Earlier this year I bought tickets for myself and Tallis to go to Download festival. I’d never been to a festival before, and had heard that whilst Reading has the better line up, Download has a much nicer, friendlier atmosphere. Reading tickets were sold out anyway, so instead of searching around for them, I settled with Download. Time passed, and eventually last Thursday came. Tallis and I were all packed, tent and clothes, not much food and nowhere near enough money.

We jumped on the train to Derby, which is home to every yellow car in the world! As some of you may be aware, us youths enjoy playing a game of “Mini” or “Yellow car”, where, upon seeing a mini or yellow car, you punch everyone else in the arm before they can do it to you. Fortunately I stepped in and shouted “I hereby ban the game ‘Yellow Car’ in Derby” and claimed that citizens of Derby are very bitter about the whole game and play “Pink Car” instead.

We jumped on the shuttle bus which would take us from Derby train station to Castle Donnington, where the festival is held. Naturally I jumped in and spoke to everyone as soon as I could, but unfortunately when the bus arrived, we all got split up. We carried our bags around for ages, through fields of thousands of tents, trying to find a spot to pitch ours. I think the whole camping aspect of the event could be a little better organised, but never mind. Eventually we found a spot in White Camp. I didn’t really get the opportunity to take a good picture of the sheer quantity of canvas housing, but it was truly epic.

As there weren’t any bands actually playing on Thursday, the campsite just opens early, we wandered around the fairground and gasped at the prices of food (£4 for a burger, £2.50 for a drink).

Unfortunately throughout the duration of the festival, we didn’t really socialise with anybody. I wasn’t overly bothered about that, because contrary to what I’d heard, the atmosphere didn’t seem that great at all. The entire place was infested with your typical loud, annoying teenager, with a few older people that clearly hadn’t grasped the concept of growing the fuck up, which really disappointed me. I didn’t go to Download for the line up, I went because the atmosphere was supposed to be really fantastic. There were a lot of thefts, a lot of loud, annoying people and there was a lot of violence. I think the entire experience would have been much nicer if more of my friends could have put aside their “I’m not going because the line up is shit” attitude, and come along. Never mind, there’s always next year.

Annoyingly a lot of the bands I wanted to see clashed with a lot of the bands that I’d not heard of, so I didn’t really get a huge opportunity to expand my listening taste. However, the bands that I did see (Seether, Disturbed, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Kiss, Alter Bridge, Biffy Clyro, Bullet for my Valentine, Incubus, The Offspring, Black Stone Cherry, Apocalyptica, Within Temptation, In Flames, Coheed & Cambria, Pendulum, Amon Amarth, The Wildhearts, Children of Bodom) were absolutely fantastic (with a few exceptions).

However, the entire festival ended with a huge anti-climax for me, because Jimmy Eat World and Lost Prophets were the two bands finishing on the main stage on the last day; two bands I absolutely loathe. I didn’t conform to the common activity of throwing bottles at bands I don’t like, instead I left Tallis to see the bands she really likes and went to see some of the other bands playing. I caught Children of Bodom, who were good, but I’m not a huge fan of them, and would have much preferred to see a band that I like on the main stage. Apparently Lost Prophets had quite a big firework display to finish off the festival, which I would have like to have seen had another band been playing. It’s nice that the people who do like those bands got to see them on the last night, but as I paid for both of us to go to the festival and everything, it would have been nice if I could have enjoyed the last night.

Monster, an American company were one of the sponsors at Download. They brought along a bike show, and the most fantastic energy I’ve ever had. It packs something like 35mg of caffeine per 100ml, in a 500ml can. It was so very nice.

The food, whilst expensive, was awesome. The large yorkshire puddings filled with gravy, sausages and mashed potato for £6 were extremely tasty. Pancakes with chocolate and marshmallows, falafels with salad and humous, burgers, chips, potato wedges, pasta, pizza, icecream, Belgian waffles; it was all so very good.

The journey home was a dull one. We woke up on Monday morning, got our tent packed and sorted by 9am, and got back to Derby train station for around 10. I had booked traint tickets with RailEasy, and because I didn’t have much money to spend, I got the really cheap ones, which meant that our train home wasn’t until 18:30. We decided to risk it and jump on the 10:24 train, but had to get off or be fined around £150 to travel to Exeter. We got off at Birmingham New Street and had a 7 hour wait in front of us, with 20p between us. Toilets cost 30p to use.  I actually recall lifting my head from my arm in the waiting room, looking at Tallis and saying “I’m hungry… and I can’t afford to poo!”, which is honestly something I thought I’d never say. Thankfully Tallis managed to contact her Dad, who wired £10 into her account, so Burger King was enjoyed, as was using the toilet facilities, which, I have to say, weren’t worth 30 pence. The 7 hours dragged as there is absolutely nothing to do at the train station. I didn’t much fancy hiking around Birmingham with all of the camping gear either. We were both tired and stressed, and looked awful because we’d spent 4 days at a festival, gathering a dirt tan, without showering. Eventually the train came and we got home, Subway in hand, anticipating the luxury of a shower and a bed.

Download was certainly a remarkable experience, though perhaps not the same as I was expecting. I suppose that’s the problem of imagining what the experience is like before you get there; even if it’s better, it’s not the same. I’m glad I saw the bands I saw, and I learnt a lot about going to a festival. Next year I’ll certainly go to another - whether it’ll be Download or something different, I don’t know.

More pictures here.