They both pulled decent crowds, particularly Power Trip. I was pleasantly surprised when Alien Weaponry and Power Trip played early Main Stage slots last year. There’s plenty of young exciting bands who should be getting slots on those stages, such as Code Orange, Black Peaks, Employed To Serve, Knocked Loose, Conjurer, Loathe and Jinjer to name a few. How have they landed a slot opening the Main Stage at the biggest festival of it‘s kind? Wayward Sons sound like your typical local pub band and play 300 capacity venues.

When they do, they afford slots on the top two stages to younger/newer bands, they go to dull as dishwater water bands who ape classic rock and American rock radio, such as Wayward Sons, Stone Broken and Those Damn Crows. Download seem to put them mostly in the tents. Nah, they don’t really, not on the top two stages, not very consistently. Whilst being a smaller festival, Bloodstock consistently book younger, exciting bands on their Main Stage. Apologies, I meant they have given a leg up to younger bands on the second Download stage which is a similar size to main stage Bloodstock, I didn’t mean those three exact bands had played Download second stage.

Download 2022 line up