[font="]Day One
[/font] [font="]After a very boring journey down on the train (apart from seeing how far into Megadeths back catalogue I could get I got to Cryptic Writings before my ears started to hurt from the earphones) I finally got to Nottingham and met up with my friend Hayley. We headed back to her house, chatting excitedly about the gig. After we got home we watched a bit of Scuzz, Kerrang and MTV2 until late and eventually got to sleep about 2.30am. We woke up early through sheer excitement and left for the gig about 12pm. We got to Donington about 1.30pm. When you got through the entrance you were immediately under the huge Dunlop tyre. We were to meet the other She-Wolves at the Kerrang tent which I noticed was off to our left. As we started to walk there we saw Julie and Amanda and went to meet them. After meeting up with the other wolves we went in search of the box office to see about our passes and we met up with Nikki and her friend outside. The girl at the office knew nothing about all of us getting passes and we couldnt get a hold of Suzy, the tour manager either. Suzy had tickets for Nikki and her friend so we had to leave them outside. After mulling around the park for ages, the time finally came for Megadeth. We were all sitting on the hill but me, Esther, Christel, Cliona and Nicole all went a bit further down. We had a much better view and the sound was much better. They opened with Blackmail The Universe. At the start of that song theres the sound of a plane roaring and just as it started, a plane flew over the crowd coming into land at the airport (and it comes in pretty low!). Megadeth totally rocked and I was so happy to hear She-Wolf. We all went completely nuts when they played that!! Skin O My Teeth & In My Darkest Hour were my favourite songs of the day tho. The setlist was something like [/font][font="]Blackmail the Universe, Set The World Afire, Skin 'O My Teeth, Wake Up Dead, In My Darkest Hour, She-Wolf, Die Dead Enough, Trust, Symphony of Destruction and Holy Wars. [/font][font="]After Megadeth about 75% of the crowd buggered off!!! It was hilarious!! We all went to find Suzy and found her up at the VIP area. Everyone chatted for a bit and then we headed down to the Kerrang signing tent. She spoke with the security and then we got into the tent. After getting into the tent, I saw Dave signing for someone and he looked up and stared at me for what seemed like ages. It seemed to take forever for us to get round to the band. I took loads of photos of them signing other peoples stuff. Finally we got round and Glen was up first. I got him to sign my ticket since I hadnt brought any albums with me to get signed cos I didnt know I was meeting the band until the night before!! I got a picture with him as well. Esther was in front of me and asked Glen if he liked the presents wed gotten him for his birthday. He said he loved them but his wife didnt!!! Haha!! Amanda was a couple of people in front of us and I heard something mentioned about all the wolves being there and Dave said, I could take you all on! Amanda gave Dave a shirt which said Its a redhead thing you wouldnt understand! on it. He loved it and posed for a photo with it. He then gave it to someone behind him and told him not to nick it cos he was a redhead too!! Dave signed Esthers albums and then Amanda produced a pair of She-Wolf pants for Dave to sign. When she put them on the table he said, Oh my god, what have we started here!! Then Esther produced the She-Wolf thong and handed them to Glen. The look of horror and embarrassment that crossed his face was hilarious!! He didnt seem to want to pick them up at first but eventually he had a look at them, then folded them up and sat them back on the table!! When Esther was getting her picture taken with Dave, she sat on the table and Dave picked her up by the arse and moved her along. The look of shock on her face was a picture!! Then I got to Dave and said hi and shook his hand, he then stood up and hugged me just out of the blue. He asked how I was and what my name was. I said that Id met him before and that I was the girl who got the Russian flag signed for my friend Alisa and he said he did remember. I asked Hayley to show him the picture of Alisa with the flag on her phone. As she was finding the photo I got my picture taken with Dave. All the other wolves were watching and as we put our arms around each other some of them went Awwww! and Dave said Did I just hear an awwww? and hugged me tighter. I was so happy!! Hayley finally found the photo and Dave commented on how grown up she looked now. Next I talked to Shawn and I was telling him how I saw him in Glasgow at the start of the year and he asked he if I enjoyed