Doms Post on Metal Hammer site
Oh, now look at what you’ve gone and done. All of the bitching and whining done about festivals this year has pushed our very own Dom Lawson over the edge. Read his rant inside!
If there’s one thing that life has taught me, it’s that the more things stay exactly the fucking same, the more ridiculously irritating they become. And the internet, for all its many wonderful features (none spring to mind, obviously, but I’m sure there must be some, considering that most of us seem to spend out ENTIRE FUCKING LIVES staring at the damn thing), seems to have mutated into a giant magnifying glass with the sole purpose of making all the really annoying aspects of people’s idiotic behaviour seem a million times bigger and more brain-shaggingly stupid and soul-destroying. Yeah, thanks a lot, the internet. You fatuous tosspiece.
Yes, it’s that time of year again. Despite trying to fool the handful of people that actually pay any attention to what I do on a daily basis that I’m a professional music journalist with some vaguely interesting opinions to impart, the reality of my day-to-day existence, as winter becomes spring, is that I am spending more and more time gawping at my monitor, reading the witless and enervating synapse-spittle of joyless arsetools who simply can’t get their tiny, pointed heads around the self-evident fact that rock festivals in the UK are not designed specifically with their own implausibly awful and/or splendid taste in music in mind.
Suddenly, I’m struck with an overwhelming sense of deja-vu, because yes, I did write a blog about this very fucking subject roughly 12 months ago, inspired by the mind-blowing phenomenon of supposedly sentient beings expressing distaste at the announcement that Download had booked AC/DC and Aerosmith – two of the BIGGEST FUCK OFF ROCK BANDS ON THE PLANET, lest we forget – as headliners for 2010’s jamboree of ear-damage and liver abuse. And here we are again, one year on, and the whole exhausting cavalcade of cuntish behaviour dribbles inexorably on. How fucking marvellous.
This year’s tard-fest is somewhat different, of course. In 2009 and 2010, most people seemed relatively satisfied with the fact that the UK had two major mainstream rock/metal festivals to enjoy during the summer months. The emergence of Sonisphere meant that people had a choice of large scale rock knees-ups for the first time in years and, thanks to line-ups that were necessarily distinct, the two festivals could only really be said to complement each other. Only people with fat wallets or ghastly freeloaders like myself could reasonably expect to attend both in one year, of course, but that’s beside the point.
A bit of choice, for once, seemed like a good thing and a decent number of people expressed their preference for one festival or the other with a modicum of grace and intelligence, give or take a few thousand utter twazzocks who would complain mid-blowjob if the curtains were THE WRONG CUNTING COLOUR.
In contrast, 2011 appears to have become the ‘Year Of The Perpetually Whining Cock’, and for reasons best known to the drooling turdslingers who have been cluttering up forums, Facebooks, Tumblrs and Twitters for the last few weeks with their tedious complaints, the Download festival has been the main recipient of all the vitriol.
I guess that’s the price the organisers’ are bound to pay for being the original UK rock/metal bonanza: if you’ve been leading the way for a long time, the new kid on the block is always going to have more immediate appeal, the enticing gleam of the new and an air of freshness that a legendary venue like Castle Donington has long since outgrown. And yes, this year’s Sonisphere line-up looks pretty fucking great.
You can’t really argue with the Big Four or Slipknot as mighty headliners, and there are many, many other great bands on the bill too. And Limp Bizkit (fuck off, Dom – Beez). After having their arses gently booted for the last two years (with all due respect, Download won this non-existent war by booking Faith No More and Slipknot in 2009 and AC/DC trumps everything, always), Sonisphere have come up with the goods in 2011 and it doesn’t take a genius to see why, at this stage in the game, the new boys are getting the most praise.
But here’s a nugget of truth-poo for your brain-cupboards: this entire pointless debate is entirely based on an unavoidably unequal divide in support for two utterly different festival line-ups, and so as great as the Sonisphere bill undoubtedly is, every time I read some squawking dullard bitching away about how it’s “game over” and how Donington is going to be a silent wasteland populated only by tumbleweed and a heartbroken, snivelling Andy Copping sitting on a tearstained picnic blanket, I genuinely feel like setting fire to the internet and laughing as all these toothless moaners scream their mentally-deficient way into a thoroughly deserved early grave.
