Download Festival 2023 – Saturday. Rescheduled from yesterday due to technical issues, the mighty galactic warriors GWAR landed at Download to bring their own brand of Heavenly Metal. Introduced by King Charles, the alien troupe came swinging into battle with the mighty wave of Genocide, and it was gloves off from that moment on.
Blood gushed, enemies, slain, and worlds conquered in a welter of body fluids and loud guitars. Quite how GWAR managed to keep cool in their battle dress is probably the biggest mystery of all.
Placebo
Placebo, on the other hand, looked cool in white, the achingly cool Brian Molko with not a hair out of place. With their soaring electro-art rock, the band showed their uniquely jagged take is still the sound of the present and future.
Filling the same space as Muse but without some of the bombast, Placebo knows how to fill an enormous space. Forever Chemicals positively soared, Hugz, with its refrain of “a hug is another way of hiding your face”, was devastating and the Gary Numan industrial rock of Slave To The Wage pulsed with life.
With a triumphant Nancy Boy stripping back the years (first time live since 2017) but still sounding fresh, you would have thought that Molko and bass player Stefan Olsdal had a DeLorean tucked away somewhere.
Take Part: Are you at Download this year? Who are you looking forward to see? Want to get in touch and tell us how it’s going? Email MetalTalk Editor Steve Ritchie to tell us how it’s going for you. Download@MetalTalk.net.
Download Festival 2023
MetalTalk Download 2023 coverage can be found at MetalTalk.net/tag/download-2023
Download 2023 will see the festival celebrate its 20th anniversary with an additional day, meaning four days of live music in total.
This year’s MetalTalk team is:
Photography:
For Download 2022, visit MetalTalk.net/tag/download-2022