the show. I told him that there is nothing better than being a concert in my opinion. I got a photo with him and then went to talk to James. I asked to see the tattoo on his hand which hed posted about on the boards but Id never got a good look at and he said he was going to get them all redone this year. I got a photo with him and joined the wolves again. Then we all got a group shot with Dave which was really cool. Dave mentioned how its so hard being me when he was surrounded by us all!! Haha! He seemed quite overwhelmed that all these women had travelled so far just to see his band. He thanked us all and wished us well. Some of the wolves went up to say goodbye and then some guy came up with some albums to be signed and Dave said, Where the fuck were you when I was sitting down?. He sounded quite pissed off and I dont blame him cos hed been sitting for about half an hour and was obviously very tired. After hed signed the albums, I shook his hand again, hugged him and planted a kiss on his cheek! I couldnt believe I did that afterwards, but Id glad I did. I had such a blast with the wolves, they were all so lovely!! Megadeth completely owned Donington this year and definitely should have been headliners!! So that was the end of day one and we returned home very happy, but with very sore necks and throats!! [/font]
[font="]Day Two[/font]
[font="]On the Saturday we both woke up with serious bangovers from Megadeth but we managed to drag ourselves out of the house and on the bus to Donington. When we got there, there was a lot more people than there was on the Friday. We had arrived kinda late so we made a quick stop at the merch booth where I bought a Velvet Revolver and Black Sabbath shirt (I wanted an Anthrax one too but couldnt afford it!). I put on the Sabbath one and Hayley wore the Velvet revolver one for me, just to save carrying them around. We stood on the hill and watched the end of Alter Bridge who I was really impressed with. After they finished we made our way further down for Anthrax. I started to get really excited when the Anthrax backdrop started to be put up. They played a video of Damageplan singing New Found Power and Walk on the big screens in tribute to Dimebag and that got a great response from the crowd. Then the announcement came that Anthrax were coming on and the crowd went wild. During Caught In A Mosh I phoned my friend Kat cos she was the one that introduced me to Anthrax in the first place. I went mental during the next song which was Anti-Social cos its my absolute favourite. I was screaming and headbanging along like mad!! The crowd were so into them, it was great!! NFL got a fantastic response and Joey encouraged two giant mosh-pits during Indians. They looked great up on the big screens. We were just behind the one on the left side so luckily we didnt get caught in a mosh. They finished with I Am The Law and the crowd went mental!! They kicked ass and after Megadeth, were the best band of the festival for me. The setlist was something like Among The Living, Caught In A Mosh, Anti-Social, NFL, Medusa, Indians and I Am The Law. We went to get a drink and met up with Cliona and Nicole, had a chat and showed them our Megadeth photos which wed had developed that morning cos we couldnt wait!! Then we went down to watch HIM who I actually quite like. I texted my friend to tell her they were on cos shes HIM daft. I told her to phone me and I would let her hear the whole set, so I spent the entire time with my phone stuck in the air!! Before their last song (The Sacrament) everyone was chanting Ozzy! Ozzy! and Ville Valo says, Have you all got sight problems? Im no Ozzy! which everyone found highly amusing!! After they went off we started to move down for Velvet Revolver, and got to within a good distance of the stage. Everyone cheered when the big Velvet Revolver sign got put up. When they finally came on I nearly died when I saw Duff McKagan especially since he was wearing a fitted leather jacket! They were rocking and the crowd was going nuts for them. We ended up right in the pit for the first half of the set. When Scott Weiland announced that the next song was going to be Fall To Pieces, I was soooo happy cos thats my favourite Velvet Revolver song. I phoned my friend Chris during that song cos I know she loves it too. She said she could hear me singing along oops! I must have been singing loud then!! I almost fainted when I saw Duff take his shirt off about halfway through the gig!!! Scott came down the corridor between the crowd and was standing up on the barrier at the end getting everyone to sing along which was really cool! During Its So Easy the crowd were getting really wild and Hayley wanted out of the pit so we moved to