From Donington To Download Read online

  I think it really broke us bigger, because we weren’t the same as other bands on there. We were looked on as a ‘newer rising act’ and bands like Rainbow, Judas Priest and Scorpions were established acts.

  It was really great; it was a special festival where the audience wanted to see everybody.”

  I went for a ride on Rob Halfords Harley-Davidson around the track, he didn’t know though!

  We watched all the bands because then it was different; the festival was in the field and the dressing rooms were in the pit lane. There wasn’t much down at the stage actually.

  Our agent booked all the bands and we were earmarked to become big. We came on in the afternoon, which isn’t always a good thing, but the reviews were actually really good for us ‘we should have been on later’, ‘they stole the show’ and all that sort of silliness, but we really enjoyed it”

  Biff Byford (Saxon -Vocals)

  “In 1980 it was announced to us that we had been booked for Donington a new festival; this was a good year for us as ‘Wheels Of Steel’ and two singles both did great and we were selling out everywhere,

  When we arrived, the dressing rooms were miles from backstage so we settled into our room. We had a balcony overlooking the courtyard below and Judas Priest was doing a photo shoot in full metal regalia with Rob looking like a ‘Metal God’. A few weeks before we had done a 7 week tour with them and Top Of The Pops so we went down to say hi and noticed a few people from other bands snickering at Rob in his gear; but they had the smile wiped off their faces when Priest hit the stage.

  Fortunately the set from Saxon was preserved on audio and listening to a new version recently (09) mastered at Abbey Road by EMI, it’s easy to see why this is the penultimate Saxon line up of the 5 original members with Pete Gill hammering the drums relentlessly and I in true Metal tradition destroyed my Stratocaster in ‘Machine Gun’.

  All the bands and liggers used a shuttle bus to the back stage area and I sat opposite to Joe Elliot who was sporting black and white trousers striped he was going down to catch our set as at that point he had not seen us or us them and were both curious to see the competition (but he was just a guest).

  The roar of the crowd when we hit the stage was unforgettable and when Gilly and Dobby were playing the sing back part in ‘Bap Shoo Ap’ the beat from just two was like a steam hammer and I remember thinking ‘this is Metal Woodstock.

  After our set I was going to watch the Scorpions when a Mercedes pulled up right behind the stage and the window came down. I heard Graham and it was Ritchie Blackmore shouting me over and he spoke as though we were old friends he said we did a great set and he also said I cannot tell you have a handicap (like Tony Iommi I have a finger end missing). He told me he had seen Hendrix at the Isle Of White Festival ten years before and he signed my program ‘To Graham’ which I still have to day. We chatted a while and he wished me well and off he went to his private room, but I had never spoke to him before.

  At this time we did not know that Donington, the first one, would become the iconic festival it has become or that the following years it would become the most famous metal gig of all. It was only when we met people like Lars, Dimebag and Motley Crue; they all asked about ‘wow what was the first Donington like?’ and it was great to tell the story to so many musicians and fans.”

  Graham Oliver (Saxon – Guitar)

  “Well, while things were brewing in the States with our singles “When The Spirit Moves You” and “Don’t You Know What Love Is” our manager Bruce Payne got us on a tour with Rainbow and we were off to Europe to open up. Quite memorable being on tour with the guitar player of my favorite band “Deep Purple” to say the very least.

  One show, Monsters of Rock Live At Donington, turned out to be more than we could have ever imagined. We arrived on a rainy, muddy day at the huge race track to open up the show which featured Rainbow, Judas Priest, Scorpions, Riot and April Wine. Without knowing it at the time, we became the first band ever to play at Monsters of Rock Festival.

  There was a sea of faces (60,000 people I was told)...almost as far as we could see...and I remembered what someone said...if you can get the front 5,000 people, you are good to go. I think it went really well, though no sound check...anyway, the audience responded great, though they had never heard of us before, mainly we focused on performing the songs properly. Tapes I’ve

  heard since, we sound spot on...the harmonies, etc. though it's hard to resist playing the songs a tad faster when the adrenalin is rushing thru you...

