Black Album set was my idea

Persuasion: Andy Copping

Download Festival booker Andy Copping persuaded Metallica to headline at Donington and play their Black Album in full – even after the band had decided they wouldn’t appear in Europe during 2012.

And he’s insisted he was right to bring dubstep act Chase and Status to the main stage ahead of the Prodigy’s headlining set last night.

Metallica are expected to perform their 1991 classic back-to-front in order to end with hit track Enter Sandman, as they’ve done previously.

Copping says that’s “a stroke of genius” – and denies reports he’d said the thrash giants were boring. He tells NME: “Why would I call Metallica boring? They were the first band I confirmed. I went after them.

“The idea of doing the Black Album was my idea – I was thinking, I want to do something special for Download’s tenth year.

“I flew out to see their manager, who said they wouldn’t be touring the UK and Europe in 2012. I said, ‘I want them to do the Black Album.’ He said, ‘It’s a good idea – but they’re still not touring.’

“Within two weeks they’d confirmed.”

Copping admits he’s taken some flak for booking Chase and Status – but cites the example of Prodigy to show he was right. “In 2006 there was an outroar that I’d booked a band like the Prodigy,” he says. “They ended up being one of the bands of the weekend. They came back in 2009 and did amazing, and here they are headlining the main stage after selling out to 65,000 people in their own right at Milton Keynes.

“They won over people who were against a band like the Prodigy playing the festival. Chase and Status will do the same, you mark my words.”

Early reviews suggest the dubsteppers were actually more warmly received than Keith Flint’s outfit.

After a decade on the circuit Copping believes there’s a revitalised buzz about the event. He says: “There’s various parts of the press who have shown no interest in the festival before, and they’re like, ‘Oh goodness me, there’s this amazing festival at Donington Park, we should cover it,’ and I’m like, ‘Where the fuck have you been for the past ten years?’”