the side so we werent getting squashed. I got some great photos of Slash soloing at our side of the stage. I went mental when they started playing Mr Brownstone which is one of my all time favourite Guns N Roses songs. It sounded great and the crowd loved it too. They closed with Slither and everyone was jumping to that one. I cant really remember the setlist. I think they played Sucker Train Blues, Do It For The Kids, Big Machine, You Got No Right, Superhuman, Fall To Pieces, Dirty Little Thing, Set Me Free, Slither, Its So Easy and Mr Brownstone tho not in that order. I was getting a really sore back from standing all day and sat down for a bit before Sabbath. It happened before Anthrax and it happened again before Sabbath, people seemed to find it highly amusing to have bottle wars in between bands so for a good 15 mins there was just bottle flying in every direction constantly. It was pretty funny to watch as long as you never got hit by any (I only got hit by 2). I filmed it with my camera for a bit cos it was just mad! After a while Black Sabbath began to play over the PA and everyone cheered but it was just a medley of songs, but that didnt stop us all singing along! Once that had finished the band came out to NIB and the place exploded! I was jumping and singing along as loud as I could. They played After Forever next which I was really surprised at since I wouldnt say it was a very well known song. I loved it tho cos Master Of Reality is one of my favourite Sabbath albums. After that was Dirty Women and then War Pigs, which really got the crowd going - they were singing along so loudly. During Into The Void you could tell Ozzy was reading the autocue cos he was looking down and not headbanging and jumping around like he was on all the other songs. At the end of Fairies Wear Boots, Tony started playing the intro to Symptom Of The Universe which made me go nuts cos its my favourite Sabbath song but then they went into Electric Funeral. I was kinda disappointed that they never played it but what can you do eh? They did that again near the end, they started playing Sabbath Bloody Sabbath but then stopped and went into Paranoid. The entire crowd started jumping and headbanging! It was great to see and even greater to be a part of. After that had finished Ozzy said goodbye to the crows warning us, Dont do anything I wouldnt do which means do every fucking thing!! Everyone was chanting Sabbath! Sabbath! and they came back on and played Children Of The Grave. The setlist was something like NIB, After Forever, War Pigs, Into The Void, Fairies Wear Boots, The Wizard, Black Sabbath, Paranoid and Children Of The Grave. That was the last song and then Changes started playing over the PA. We didnt get home till about 1am after that one cos there was no buses and had to wait on a lift. I was completely shattered, but it was an awesome day!![/font]
[font="]Day Three[/font]
[font="]
Day three started off with meeting another Droogie from the Megadeth boards called Ash. He was really cool and we hung out and listened to some Megadeth until he had to go cos he wanted some breakfast at 2pm! How rock and roll! We just chilled for most of the day and set off back to Donington at about 6pm. Whilst on the way there we found out we would be stranded again after the gig but I didnt care I was not missing Motorhead! After a very long bus journey we finally got to the Download bus and got there about half 8 which left only 10 mins till Motorhead. It had started to rain but I didnt care cos they were playing in a tent anyway! Slipknot had just finished on the main stage and I saw hoards of people all heading towards the Snickers stage. I was kinda worried as to whether wed get in or not! We got up there and made our way through the crowd till we were about halfway and decided that this was a good enough spot. We only had to wait about 5-10mins for them to come on and they were REALLY loud! We were going nuts, headbanging away. I filmed about half of Metropolis on my camera but its not come out as good as the Sabbath ones. Sacrifice was one of my favourite songs of the night it rocked! Lemmy said that they might as well save time and do the encore now and then launched into Ace Of Spades the place erupted! Everyone was going mental and singing along. Then they played Overkill which Id been hoping they would play and it was brilliant!! They rocked so hard and were by far the loudest band of the weekend. I certainly left with a motorheadache that night!! Overall the weekend just rocked from start to finish and as Scott Weiland said, It wont ever be Download itll always be Donington!. So as the immortal line goes, Scream for me Donington!!!!!!!!![/font]
[font="]
And I certainly did!![/font]
