REVIEW: Download Festival 2025

In the common year of 1278 King Edward I granted a charter for a regular meeting to take place on the acres of Castle Donington. It’s likely he didn’t foresee 75,000 Dr Marten clad attendees yearly sojourn gleefully rocking out to a varied blend of the heavier side of music on these hallowed fields.

Download Festival continues to astound and leave you in awe of the possibilities of music in all its forms, chords and often dramatic theatrics. Fortunately, this year the sparce fields were for the majority of the weekend bathed in glorious sunshine, only brief heavy down pours had some thinking the mud bath of 2024 would return, however the sun shone on the black laden metal faithful.

Preceding the weekends carnival was a set by pop legends The Venga Boys, yes THE VENGA BOYS! Thousands of rockers in a tent grooving, bouncing, moshing and just generally having a good old knees up, a modern day wonder of a moment to behold. Onto Friday festivities which started with Karen Dió charging out to the Rocky theme, she was so obviously up for the fight as previously exhibited supporting the likes of Limp Bizkit, playing the likes of playful punked anthem Stupid and set closer Sick Ride, the Avalanche Stage firmly lit the touch paper for the weekend ahead. Battlesnake arrived on the Dogtooth stage creating their own theatrics wearing shimmering robes before launching into their classic metal set, I Am The Vomit and Nightmare King devilishly oddities but none the less have the crowd lapping up the scintillating creative juices.

Former Alter Bridge and Slash front man Myles Kennedy gets as warm a reception as anyone gets over the weekend, he quips today marks the 20^th anniversary since his first engagement with Download, his voice vibrates as rich and fruitily as it ever was, there’s plenty of smiles and a generally homely feel to the set with the likes of Deep Cut Behind The Veil appealing from the front and to the back. Jimmy Eat World with their infectious Apex Stage alt rock speed infested set, spring off the starting blocks at the same acceleration Linford Christie was famed for. As Jim Adkins walks on stage it looks as if he’s had the same ageing process as Adaline Marie Bowman, he doesn’t look much if any older than his early 90’s younger self, todays set is effortlessly hot and ran through at break neck speed, the gathered throngs lapping up favourites such as Pain and the fabulously jubilant The Middle.

Weezer breeze casually into the air space, Rivers Cuomo is another age defying icon, cheekily mentioning the weather ‘is it always like this in England?’. Catching the breeze in just the right moment their set mixes many well known bedroom air guitar riffs such as Beverly Hills, Island In The Sun and the closing rock out ritual of Buddy Holly, the festival are alight with the joys of summer joining in with this Californian class act. Friday headliners Green Day storm the stage after Bohemian Rhapsody plays whilst cameras scan for hilarity moments from audience members before drunk Bunnys ritual of jiving to Blitzkrieg Bop to get the crowd worked up to a frenzy, the climax being the band storming the stage to play American Idiot with the ‘I’m not a part of the Elon agenda’ lyrics changed for affect, there are plenty of political nods through the set, Billy Joe leading the chants for the thousands to shout ‘you fat b@stard’ towards Donald Trump. There’s time for an ecstatic fan to join the band on stage with their own pom poms on Know Your Enemy, but there’s little time for a breather with hit after hit hitting the speakers Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Welcome to Paradise, 21 Guns, Basket Case, Wake Me Up When September Ends with a poignant down pour just as ‘here comes the rain again’ lyrics are echoed, every effort from the band are empathically received, closing call Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) bows out on an evening of a high octane guitar, drums and bass infused set, all killer no filler.

Saturday wakes up blurry eyed from the previous days’ amusements but there’s little time to take a sit back with Loathe hitting the Apex Stage. The Liverpudlians with Gladiatorial frontman Kadeem France looking like someone not to mess with, the person who had to tell him to cut their set short might not have lived to tell the tale. Venus Grrrls make you feel you might have taken a wrong turn into some sort of evil layer, maybe that’s part of the plan for the set, Grace Kelly might not have the buffoonery Mika afforded their name, the bands set of mystic frigerated dark sassiness dons its cloak towards the heebee geebee’s perfectly. Smash Into Pieces brings the heat, literally, they have fires all over the place it’s a wonder why the tent isn’t cordoned off, instead the heat is well and truly allowed to stand firm, but this isn’t stopping the band take the tent to new levels of noise with Heroes Are Calling and the ear splitting Hurricane.