  What was interesting was, the mayhem that followed with all the other bands, we were fortunate to have been set up and ready to go (e.g. bass drum mic on the bass drum and guitar mic on the guitar, rather than on something else) because changing mics and channels, etc. through the day was a great challenge for the crew. This definitely helped when it came to mixing the “live” LP that was released.

  When I got off stage there was quite a commotion, rumours that our bass guitar player had maybe possibly swallowed a bee. That event seems to have overshadowed the entire day, the music, the two years of striving to get to that stage, kind of surreal really...and it was a good lesson to us.

  Anyway “Don’t You Know What Love Is” became #1 on the Melody Maker

  chart and there was Doug on the front page of Melody Maker holding the plastic cup from which he says he may have swallowed the bee. Is this Spinal

  Tap, or what?

  We ended up using the live performance on a live CD of the show and, to his credit, Roger Glover, who produced the LP, wouldn’t let us overdub or change the originally recorded tape...an honest moment... though we would have loved to have added our 30 part harmonies and walls of keyboards (I only have two hands and this was before sequencing, samples and all that).when I heard the CD I saw other bands hadn’t quite been as “reserved” in their approach, but it was cool and sounded OK.

  Anyway, proud to have done it, proud to have been there, look back at it with a huge smile on my face...would love to do it again...loved the time, the vibe, the musicianship, the values...all good stuff...”

  Mark Mangold (Touch – Keyboards / Vocals)

  “The funny thing about Donington was that when I was with Motorhead and Doug Smith Management, he was trying to put something on at Donington but Maurice Jones from MCP nipped in behind him and got the rights to Donington, so we were there right at the beginning, but that was why we did Port Vale. We were going to play Donington!”

  Fast Eddie Clarke (Motorhead - Guitar)

  “I was present at Cozy Powell’s final gig with Rainbow, spending time with him in the afternoon, meeting Ritchie Blackmore for the first time, I was sorry to see CP leaving the band, I always thought that Rainbow were one of the metal bands, and CP was a vital ingredient of the band.” Bernie Marsden (Whitesnake – Guitar)

  “The first one that I went to was the first one that was headlined by Rainbow in 1980.

  I was actually just out in the audience; I went with Sean Harris and Colin Kimberley the bass player.

  It was a good gig and we particularly enjoyed Rainbow as that was who we had mainly gone to see and Judas Priest were on. Priest were good on the day and I remember them doing ‘You Don’t Have To Be Old To Be Wise’.”

  Brian Tatler (Diamond Head – Guitar)

  “I remember very vividly as a kid, looking at the Donington posters and thinking one day I will play that (the year that Rainbow headlined in particular) I think Judas priest played that year also.”

  Myke Gray (Skin – Guitar)

  “We feel privileged to be a part of the history of the Donington Monsters Of Rock festival.

  We were there at the very first Monsters Of Rock in 1980. We thought we had a great vantage point looking down over the crowd underneath a Union Jack with Sheffield proudly painted across it. The view was great but the sound was awful. Half the music just disappeared up a cow’s arse a mile down the road due to a swirling wind. It was like watching a video out of sync (The g
ig not the cow’s arse).

  Saxon were good, so were the Scorpions, but Rainbow was fuckin’ awesome. Graham Bonnet looked like he had just come from a wedding party but what a voice.

  You have to applaud Paul Loadsby (promoter) who was brave enough to stick his arse on the line to give us Rock and Metal fans a festival we could finally call our own. Helped out by another legend in the rock promoter circus Maurice Jones of MCP (Midland Concert Promotions).”

  The Bailey Brothers (Mick & Dez Donington Comperes)

  “The first ever 'Monsters of Rock' at Castle Donington, was to be my first ever experience of a gig, and to be honest, as a naïve 16 yr old, I don't remember that much of the actual performances, it was the experience as a whole.

  The red double decker bus ride from Broadmarsh Bus station to the venue, buzzing with anticipation. The sight of the gathering crowd outside the gates. Once inside, I was blown away by the sea of people, the stalls, the plethora of colours, the smells (some very suspect!!!!) and the mud bath!

