Download update: Sabbath Sunday

Black Spiders

Who played…

Jim Marshall Stage: Black Sabbath, Soundgarden, Megadeth, Lamb of God, Black Label Society, Anthrax, Kyuss Lives, Devildriver, Stellar Revival

Zippo Encore Stage: Rise Against, Dropkick Murphys, Refused, Shinedown, Ugly Kid Joe, Sebastian Bach, Rival Sons, August Burns Red, We Are the Ocean, Black Spiders, Kobra and the Lotus

Pepsi Max Stage: Periphery, Ghost, Firewind, Emmure, La Dispute, James Cleaver Quintet, Shadows Fall, Edguy, Reckless Love, Heaven’s Basement, Feed the Rhino, Skarlett Riot

Red Bull Bedroom Jam Stage: William Control, Hawkeyes, The Dirty Youth, The Minutes, With One Last Breath, Kopek, You and What Army, Strangle Kojak, Adelaide, Mechanical Smile, Pitchblack, Kamchatka

Jagermeister Stage: Saint Jude, Fearless Vampire Killers, Furyon, Mordecai, Daken, Voodoo Johnson, Sanguine, White Powder Gold

Take your time…

Shadows Fall decided to buck the trend most bands are following these days of minimising studio time and maximising road time. Instead, they devoted nearly a year to working on recent album Fire From the Sky. But that doesn’t mean they shunned the world around them.

Brian Fair: The state of the business we’re in contributed to the vibe of the record. We wanted to reflect our position as a microcosm for the whole world being in a state of chaos.

Matt Bachand: We wanted to write the best songs we could – we weren’t concerned with keeping them down to a certain length just to get them played on the radio. An album should be an adventure, like a roller coaster, not a drive down a flat stretch of road.

What’s on the menu…

If you were wondering what rock stars might discuss when they catch a moment backstage at a festival, Chris Jericho of Fozzy may disappoint you with his answer.

Chris Jericho: I was talking to James Hetfield about diet at Metallica’s 30th anniversary show and about how much weight he’d lost. He’d gone on this caveman diet, so I did the same thing. You want to know what rock guys talk about? It’s not about the new music or banging groupies – it’s diets.

We were promised rocket cars…

The Black Spiders – still reeling from being invited to tour the UK with Guns n’Roses then suddenly being told there wasn’t time on the schedule for a band to play before main support Thin Lizzy – want to give fans a memorial patch for bothering to get up early enough to see their set, especially on Black Sabbath day. But Ozzy wants to charge £5 for the item – and he believes he has good reason.

Ozzy: It’s the only way I’m going to earn my rocket car and my gold woman. I need a gold woman. It’s the only way I can continue – it’s been hard doing it for this long without a gold woman. I need a gold woman.

Pale imitation…

The Fearless Vampire Killers are proud to take their influences from far beyond the sphere of music – but because of that they take care to make sure their songs work as simple voice-and-acoustic arrangements, to avoid becoming a prog rock band.

Laurence: We like to draw our influences from films, comic books, artwork.

Drew Woolnough: I can’t see how you can’t, really. A lot of bands deliberately blinker themselves: ‘I am this band, I am metal…’

Laurence: People get bored easily. We get bored easily. A lot of metal audience find us odd. People saying, ‘You look a bit pale, mate.’ It’s nice to get laughed at.

Depending on their Download pay-packet (if any) they might want to check out this auction for a Victorian vampire slaying kit…

Next page: For some it was a dry festival…