Hallowed Be Thy Ground

Okay I have been threatening this for a while and as proof that sobriety can be a terrible thing to taste, I thought I would actually write about history and even some Metal as opposed to venting about the mental and musical decline of Metllica for a change. Given I have written about the only news stories I am interested in at the moment I felt it was time to turn my attention to my spiritual home of Donington Park and it's long association with Heavy Metal music.

Donington Park is situated near the legendary site of Castle Donington in Leicestershire, England, or Oop Norf as I like to refer to it being north of Bristol (although several of my associates will be quick to point out that it is actually in the area referred to as The Midlands…), whatever geography boy, it took a two and a half hour drive up country from my birth place and I have migrated south since then.
The actual Castle itself was built in the the 12th Century and eventually passed into the hands of the crown around the time of Edward the 2nd and then eventually into the estate of Donington Hall.

The Park was created  as a racing circuit before the Second World War and was used as a storage for military vehicles during it. Post War the circuit fell into disrepair until it was revived during the 1970's by a local construction entrepreneur Tom Wheatcroft. Whilst the track would only play host to one Formula 1 event it became the favoured home of the British leg of the Moto GP circuit.
Fast forward to current day and the complex fell foul of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and nowadays plays host to the Donington Historic Festival reliving the circuits faded glory days.
It is also currently the UK site for the Download Rock and Metal festival.



Way back in the olden days though, well 1980 to be precise, promoter Paul Loadsby held a one day festival specifically dedicated to rock and Heavy Metal. On the back of having successfully promoted Richie Blackmore's Rainbow on tour he asked them to headline to which Blackmore having jettisoned supreme vocalist Ronnie James Dio (happy 70th by the way man, hope you are rocking somewhere with us) probably needed all the exposure they could get. At least until Since You've Been Gone destroyed any hope that Blackmore's ego would ever return to earth.
It held around 35k people was a huge success. It was probably half assed, all kinds of health and safety violations, fairly cheap and a pleasure to be at.
I dunno, ask my mate Nick, he was there. He's well old.
Sorry Nick.
As well as Blackmore, his ego and his band, the line up featured British and International stars of the day Scorpions (Turn ze spotlights, on ze peepol!), April Wine (no me neither), Judas Priest, Saxon, Riot, Touch and Running Wild.
Following the successful of the inaugural show the festival would run almost continually for another 15 years billed as the now legendary Monsters of Rock festival.

Notable highlights over the years include Metallica making their debut in 1985 and having a pigs head thrown at them.
Seriously.
Now I have thrown my fair share at the stage over the years and a half full pint/coke bottle/tub of pasta salad is hard enough to get decent height or distance on, yet alone a pig's head, so far play Metal-loving nuttier.
It does beg the question what you were doing with a PIGS HEAD at a festival though.
Others include AC/DC headlining numerous times - the excellent AC/DC Live is recorded from their 1991 turn at the festival; Van Halen's first UK appearance with Diamond David Lee Roth, Ozzy Osbourne when he could sing, ZZ Top and of course Iron Maiden's legendary headlining appearance in 1988.
A veritable who's who of the heavy music of the time.



I'll pause here at Iron Maiden (surprise!).
This was my entry point to heavy music. I was introduced to Iron Maiden at this very moment. The inertia of having a number one album in the UK in the form of concept album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, a catchier than a man with large hands single in Can I Play With Madness, plus the festival extending it's capacity and the only UK date from Metal's hottest property, the stars seemed to align for this show. Couple that with a supporting bill of hot upstart's Guns n Roses full UK debut, KISS, DDLR's solo show, Megadeth (resists dig) and Helloween and the whole day remains one of those mouthwatering prospects to the 33 year old me and a complete other world to the ten year old version.
As such the Donington would be forever cemented into my conscious as the home of the music I love as Maiden broke the attendance record and played to some 107k fans.
Sadly that day contained tragedy as two fans were crushed to death during Guns n Roses set, despite Axl being about 3 years from shoving his head up his ass and pleading with the crowd to step back. In reality the increased capacity, the mud, the excitement led to a horrific accident.
Iron Maiden's management took the decision to isolate the band from the news, they took to the stage and played a blinder. It must have been a terribly bittersweet moment for the band as they played the gig of their lives only to have it tempered with such news.
As a result no festival was held in 1989 out of respect for the loss.

The festival re-emerged the following year and some great bands graced the stage over the next few years (bar a mystery break in 1993) including the aforementioned AC/DC, Slayer, WASP, Skid Row (memorable for Sebastian 'Baz' Bach slipping on the wet stage and landing flat on his ass on the opening number), Sepultura performing as a three piece due to Max Cavalera having to fly home regarding the death of his step son Dana Wells, a mystery that has never quite been resolved, a second crack at the headlining whip for Iron Maiden who recorded and released a live album and an eye wateringly edited VHS.




