAGE
Bring Me The Horizon 🖤
These lads came to headbang and cause existential crises, and they were all out of chill. Oli Sykes commanded the crowd like a gothic preacher at a nu-metal revival. Pyros, giant screens, lasers — it was a cyberpunk sermon with breakdowns. New stuff slapped, old stuff had us screaming like 2007 emos at Warped Tour.
Verdict: “Can you feel my heaaart?” – YES, IT’S POUNDING.
Rating: 9/10
Architects 🏗️
Sam Carter = throat-shredding beast. But the energy felt off. Crowd was into it, but halfway through, it sagged like a wet tent pole. Technical tightness? ✅. Vibes? Bit lukewarm.
Verdict: Metalcore meat, but missing some spice.
Rating: 7/10
Neck Deep 🎸
Wrexham pop-punkers brought the Welsh weather and the Welsh fun. Crowd surfers, circle pits, and heartfelt singalongs. Felt like early blink-182 got a pint with McFly and it worked.
Verdict: Tidy! A fun, sunny set in a grey sky.
Rating: 8/10
SECOND STAGE
BABYMETAL 🎀☠️
Still confusing. Still captivating. Samurai dancers, kawaii screams, thunder riffs. One minute it’s anime hellcore, the next it’s Iron Maiden with pom-poms. We loved it. We feared it.
Verdict: WTF in the best possible way.
Rating: 9/10
Nova Twins 🧨
Biggest “I-told-you-so” band of the weekend. Explosive. Loud. Unapologetic. Took the second stage and turned it into their own riotous revolution.
Verdict: Punk, power, and paint-peeling rage.
Rating: 9.5/10
DOGTOOTH STAGE (THE CHAOS DEN)
Heriot ⚙️
Sounded like a robot war in an abattoir. Brutal. Unrelenting. But not a lot of variation. Sound guy probably lost his eyebrows.
Verdict: Good for 15 minutes. Then: sensory overload.
Rating: 6.5/10
🕶️ SATURDAY: BIG NAMES, BIG MOMENTS, BIGGER BEERS
MAIN STAGE
Slipknot 🎭
Clown masks, blood, and a goddamn marching band of destruction. Corey Taylor unleashed the beast. Absolute chaos from start to finish. When “Duality” dropped, Donington collectively blacked out.
Verdict: Still kings. Still terrifying.
Rating: 10/10
Parkway Drive 🔥
Came in like a flaming freight train. Pyro cannons everywhere. Winston McCall roared like he’d eaten Lemmy’s ghost for breakfast.
Verdict: Metalcore that punches you in the kidneys.
Rating: 9/10
Sum 41 (Farewell Set) 🥹
Not a dry eye in the pit. A nostalgic sledgehammer of skate punk classics. “Fat Lip” turned the field into a teenage wasteland one last time.
Verdict: Thanks for the memories. You legendy Canadian loons.
Rating: 10/10
SECOND STAGE
Electric Callboy 💅⚡
A fever dream of neon spandex, techno-core, and 80s workout aesthetics. Every song felt like Eurovision gone heavy metal. Crowd lost its collective mind.
Verdict: Absurd. Perfect. More please.
Rating: 9.5/10
Dying Fetus 💀
Name = accurate. Brutal. No nonsense. No survivors. But maybe not the Saturday evening mood-lifter we needed?
Verdict: Tighter than a tent zipper at 4am.
Rating: 7.5/10
AVON STAGE
Kid Bookie 🎤
Genre blender. Punk, grime, metal — all mashed together in a chaotic ball of energy. Not for purists. But for the open-minded? A revelation.
Verdict: Wild, weird, wonderful.
Rating: 8.5/10
⚰️ SUNDAY: THE FINAL RIFFNING
MAIN STAGE
Metallica 🧨 (Secret Set Surprise!)
YEP. They did it. Secret Sunday slot. No announcement, just BOOM — Hetfield strutting out like a riff-daddy warlord. They played Master of Puppets in full. Crowd = dead. From joy.
Verdict: LEGENDARY. HISTORY MADE.
Rating: 11/10 (Yeah we broke the scale)
Five Finger Death Punch 👊
Muscles, riffs, and militarism. Standard FFDP chaos, but felt tired after the Metallica high. Ivan Moody tried to start a pit every five minutes. Crowd went meh.
Verdict: Heavy but hollow.
Rating: 6.5/10
Halestorm 🌪️
Lzzy Hale is an absolute goddess. Voice like a whiskey-fuelled hurricane. Ripped through their set like she was headlining Glasto.
Verdict: Top-tier rock n’ roll ferocity.
Rating: 9.5/10
SECOND STAGE
The Hu 🐉
Mongolian throat-singing metal warriors. Epic. Ritualistic. Like Rammstein in a yurt. Crowd didn’t know what hit them, but they were chanting by the end.
Verdict: Unique and unforgettable.
Rating: 9/10
Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes 🐍
Frank stage-dived off a speaker stack wearing nothing but leopard print and rage. Crowd obeyed every word. Carnage in the best way.
Verdict: Punk messiah energy.
Rating: 10/10
🛏️ MONDAY MORNING: TENTS ABANDONED, DIGNITY LOST
You know it’s Download when you see:
- A pair of Doc Martens in a tree 🌳
- Someone asleep in a bin 🗑️
- A fully inflated paddling pool floating in mud 🛶
Everyone left exhausted, hoarse, sunburnt and frostbitten somehow. But buzzing.
🎤 FINAL VERDICT: DOWNLOAD 2025
Download 2025 was a beautiful mess of metal madness, muddy pits, and magic moments. From Metallica’s surprise set to Sum 41’s farewell, it was a wild ride through everything rock has to offer. And yeah, a few bands flopped — but that’s festival roulette, innit?
Total Vibe Rating: 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 (5/5 Riffs)
MVP Band: Metallica (obviously)
Best Crowd Moment: Frank Carter commanding 30,000 people to sit in the mud — and they bloody did
Weirdest Thing Seen: Man dressed as a traffic cone crowd surfing during BABYMETAL
🎪 UNTIL NEXT YEAR…
Download, you muddy, metal-loving maniac, we’ll see you in 2026. Same field. Same chaos. Different hangover.
Diolch yn fawr, Donington! 🏴🔥🤘