The truth is that for many punters, the Download bill is looking absolutely fucking splendid. Call me a cunt if you like, and I’m sure some of you will whip yourselves into a froth at the very idea that I might have an opinion that doesn’t precisely mirror your own, but I’m really looking forward to seeing Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, The Cult, System Of A Down, Korn, Alter Bridge, Down, Danzig (“what is a Dainzig?” – Ed), Thin Lizzy, Twisted FUCKING Sister, Avenged Sevenfold, Clutch, Cheap Trick, Turisas, GWAR, Evile, Suicide Silence, Your Demise, Ghost, Sacred Mother Tongue and All That Remains.
There are also more names yet to be announced, one of which has already made me nearly snap my penis in half with excitement. If that’s a shit festival line-up, then I’m Taylor Momsen. Whoever the fuck she is!!! RIGHT, KIDS???
Yes, of course, there are some bands on the Download bill that make me want to STAB STAB STAB, but then I’d rather be skinned alive and boiled in my own hissing diarrhoea than have to sit through All-Time Low, Sum 41 or Kids In Glass Houses either. Beer exists. I fail to see a problem.
And yes, I’m genuinely excited about seeing Def Leppard again. They were amazing last time round, as virtually everyone who saw them will agree, and if ever there was a band with a catalogue of hits big enough to pull off a second headlining turn at Download within three years then it’s artful old hands like them.
I find it faintly hilarious that people are criticising Download for booking the Leps again, not least because Sonisphere have booked Metallica for the second time in three years too (and let’s face it, Rick Allen is a better drummer than Lars Ulrich and can actually play Photograph and Pour Some Sugar On Me properly without passing out. Add your own limb-related punchline to that one, if you wish! Superlolz!!1!).
In fact, if you look at the headliners for both festivals, it’s a little bit ridiculous to be hurling abuse at either one. As much as I’d love to see Iron Maiden, Rush and Van Halen headlining Download, it’s obviously not going to happen this year. I suspect that Mr. Copping considered all options and researched the availability of all of rock’s biggest names before deciding on his headliners and it’s a little bit moronic to suggest otherwise.
Meanwhile, Sonisphere and Metallica are openly in cahoots and the Big Four thing was always on the cards, wasn’t it? Okay, so Linkin Park are WELL TOILET on an extraordinary scale and I fully intend to drink myself to death in the VIP bar during their set, but there will be other, more entertaining things happening elsewhere at Donington at that point anyway. Rob Zombie setting fire to robots, for starters!
Anyway, all waffling and idle hatred aside, my point is this: Download and Sonisphere are both going to be fucking great. Personally, I’m going to Download. I missed it last year and was gutted to do so. This year, I have grand plans to scream myself hoarse during Twisted BASTARD Sister, to bang my head until vomit spurts out of my nose during Evile and to cause major damage to my spine while Cossack dancing to System Of A Down. If that sounds like the sort of weekend you might enjoy, then do feel free to join me.
If you’d rather go to Sonisphere, feel free to do that instead! That’s the wonder of choice, ladies and gentlemen. As much as you Sonisphere fans might like to think that Andy Copping will be chasing you down your local high street with eyes full of tears, waving a soggy Download ticket at you and begging you to reconsider, I suspect he can cope with the notion that you can’t win ‘em all and that pleasing all the people all of the time is, if we’re being honest, an impossible dream. Back in the sane world Donington will be, as always, a little bit magical.
It’s festival season. Put a smile on your face, buy a ticket for the event that looks most exciting and start saving up for your exorbitant bar tab. As someone scary once said, do what thou sodding well wilt. And then shut the fuck up about it and stop annoying me. And throw your laptop out of the window. And get a girlfriend. And shave off that ridiculous excuse for a beard. You bleating fanny. Now fuck off. I’m starving.
Lots of love,
Dom Lawson xxx
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment