Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

Review by Nathan Daniel

Saturday

The first band of Saturday for me, were YOUNG GUNS, in an early afternoon Main Stage performance. They walk on stage looking as if they are a late 90s boy band, dressed all in white. They are, however, one of the UK’s brightest young bands, and had just returned from a triumphant 6 months or so in the USA. Despite their usually very strong performance, today, they seem lacklustre in comparison. Aside that, they do manage to get the crowd off of their feet for sustained periods of their set, and seem grateful for every single pair of eyes that watches them. A decent, but by no means brilliant set.

YOUNG GUNS
Download Festival 2013

Later on in the day, BURY TOMORROW take to the Pepsi Max Stage, a tent crammed with over 5,000 young metalheads. The British Metalcore talents play the set of their lives, turning the tent into one huge, ferocious moshpit. Frontman Dani Winter-Bates acknowledges the crowd’s reaction and his band’s own performance, telling the crowd that it is, in fact the best show that BT have ever played, and he is probably not far wrong. “You And I” is a highlight, as the band command for fans to get on each other’s shoulders, to the response of a few hundred doubling in height and screaming every word back at them.
Next up in my day are JIMMY EAT WORLD, sub-headliners of the Zippo Encore stage, basking under the beautiful sunshine as their nostalgic rock anthems bounce across thousands of very warm fans. They are fresh and infused with new material from their recent release, “Damage,” which marked their 20^th anniversary as a band. Their most popular songs, such as “Bleed American” and “The Middle” certainly spark the biggest reaction from the crowd, but, overall, The band give a pretty good performance for their fans.

Following JIMMY EAT WORLD on the Second Stage are the uncategorisable British hardcore/metal/punk/electronic/metalcore giants, ENTER SHIKARI. It is their biggest festival slot to date, and upon speaking to Andy Copping (Download Festival organizer) the following day, I discovered that they attracted the biggest second stage crowd that Download had seen to date. Their set is typically rowdy and typically a bit, well… mental. The crowd match the band’s performance in this with the amount of crowdsurfers that are seen during Juggernauts, the human pyramids during “Sorry You’re Not A Winner” and the general craziness throughout the rest of the set. SHIKARI finish surprisingly early at 8.35, but it is not only so that the fans have time to make their way to headliner’s IRON MAIDEN’s set on time, but so that the band can, too. The 60-minute set is, though, plenty of time to whip through enough songs to make the loyal fans happy, especially with songs as short as the minute-long “Paddington Frisk.” With a performance like that, though, and with the ever-growing support of Andy Copping, it won’t be too long until the band are setting their sites on headlining the main stage.

ENTER SHIKARI
Download Festival 2013

Last up in the day for me are Swedish mentalists, THE HIVES. Despite their clash with IRON MAIDEN, they have no problem with packing out the Pepsi Max tent. Their upbeat Punkie Indie music sets the tent alight for the whole set as charismatic Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist has every single person in it wrapped around his little finger. He almost constantly commands the crowd to jump along to the bouncy melodies of each and every one of the band’s songs, until the performance is brought to an end with the brilliant “Tick Tick Boom.” A much more exciting performance than that of IRON MAIDEN, who did not sound slightly intriguing to myself as I walked past the main stage on my way back to the campsite. I stopped to listen for a mere minute or so before becoming bored. A good day of music, though!