On The Guest List: Download festival

Download 2010 was good, but not as good as 2009, mainly being because of all the excitement about Faith No More reuniting and performing at Download 2009 was what made it so special for me and many others who I know who went. Plus the weather was much nicer last year!
This year we were lucky with the sun and cloud and no rain until it suddenly decided to change on the Sunday afternoon while I was watching The Damned Things on the second stage and the rain came. With soaking wet jeans and muddy feet (I wore flip-flops, so walking bare foot in the mud was better as they kept getting stuck!) I still stuck it out as I couldn't possibly miss Aerosmith, who I'd been looking forward to seeing all weekend.
Slightly disappointing line-up compared to 2009, but my highlights were still all the bands I'd planned to watch and they were all brilliant. Bullet For My Valentine proved they deserved the headline slot of the second stage Friday night and were fantastic. My overall favourite of the three days being an amazing Friday night show from ACDC, who had a special customized stage set up by a German crew who happened to be staying in the hotel I stayed in and they told me that it was going to be spectacular and it certainly was. 30 Seconds To Mars were awesome as always, Jared with a blonde mohawk dyed pink at the top! I watched all of their set, then ran towards the main stage to catch the rest of Rage Against The Machine.
Of course, they finished with their 2009 UK Christmas No. 1 Killing in the Name.
Sunday was supposed to be the best day for me, but when the rain came it wasn't pleasant and a lot of people left the site, but despite the mud and being wet, cold and hungry, I stayed on and enjoyed Motorhead, featuring a guest performance with Slash, Stone Temple Pilots and the amazing Aerosmith who rounded off the weekend with two of my favourite hits by them, Dream On and Walk This Way. Everyone was saying that they were a bit disappointed that they didn't do Dude Looks Like a Lady, but after almost 40 years together, Steve Tyler and the gang still put on a great show.