My Donington story really begins in 1995. Celebrating having completed our GCSEs some school friends and I went to what had been arrogantly renamed 'Escape From The Studio '95' by none other than my former amores Metallica. Topping a bill that saw Therapy? Skid Row, Slllllllaaaaaaayyyyyeeeeeerrrrrrr, Slash's Snakepit, White Zombie, Machine Head, Warrior Soul and Corrosion of Conformity, the band decided that being stuck in the studio with the Load and Reload material had gotten tedious (No. Shit.) so they legged it over to play a gig at what even motor mouthed, gurning, drum Muppet Larz recognised as the home of Heavy Metal.
Going up on a bus was a great day. The festival itself was largely a blur, I can remember the sand fight where we stood with a great view of the front of the stage before CoC kicked off and introducing us to the huge guys moshing all around us.
I remember my friend smiling in amusement as I screamed 'Let freedom ring with a shotgun blast' at Machine Head and realised then we were going in separate directions musically as he went to see if he could recognise the singer for Slash's band Eric Drover. Seriously the guy couldn't stand out in a crowd if he set himself on fire and ran around.
I loved Skid Row, White Zombie and Therapy? and found Metallica to be incredibly arrogant.
Make of that what you will.
Anyway after the one day I had the bug and despite not going the next year (Missing Biohazard have the plug pulled for starting a stage invasion and Korn's incendiary debut) I knew I would go again.
Only I didn't.
1996 as I have pointed out was not a good year for Heavy Music and turned out to be the last Monsters of Rock festival at Donngton, it seemed that Doningtons long illustrious history with Rock would fade into a footnote in the history of both music and the site itself.



Fast forward, or rather skip (we have come a long way thanks to technology after all) to 2003 and the concept was rebooted to the then cutting edge (but now somewhat stock) era of the digital download, as Download. In the interim period this new fangled thing called the Innernet had been invented and files could be stored, shared and robbed from it, changing the face of the music industry forever.
The festival was given a face lift as promoter Andy Copping sought to make Download into the biggest metal festival in Europe by a cunning five year plan.
That year saw a two day festival featuring a mixture of the old guard and new bands rubbing shoulders with Iron Maiden headlining Saturday, Audioslave playing second guest to Sunday's closing Limp Bizkit. Well except that Fred Durst's crew bailed on the festival due to state side commitments and Chris Cornell's version of Rage Against The Machine stepping up to deliver a more satisfying close.
Kind of unsurprisingly Metallica gate crashed as a 'secret' band playing in the tent on the Sunday as part of their return to active duties ahead of the Madly In Anger at the World Tour. Having witnessed the carnage of this show, it still remains (despite my increasingly negative take on the band) one of the best shows I have ever seen.

Over the next decade the festival would swell from an initial 60k attendees to this years monstrous 100k plus. No slouch to global price increases this would also see the price double.
The site has long since lost the charm of wondering around inside the track and under the Dunlop arch as it has grown beyond the capacity of the bowl and now boasts four stages as well as a host of entertainment, shops, refreshments and distance in-between things.
Since it's growth I have seen some incredible music there, met my future wife and had times with people I met and love that I honestly would not give back for all the tea in China.

This year was no exception.
As the obligations of life curtail the freedom of youth this year was almost a retirement party for my group of friends, with looming Weddings, children and age, we tripped up to Donington to see the ilk of Machine Head, Kyuss Lives! Black Sabbath, Lamb of God, Metallica etc to send our group off in style.
Due to global warming, bad luck and so on this year was a horrific wash out of the site which was carnage by the time the last of us arrived on the Thursday night (long gone are the days of securing a decent camping spot after Wednesday) it was a mud bath of epic proportions.
Still in the spirit of all things British, we complained like hell about everything but still made the best of things.

There is no doubt in my mind that  I can view my times at MoR and the early Downloads with rose tinted glasses and I have an increasing laundry list of complaints about the new format of the festival (which can be summed up in one word, size) but the fact remains I still very much view Doningtnon as my spiritual home. There is something incredible about the atmosphere of the place that is ingrained in my memory, in my psyche, to the point where I am bloody minded enough to insist that my loved ones have to take my ashes there when I pass and throw the urn at some awful band.

I could rant about the pricing, about how when I went to Sonisphere 2010 I was reminded how a festival should be - friendly staff, acceptable prices, close proximity to camp sites and facilities, but the fact is much as this was billed as the last time before we went on indefinite hiatus (before the cash grab reunion), it is looking increasingly likely that Iron Maiden will be back next year to bring the Maiden England set to the hallowed ground of Donington and if you think I will sit out seeing my favourite band play my favourite arena, then you are smoking better gear than Cypress Hill.

So how to leave this piece?
Simply that Donington deserves it's place in the rock annals. Rock belongs with the site. Where as festivals like Reading which were/are synonymous with rock and have since become a haven for mainstream douchebaggery, Download still holds (almost) true.
Now if they would just heed my advice and make a few changes…

See you next year.