The festival season is in full swing. After highlights such as Tempelhof Sounds, Maifeld Derby, Hurricane, Southside, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, metal fans in particular got their money’s worth last weekend: The Download Festival took place at the Hockenheimring – with no less a headliner than Metallica. In the gallery you can see the photos that our photographer Dieter Jakob took of James Hetfield and Co. – and also some of Sabaton, Five Finger Death Punch, Enter Shikari, Behemoth, Holding Absence, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and Ghostkid.
How did Dieter and presumably you like it? He informed us: At the Download Festival we were “the tough guys among themselves. Martial stage constructions, costumes, pyrotechnics without end, there was everything that today’s inclined headbangers could expect. The announcement before each show that crowd surfing, wall of death and circle pits would immediately lead to the exclusion of the festival was a bit strange. Neither the bands, some of whom actively motivated the crowd, nor the audience stuck to it (at least for the last two points). I don’t know whether there were actually festival references because of this. The weather was better than predicted, at first even suspected of sunburn. But just in time for the headliners, it poured from all buckets. This can be seen very clearly in the Sabaton pictures. Nevertheless, the mood was great, neither the audience nor the photographers let the showers spoil their mood and stayed until the end. It was clear anyway, who would miss out on Metallica? Especially since it stopped raining again with the first tones of Metallica. Petrus is just a metal head!”