Saturday started with a slight disaster. Andy had forgotten to inform our landlady that we wanted breakfast so she wasn’t prepared for us in the breakfast room. She did manage to cobble together some food and so things weren’t so bad after all.
We waited outside our guest house for our lift to the festival. Stella and Graham eventually turned up and I started an epic day of rum and Jager. We knew we were planning to meet up with some friends inside the festival so today was going to be a bit strange with 4 of us having to decide what to do together rather than just Andy and me.
As we were walking in from the close car park (about a mile away) I could hear UFO on stage and I’m gutted I didn’t see them, I really love the tacky 70s rock sound! Once inside the festival we browsed the shops. There wasn’t anything that really stood out at me although I did buy a “Power Up” t-shirt. Eventually we met up with Dave, Jon and AN Other.
Black Stone Riders are just Thin Lizzy without the singer and Gary Moore (RIP). I just wasn’t that interested. There was no progression to the sound of the new stuff. It was just extra Thin Lizzy, add 20 years to the music and make it sound the same.
I tried with Mastodon, I really did. I just didn’t get on with it and thought they were a bit rubbish. Since Download I have been trying to listen to The Hunter in the house and it still doesn’t really do anything for me. This is a shame as I’ve been looking for some new sounds to get into.
Sky Valley Mistress. Hmmmmm. Well I wrote this down in the list of bands I watched on the Saturday but I can’t remember. There, said it.
Alice In Chains came on next and I really like their music. It’s moody, depressing and haunting. They sounded really good and it was nice to see them for the first time since 1991 but I was hungry. I am ashamed to say that Andy and I went to get some food.
Motorhead were OK but really just what you’d expect from Motorhead. I would have liked to hear the song “Motorhead” because it’s among my favourites, but then it’d be hard to beat the classic “No Sleep ‘Till Hammersmith”.
We headed back into the crowd for Queens of the Stone Age and . . . . . we just chatted all the way through their set. They were really uninspiring and boring. It’s a shame because I actually like two of their songs but they just didn’t really do it for me. I even turned away from the stage to chat to my friends!
We were in place for Iron Maiden. No moving now except inwards. Really looking forward to it. The lights dimmed and there seemed to be some activity on the stage when a Supermarine Spitfire (possibly VC version – it had straight tipped wings) flew over the crowd from behind the stage, circled a few times and did some more fly overs. Absolutely brilliant. Best bit of the day so far.
Maiden came on and were typically Maiden. It was a very good show with lots of fire, Eddie and singing along. There were a few songs I would have liked to hear and a couple I would have preferred they hadn’t played. I think they played two from the Fear of the Dark album which I don’t care for. I’m waiting patiently to hear Revelations live. Maiden were good, but I found that Slipknot blew them away. Maybe because I’ve seen Maiden about 6 times since 1988?