  I vividly recall a group of fans skidding and sliding up and down the field, left of stage, to uproars, and ovations, plastered from head to toe in sludge.

  It was a day where I heard the sentence "OK you bad ass M. F's..." more times than I care to mention....And the portaloo experience, which I'd rather forget.....the queues, my fear of getting lost........oh, and Rainbow, a classic performance of ‘Since you've Been Gone’.

  Fond, fond memories.”

  Jane Bartley (Plymouth)

  “I attended all 15 of the ‘Monsters of Rock’ festivals at Castle Donington.

  I am probably fortunate that I was at the right age at the time of the first festival (17 years old) to be able to go on to attend all the festivals. In fact (although a little sad in hindsight) during the 80s it was my highlight of the year each year.

  I would organise the tickets, the transport (5 of us in a Ford Cortina in 1980 to 20 of us in two transit vans in ’87 and ’88), the banners & flagpoles (these became more ambitious every year with flags and flashing lights etc being added each year, some people actually used our flagpoles as meeting points), and of course……..the beer. Over the years the rules for which containers you could use for carrying your beer in changed from using virtually whatever you liked to not being able to use anything at all, but the daftest idea was probably when you could use a 2-litre bottle as long as the top and neck had been cut off, this made it almost impossible to carry when full.

  Most people would probably say that spending all day in a mostly muddy (Donington was famed for its mud way before Glastonbury) field with up to 100 thousand denim and leather clad rockers listening to a sometimes inaudible racket was their version of Hell, but to me it has given me some of the greatest memories of my life and I am proud to claim that I attended them all and loved every minute of it.

  In 1980 I had never attended an outdoor festival before, so my excitement was at fever pitch during the preceding week, especially as my all-time hero (still is to this day) Ritchie Blackmore would be headlining. There were all sorts of rumours about Blackmore playing a major solo on top of the speaker stacks way above the stage (as it happened this didn’t take place due to some mechanical lift failure apparently).

  My very first view of Donington (and my earliest memory) was as we approached the entrances from the car park I could see the merchandise stalls from afar with the Rainbow ‘Down to Earth’ knitted scarves pinned to the top of the marquees. I had missed out on one of these scarves from the tour earlier in the year, so my wallet was honed into buying one as soon as we got in. I still have it today (along with all the festival t-shirts and programmes from every year).

  I also recall that there was a Greenpeace stall, selling ‘what else’ but ‘Rainbow Warrior’ t-shirts. There was also an official Rainbow fan club stall on site.

  Musically the highlight of the day (and probably of any day) was the way Rainbow segued ‘Since You Been Gone’ into ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ and then straight into ‘Stargazer’ (my favourite song ever)….even though Graham Bonnet did mess the words up a bit. Cozy Powell’s ‘1812 overture’ drum solo went off with its usual bang and Blackmore’s (stage managed) setting fire to a speaker stack during his guitar onslaught finale were other fond memories of the headlining act.

  I remember getting into a queue for a burger approx 20 minutes prior to Judas Priests’ set and still being stood in the same place in the queue some one and a half hours later after they had left the stage. I think the stallholder must have been a Priest fan.

  To me Scorpions were playing as well as they ever did at that time in their career (prior to the MTV-friendly version we got a few years later) and their set was as faultless as ever (I saw them 3 times during 1980). I recall ‘Pictured Life’ being a particular favourite of mine at the time.

  Saxon were also on a roll on the back of their nationwide ‘Wheels of Steel’ tour. They went down very well.

  Of the other bands I can only really remember April Wine being ok.

  The weather on the day was fine, but the preceding fortnight continuous rain had made the site a mudbath.

  The toilets were appalling!!!”

  Paul Hartshorn (Chesterfield)

  “I have to admit I don't remember a whole lot about the bands as this was my first festival and I was just caught up in the atmosphere of the whole thing. However, this is what I can remember.

