Download Festival Review: Linkin Park, Gojira, Lizzies, Touche Amore, House Of Pain, June 22, Caja Magica, Madrid

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Midway through their set at Madrid’s Download Festival, Gojira frontman Joe Duplantier told the crowd that we were all here to forget about the bullshit and be in the moment together. In saying this he essentially articulated what festivals can be at their best. Its about community, about coming together and enjoying yourselves in a weird little shared made up world that lasts for a weekend or so. And as weird little made up worlds go, the first day of the Madrid edition of the Download Festival had a few things going for it despite taking place in a city currently in a bit of a stifling heat wave.

Aside from Gojira’s high energy, passionate set of tech-metal, other highlights of the day included LA post-hardcore crew Touché Amoré and some ’90s nostalgia in the form of Irish hip hop dudes House of Pain, who brought out special guest Sick Jack to do his thing on several of their numbers and to add a bit of Spanish stage banter while also hyping up his new project Warporn, which may or may not involve someone from Cypress Hill, I’m not sure. I don’t speak Spanish. The best thing I saw all day though were locals Lizzies, who added a much needed touch of estrogen to the male-heavy lineup while also putting on an impressive performance of their ’80s-style heavy metal/rock n’ roll tunes, even making time for a revved up cover of “House Of The Rising Sun.” With a dynamic frontwoman and a visual aesthetic that brought to mind the Runaways and Girlschool, they put on an engaging performance.

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Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington made some waves a little while back when he said that fans who were griping about the bands new sound needed to “move the fuck on” from their debut album Hybrid Theory. I’ve got to say I agree with him 100% – I moved on from the album almost immediately after it was released and in fact I’m fairly certain that I’ve never even heard the whole thing all the way through. No, I’m not a fan, though I’ve been known to join in whenever someone picks “In The End” at the karaoke bar, and for the record, I think new single “Heavy” is fine as those things go, but the band’s not really my cup of tea. That said, I happened to be in Madrid, the band happened to be headlining a night at the festival and since I was there anyways, I figured why not give them a shot? As it turns out, my tolerance for Linkin Park is pretty low as I lasted about one and a half songs before ultimately deciding that, nope, I have no desire to hear any more, nor did I have the stamina to stick around any longer to hear later sets from Dark Tranquillity (OK band, terrible spellers), Monster Magnet, and, for some reason, an AC/DC cover band, so I made it an early night and headed back to some much needed air conditioning.

Posted on by Paul in Concerts