Burgers. Beer. Bruises. Unless you’ve ended up with each of the three Bs at some point over the weekend, you can’t say you’ve really been to Download Festival. We at Kerrang! – in the interest of real, investigative journalism, of course – checked them all off a few times over. Writing-up with some pretty gnarly cartilage damage, black marks separating the scratches right across our torsos and what might actually be a fractured forearm just from fending off the human cannonballs at Slayer, we thought we’d (100% scientifically) rank our 11 (it’s one more than ten, innit?) favourite beatdowns from an absolutely riotous three days. Think we’re off the mark? We’ll see you in the pit! (…or the comments below! – Pacifist Ed)
11. SUICIDAL TENDENCIES
Venice, CA’s crossover kings have seen a thousand mosh-pits in their time. And, to paraphrase Bon Jovi, they’ve crocked them all. The battle-hardened crowd have too much beer-belly low-centre-of-gravity to knock down that easily, though, so this is as much about swinging-paunch as crunching-punch.
10. PROPHETS OF RAGE
Prophets Of Rage have a lot to live up to – not just in the political-rap-rock stakes, but also in the time-honoured tradition of audience members sending each other to the first aid tent, too. There’s a lot of energy as the sun drops on Friday evening, but – compared, say, to the absolute mayhem of Reading & Leeds 2000 – people seem to be holding back. Room for improvement.