AFTER AMASSIVE four-day event to celebrate its 20th anniversary brought a sell-out crowd to Castle Donington, Download Festival is back and raring to go for its 21st birthday!
The 2024 edition will see a return from Avenged Sevenfold, fresh from the release of their surprising, genre-hopping album Life Is But ADream…, plus debut headline sets from Queens Of The Stone Age and Fall Out Boy.
Granted, it’s not the most metal headline line-up, but after a year that saw Bring Me The Horizon make their headline debut, Metallica play two entirely different sets and Slipknot utter a triumphant roar amid possibly their most chaotic year yet, we can hardly complain that the rest of the rock and alternative spectrum are getting a look-in.
“WE’RE BRINGING ABIG, POSTMODERN EVENT”
Both Queens Of The Stone Age and Fall Out Boy have only played Download once before, albeit in prominent spots. QOTSA played beneath Iron Maiden in 2013, while Fall Out Boy played below Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory headline set in 2014. The elevation of both bands to headline status at Download marks the first time since 2012 that the festival has brought in two new headliners for the weekend –that year seeing debut headline sets from The Prodigy and Black Sabbath –and a definitive commitment to embracing newer acts, meaning the likes of Ghost, Five Finger Death Punch or even Sleep Token could get the call-up sooner than anyone expected.
Besides, Download Festival’s shift to bringing in younger bands for its 2023 edition made it feel like one of the most vital years at Donington yet, and 2024 is positively heaving with ascendant and veteran talent from the heavy metal world. Machine Head are officially ending their festival drought after almost a decade away from the fields of Europe –a secret set at Bloodstock in 2022 and headline appearance at Graspop 2023 notwithstanding –by making a return to Donington next year as part of asummer schedule that will also see them appear at Poland’s Mystic Festival, Greenfield in Switzerland, Austria’s Nova Rock, Denmark’s Copenhell and Rock Am Ring/Rock Im Park in Germany.