[/font] [font="]After a very boring journey down on the train (apart from seeing how far into Megadeths back catalogue I could get I got to Cryptic Writings before my ears started to hurt from the earphones) I finally got to Nottingham and met up with my friend Hayley. We headed back to her house, chatting excitedly about the gig. After we got home we watched a bit of Scuzz, Kerrang and MTV2 until late and eventually got to sleep about 2.30am. We woke up early through sheer excitement and left for the gig about 12pm. We got to Donington about 1.30pm. When you got through the entrance you were immediately under the huge Dunlop tyre. We were to meet the other She-Wolves at the Kerrang tent which I noticed was off to our left. As we started to walk there we saw Julie and Amanda and went to meet them. After meeting up with the other wolves we went in search of the box office to see about our passes and we met up with Nikki and her friend outside. The girl at the office knew nothing about all of us getting passes and we couldnt get a hold of Suzy, the tour manager either. Suzy had tickets for Nikki and her friend so we had to leave them outside. After mulling around the park for ages, the time finally came for Megadeth. We were all sitting on the hill but me, Esther, Christel, Cliona and Nicole all went a bit further down. We had a much better view and the sound was much better. They opened with Blackmail The Universe. At the start of that song theres the sound of a plane roaring and just as it started, a plane flew over the crowd coming into land at the airport (and it comes in pretty low!). Megadeth totally rocked and I was so happy to hear She-Wolf. We all went completely nuts when they played that!! Skin O My Teeth & In My Darkest Hour were my favourite songs of the day tho. The setlist was something like [/font][font="]Blackmail the Universe, Set The World Afire, Skin 'O My Teeth, Wake Up Dead, In My Darkest Hour, She-Wolf, Die Dead Enough, Trust, Symphony of Destruction and Holy Wars. [/font][font="]After Megadeth about 75% of the crowd buggered off!!! It was hilarious!! We all went to find Suzy and found her up at the VIP area. Everyone chatted for a bit and then we headed down to the Kerrang signing tent. She spoke with the security and then we got into the tent. After getting into the tent, I saw Dave signing for someone and he looked up and stared at me for what seemed like ages. It seemed to take forever for us to get round to the band. I took loads of photos of them signing other peoples stuff. Finally we got round and Glen was up first. I got him to sign my ticket since I hadnt brought any albums with me to get signed cos I didnt know I was meeting the band until the night before!! I got a picture with him as well. Esther was in front of me and asked Glen if he liked the presents wed gotten him for his birthday. He said he loved them but his wife didnt!!! Haha!! Amanda was a couple of people in front of us and I heard something mentioned about all the wolves being there and Dave said, I could take you all on! Amanda gave Dave a shirt which said Its a redhead thing you wouldnt understand! on it. He loved it and posed for a photo with it. He then gave it to someone behind him and told him not to nick it cos he was a redhead too!! Dave signed Esthers albums and then Amanda produced a pair of She-Wolf pants for Dave to sign. When she put them on the table he said, Oh my god, what have we started here!! Then Esther produced the She-Wolf thong and handed them to Glen. The look of horror and embarrassment that crossed his face was hilarious!! He didnt seem to want to pick them up at first but eventually he had a look at them, then folded them up and sat them back on the table!! When Esther was getting her picture taken with Dave, she sat on the table and Dave picked her up by the arse and moved her along. The look of shock on her face was a picture!! Then I got to Dave and said hi and shook his hand, he then stood up and hugged me just out of the blue. He asked how I was and what my name was. I said that Id met him before and that I was the girl who got the Russian flag signed for my friend Alisa and he said he did remember. I asked Hayley to show him the picture of Alisa with the flag on her phone. As she was finding the photo I got my picture taken with Dave. All the other wolves were watching and as we put our arms around each other some of them went Awwww! and Dave said Did I just hear an awwww? and hugged me tighter. I was so happy!! Hayley finally found the photo and Dave commented on how grown up she looked now. Next I talked to Shawn and I was telling him how I saw him in Glasgow at the start of the year and he asked he if I enjoyed the show. I told him that there is nothing better than being a concert in my opinion. I got a photo with him and then went to talk to James. I asked to see the tattoo on his hand which hed posted about on the boards but Id never got a good look at and he said he was going to get them all redone this year. I got a photo with him and joined the wolves again. Then we all got a group shot with Dave which was really cool. Dave mentioned how its so hard being me when he was surrounded by us all!! Haha! He seemed quite overwhelmed that all these women had travelled so far just to see his band. He thanked us all and wished us well. Some of the wolves went up to say goodbye and then some guy came up with some albums to be signed and Dave said, Where the fuck were you when I was sitting down?. He sounded quite pissed off and I dont blame him cos hed been sitting for about half an hour and was obviously very tired. After hed signed the albums, I shook his hand again, hugged him and planted a kiss on his cheek! I couldnt believe I did that afterwards, but Id glad I did. I had such a blast with the wolves, they were all so lovely!! Megadeth completely owned Donington this year and definitely should have been headliners!! So that was the end of day one and we returned home very happy, but with very sore necks and throats!! [/font]
[font="]Day Two[/font]
[font="]On the Saturday we both woke up with serious bangovers from Megadeth but we managed to drag ourselves out of the house and on the bus to Donington. When we got there, there was a lot more people than there was on the Friday. We had arrived kinda late so we made a quick stop at the merch booth where I bought a Velvet Revolver and Black Sabbath shirt (I wanted an Anthrax one too but couldnt afford it!). I put on the Sabbath one and Hayley wore the Velvet revolver one for me, just to save carrying them around. We stood on the hill and watched the end of Alter Bridge who I was really impressed with. After they finished we made our way further down for Anthrax. I started to get really excited when the Anthrax backdrop started to be put up. They played a video of Damageplan singing New Found Power and Walk on the big screens in tribute to Dimebag and that got a great response from the crowd. Then the announcement came that Anthrax were coming on and the crowd went wild. During Caught In A Mosh I phoned my friend Kat cos she was the one that introduced me to Anthrax in the first place. I went mental during the next song which was Anti-Social cos its my absolute favourite. I was screaming and headbanging along like mad!! The crowd were so into them, it was great!! NFL got a fantastic response and Joey encouraged two giant mosh-pits during Indians. They looked great up on the big screens. We were just behind the one on the left side so luckily we didnt get caught in a mosh. They finished with I Am The Law and the crowd went mental!! They kicked ass and after Megadeth, were the best band of the festival for me. The setlist was something like Among The Living, Caught In A Mosh, Anti-Social, NFL, Medusa, Indians and I Am The Law. We went to get a drink and met up with Cliona and Nicole, had a chat and showed them our Megadeth photos which wed had developed that morning cos we couldnt wait!! Then we went down to watch HIM who I actually quite like. I texted my friend to tell her they were on cos shes HIM daft. I told her to phone me and I would let her hear the whole set, so I spent the entire time with my phone stuck in the air!! Before their last song (The Sacrament) everyone was chanting Ozzy! Ozzy! and Ville Valo says, Have you all got sight problems? Im no Ozzy! which everyone found highly amusing!! After they went off we started to move down for Velvet Revolver, and got to within a good distance of the stage. Everyone cheered when the big Velvet Revolver sign got put up. When they finally came on I nearly died when I saw Duff McKagan especially since he was wearing a fitted leather jacket! They were rocking and the crowd was going nuts for them. We ended up right in the pit for the first half of the set. When Scott Weiland announced that the next song was going to be Fall To Pieces, I was soooo happy cos thats my favourite Velvet Revolver song. I phoned my friend Chris during that song cos I know she loves it too. She said she could hear me singing along oops! I must have been singing loud then!! I almost fainted when I saw Duff take his shirt off about halfway through the gig!!! Scott came down the corridor between the crowd and was standing up on the barrier at the end getting everyone to sing along which was really cool! During Its So Easy the crowd were getting really wild and Hayley wanted out of the pit so we moved to the side so we werent getting squashed. I got some great photos of Slash soloing at our side of the stage. I went mental when they started playing Mr Brownstone which is one of my all time favourite Guns N Roses songs. It sounded great and the crowd loved it too. They closed with Slither and everyone was jumping to that one. I cant really remember the setlist. I think they played Sucker Train Blues, Do It For The Kids, Big Machine, You Got No Right, Superhuman, Fall To Pieces, Dirty Little Thing, Set Me Free, Slither, Its So Easy and Mr Brownstone tho not in that order. I was getting a really sore back from standing all day and sat down for a bit before Sabbath. It happened before Anthrax and it happened again before Sabbath, people seemed to find it highly amusing to have bottle wars in between bands so for a good 15 mins there was just bottle flying in every direction constantly. It was pretty funny to watch as long as you never got hit by any (I only got hit by 2). I filmed it with my camera for a bit cos it was just mad! After a while Black Sabbath began to play over the PA and everyone cheered but it was just a medley of songs, but that didnt stop us all singing along! Once that had finished the band came out to NIB and the place exploded! I was jumping and singing along as loud as I could. They played After Forever next which I was really surprised at since I wouldnt say it was a very well known song. I loved it tho cos Master Of Reality is one of my favourite Sabbath albums. After that was Dirty Women and then War Pigs, which really got the crowd going - they were singing along so loudly. During Into The Void you could tell Ozzy was reading the autocue cos he was looking down and not headbanging and jumping around like he was on all the other songs. At the end of Fairies Wear Boots, Tony started playing the intro to Symptom Of The Universe which made me go nuts cos its my favourite Sabbath song but then they went into Electric Funeral. I was kinda disappointed that they never played it but what can you do eh? They did that again near the end, they started playing Sabbath Bloody Sabbath but then stopped and went into Paranoid. The entire crowd started jumping and headbanging! It was great to see and even greater to be a part of. After that had finished Ozzy said goodbye to the crows warning us, Dont do anything I wouldnt do which means do every fucking thing!! Everyone was chanting Sabbath! Sabbath! and they came back on and played Children Of The Grave. The setlist was something like NIB, After Forever, War Pigs, Into The Void, Fairies Wear Boots, The Wizard, Black Sabbath, Paranoid and Children Of The Grave. That was the last song and then Changes started playing over the PA. We didnt get home till about 1am after that one cos there was no buses and had to wait on a lift. I was completely shattered, but it was an awesome day!![/font]
[font="]Day Three[/font]
[font="]
Day three started off with meeting another Droogie from the Megadeth boards called Ash. He was really cool and we hung out and listened to some Megadeth until he had to go cos he wanted some breakfast at 2pm! How rock and roll! We just chilled for most of the day and set off back to Donington at about 6pm. Whilst on the way there we found out we would be stranded again after the gig but I didnt care I was not missing Motorhead! After a very long bus journey we finally got to the Download bus and got there about half 8 which left only 10 mins till Motorhead. It had started to rain but I didnt care cos they were playing in a tent anyway! Slipknot had just finished on the main stage and I saw hoards of people all heading towards the Snickers stage. I was kinda worried as to whether wed get in or not! We got up there and made our way through the crowd till we were about halfway and decided that this was a good enough spot. We only had to wait about 5-10mins for them to come on and they were REALLY loud! We were going nuts, headbanging away. I filmed about half of Metropolis on my camera but its not come out as good as the Sabbath ones. Sacrifice was one of my favourite songs of the night it rocked! Lemmy said that they might as well save time and do the encore now and then launched into Ace Of Spades the place erupted! Everyone was going mental and singing along. Then they played Overkill which Id been hoping they would play and it was brilliant!! They rocked so hard and were by far the loudest band of the weekend. I certainly left with a motorheadache that night!! Overall the weekend just rocked from start to finish and as Scott Weiland said, It wont ever be Download itll always be Donington!. So as the immortal line goes, Scream for me Donington!!!!!!!!![/font]
[font="]
And I certainly did!![/font]