Over on the Dogtooth Stage Canadian metal favourites Kittie get the field up close to the barriers with their hissing and prickly showwomanship. Leader Morgan Lander devotes the set to working the crowd to an eventual tidal wave of crowd surfers on We Are The Lamb, the likes of which only Newquay bay has seen the likes previously. Lowestoft’s finest rockers The Darkness bring their oft lighthearted infectious glam rock to the Opus Stage. Justin Hawkins dressed only from the waist down leads the permed haired troops into a set fit for the cavernous stage with a mix of newbie Rock And Roll Party Cowboy before slaying Get Your Hands Off My Woman, if that’s not good enough introducing Santa and his helpers in June through Don’t Let The Bells End has many laughing along with the festivities, air guitaring and as the final hurrah of I Believe In A Thing Called Love sounds from the Marshall speakers many have definitely left smitten.

Apex Stage headliner Sleep Token bring cinematic explosive dramatics with a well drilled set, this is all after a surprise pop up shop appears midday day along with other little delights strewn their way through the day helping all feel overly welcome to their set, about 15 minutes before the curtains drops there’s some sounds of winds, which float and catch the imagination of all witnessing the events unfold, with no communication to the crowd, lyrics strike the crowd with laser like accuracy, Vessel along with his masked crusaders with the sort of pyrotechnics Kiss would be proud of, the likes of Even In Arcadia’s Look To Windward and Caramel melt all over the throngs of followers, an impactful sign off to their debut headline slot. The Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter are an altogether different appeal, the well-aged punks Cook, Matlock and Jones play as youthfully as they did back in the 70’s, with maybe a few more grey hairs than back then, it’s Carter that really makes a difference especially when he jumps into the crowd to start some mad circle pits all over the field. Anarchy In The UK, EMI, God Save The Queen and Problems are all met with euphoric greetings afforded returning heroes from fighting wars, and to some that’s definitely that’ll resonate as did Carter piping up when someone laughed at the notion of a rainbow being punk in 2025, Carter exploded into the microphone ‘a rainbow is more Punk than ever these days’.

Sunday services begin with Amira Elfeky bringing the noise to their faithful followers on the Avalanche Stage, Elfeky encourages the use of the F word through her set, with a mosh pit excitedly throwing their arms wildly in the air, today feels like there’ll be no rest for the wicked. Over on Dogtooth there’s evidence something might be brewing. Vower are being tipped to be the next best thing with former members of Black Peaks and Palm Reader, the gruff riffs of False Rituals with Josh McKeowns soaring output along with a stadium anthem in the making Shroud, from the looks on the the bands faces they are no doubt seriously pleased with todays out pouring of emotion from their devotees.

The final sounds of the weekend belong to Lorna Shore, Bullet For My Valentine and Bakersfield’s very own Korn. Shore pull in a top draw set of highly effective pyros along with some classical ambience with eye popping guitar solos, Will Ramos passes some of the most striking vocal performances the weekend has seen, leading the charges into the crowd, the mosh pit looks as fresh and vibrant as it did on Friday, or maybe it’s the Red Bull that’s doing the trick? Bullet For My Valentine deliver a promise ‘we’ll headling this f#cking stage soon!’ whether or not that happens or not is down to destiny, but going on the crowds reaction to their 20^th anniversary set of their debut album The Poison there’s little doubt the crowd want the bands next return to the festival to be top of the bill, Matt Tuck has certainly every chance of being a headline act here, 4 Words (To Choke Upon) and Tears Don’t Fall along with the rest of the set are delivered with a pace and tantalizingly meteoric power, the celebrated 2 decades are made to feel like they’ve gone in a blink of an eye.

It’s left to the third debutant headliner of the weekend Korn to close off proceedings with their seething brand of Nu Metal. Jonathan Davies beams ‘we’ve waited 30 years for this moment. We love you!’. Whilst the rest of Derbyshire gets weary eyed after a long weekend the thousands at the feet of their heroes give it all they’ve got for one last hurrah. Twist, Here To Stay get the euphoric welcome they so richly deserve, Shoots And Ladders transforms into fellow Download headliners Metallica’s One to spectacular effect, before the final threads of Freak On A Leash lead everyone back to their digs. Yet again Download has hit the mark where other festivals fail to score their guilt edge chance to steal the victory. The World Cup trophy of Rock firmly belongs in Donington.

EARLY BIRD TICKETS FOR 2026 ARE ON SALE NOW!

DOWNLOAD WILL TAKE PLACE NEXT YEAR FROM WEDNESDAY 10 JUNE TO SUNDAY 14 JUNE