  Saxon, who were the first band I ever saw live, were at their peak and put in a decent set, including their 2 biggest hits ‘Wheels of Steel’ and ‘(747) Strangers in the Night’ fronted by my neighbour from Barnsley Pete 'Biff' Byford. I remember Biff lived in a 2-up 2-down terrace house at the time but rode the biggest motorbike I'd ever seen which must have been worth as much as the house.

  Speaking of motorbikes, there was a huge roar from the crowd when Rob Halford took to the stage on a Harley although if memory serves there was some confusion at first as Halford had changed his hair colour/style for the gig and for a few seconds some people were in a panic that Halford had been replaced by someone else. Scorpions were as brilliant as they've always been in the dozen or so times I've seen them. Klaus Mein's 'Hello Donning Castle' was classic Klaus.

  Rainbow were awesome instrumentally but Rick Astley look-a-like Graham Bonnet's voice could never match Dio's live. Blackmore was his usual tease, giving little snippets of classic Purple/Rainbow songs, so when he started playing ‘Stargazer’ we all thought we'd just get a few bars as he'd always said it was too complicated a song to reproduce live. When we realised they were ACTUALLY GOING TO PLAY ‘STARGAZER’ the whole placed erupted! It still brings chills to my spine 30 years later.

  I was on such a high from the whole day that I didn't care that I was caked in mud, we missed our last bus home, had to sleep under a tree by a river which I fell into in the middle of the night and then spend the early hours of Sunday morning wandering around Derby to find a launderette to dry my clothes. It was one of those days that I'm privileged to say that 'I was there'.”

  Tony Nixon (Plymouth)

  “The best experience I ever had at Donington park was at the first ever Monsters of rock Saturday 16th August 1980. Back then I was 18 and it was my first ever festival.

  I attended it with my good friend Robert Tosh, who sadly isn’t with us anymore. RIP. He was 24 and decided to take me with him to Donington. I remember every detail of the experience we started by getting the overnight Liverpool boat on the Thursday in order to be there for Friday, we then got the train to Crewe, and then travelled from Crewe to Derby. We dropped our stuff off at the Redsetters guest house and went off to buy our Monsters of Rock tickets. (Which I still have, it’s proudly framed and hung on the wall as its one of my most prized possessions). I can still remember that the ticket only cost us £7.50 each, which is unreal considering the bands we got to see live.

  On the Saturday we got the bus into Donington Park, it was a sunny day, but the fields were covered in muck, but that didn’t m
atter we just couldn’t wait to see all the bands on stage. I always thought it was amazing how between each bands performance instead of having music playing in the background they had DJ Neal Kay playing.

  Throughout the performances of the bands that played there, there are a couple of moments that will always stand out to me.

  Saxon on stage playing ‘747’ and ‘Wheels Of Steel’, the crowd went nuts.

  Rob Halford walking out on stage dressed head to toe in leather and studs milking the crowd, and then cracking his whip straight into the intro song and KK Downing, ripping away on his flying V guitar to ‘Sinner’.

  One of the main highlights was definitely when the main headliner RAINBOW were to appear on stage, their intro music soared through the sound system, and as soon as they appeared on stage I was lifted about 30-40ft forward because of the surge of the crowd and ended up at the very front of the stage, I couldn’t believe I was so close to these rock n roll legends.

  From then I attended Donington until 1984, then travelled back again in 2008 and 2009 for Download. I’m now 48 and still a loud and proud metal head.”

  John Dickson (Belfast)

  1981

  AC/DC,

  Whitesnake, Blue Oyster Cult, Slade, Blackfoot, More,

  Tommy Vance DJ

  Back for another year and another amazing line-up.

  With AC/DC making their first headline appearance at Donington the festival was bound to be a success. Coming off the commercial triumph that was ‘Back In Black’, several songs from the album littered the set, including ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’, ‘Hells Bells’ and the albums title track. Now with Brian Johnson, accepted by all the fans, at the helm on vocals, after Bon Scott’s death in 1980, AC/DC were slowly becoming one of the most popular and biggest rock bands in the world. They remain the band that is most linked with the Donington festivals from the beginnings of MOR to Download; 2010 will be their 4th slot at the festival, a joint record for Donington headline appearances equalled by Iron Maiden.