DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL
THE YEAR THAT
Metallica doubled up and Slipknot had a surprise for us, but Bring Me The Horizon pointed the way to the festival’s future
For 20 years, Download Festival has been the molten heart of the UK metal and rock community, but 2023 might just have been the most memorable year yet. Yes, the traffic was horrendous, while no shade and sun hotter than Satan’s BBQ had turned the whole shebang into some kind of endurance test by the end.
But when it came to really important stuff –y’know, the music –Download’s 20th anniversary held nothing back.
Expanding to four full days, this year saw Metallica play twice, another incendiary victory lap from Slipknot, and Download’s first new headliner in six years in Bring Me The Horizon, all supported by an undercard creaking under the weight of fresh voices and headliners of the future. It was the moment metal’s current guard were joined by anew generation stepping up to take the festival forward. Acriticism often levelled at Download, and not without good reason either, has been their tendency to lean on an increasingly thinning headliner pool skewed heavily towards rock and metal’s past glories.
“Our pool for Download headliners is shrinking rapidly,” agrees festival booker Kamran Haq, explaining that the decision to elevate anew headliner in the shape of BMTH was a “conscious” one when the team set out to produce the 2023 line-up. “There’s always going to be a place for the Metallicas, Iron Maidens and Slipknots at Download, but these bands are not going to be around forever. We want to bring the new breed through, so we don’t stagnate as a festival.”
Download’s attempts over the years to introduce new blood into their headliner pool have been met with mixed results. Avenged Sevenfold’s first headline slot in 2014 was well received (the band will headline for the third time in 2024), but main stage top of the bill appearances from Muse in 2015 and Biffy Clyro in 2017 were less so.
Bring Me The Horizon’s promotion was initially greeted with that same suspicion, but any doubts were silenced by the band’s stunning Friday night headline debut. Staying true to their status as one of modern metal’s most innovative and boundary-pushing bands, they hit the sold-out crowd with bold move after bold move, backed with some of the most insane production Download has ever seen.
“Bring Me approached us and looked at headlining before, but we felt 2023 was the year they were ready,” continues Kamran. He says the towers of pyro the band were shooting out of the top of the stage were so big, they caused complaints from planes trying to land at the nearby East Midlands Airport. “That show spoke for itself.”
“We’re hum
