Download Debut. (Patreon)

Hey fallers, it’s been a while but she’s back and ready to give you a little insightful ‘blog’ post all about our day playing the absolute pinnacle of U.K. alternative festivals, Download.

What a year to make our debut appearance at this festival, the 20th anniversary, 4 days of incredible bands and they asked us to be a part of it. When we got that offer through, that feeling was so incredible, it was just so rewarding and once again reminded us that we are on the right path. We question our decisions on a daily basis because we are coming in blind, we still don’t know if we need a label and all the contacts they possess to get on to these huge stages, have we made the right move staying independent for all these years? And so when an offer comes through like this, it is so reassuring, that the simple answer to that question is yes. Yes, because having this independence gives us freedom, why do we need someone else helping us make decisions when it’s you guys that we want to be on this journey with. You are our label and we love that, in the words of high school musical, we’re all in this together, the connection we form with all of you genuinely means the world to us because without you, we would not have just played Download, be releasing our third album, be chart registered for that album, or planning another insane tour, (they just keep getting bigger and better.) I know this has definitely gone on a tangent but I just want to make it clear that we love you, and thank you for sticking by us all these years.

Now for the fun stuff, what’s it like playing Download festival. Well friends, I’m gonna tell ya!

First things first, we start nice and early as we need to pick up all our gear, all our people, and traffic was said to be a problem! As you all know we are from Nottingham, and so what is usually a 30 minute journey had taken between 3 & 4 hours the day before. Needless to say we were a bit worried… But don’t worry pals, we got there with plenty of time!

Artist accreditation is our first stop, this is where we get all of our passes/ wristbands/ everything we will need for our day at the festival, from here Timmy and our amazing pal Robbie drove the van with all our gear round to the back of the Avalanche stage, whilst the rest of us had a long old mosey through the empty festival grounds. (there are shuttle buses for artists/crew to take but it felt too cool to miss out on seeing the Download grounds empty) We spoke to the stage manager and explained our set-up, all was well and we were brought to our dressing room in the artist village by our liaison. Small fun story, there was a mystery door in our dressing room that us and the band the other side kept knocking on/trying to open to little success, this band was none other than Stand Atlantic. After the door debacle, I plaited Timmy’s hair, as this has become one of my main duties within the band😂. Who needs a singer when you need a hairdresser right? Then we decided to go and explore before heading out into the festival to watch some bands. The artist village is basically a load of green shed like buildings, our dressing room consisted of a mirror (which I am eternally grateful for,) a bucket of ice filled with water/ soft drinks/ and beer, and then a table and chairs, very basic but to be honest you’d be surprised how many dressing rooms we have been in that don’t have ANY of that stuff, and also what more could we need? Now the cantine area was cool af. They had food (obviously,) and a desert station, to which I helped myself to ice cream with rainbow sprinkles and 3 chocolate flakes, (I am a 5 year old,) but they also had a hair salon, a makeup artist, a tattooist, a nail bar, a coffee shop, it was all very cool, however we had very limited time throughout the day to actually use it.🙈

Now we’re on the fun stuff, playing the Avalanche Stage at Download Festival. Now it’s no secret that I get super nervous before every show, but guess what, I didn’t get nervous. And do you want to know why? Because we had some of the cheesiest pre-show bangers playing in that tent and they distracted me from my usual feeling of… am i going to throw up? Spice girls followed by S-Club 7, Barbie Girl, Vengaboys, honestly I’m tempted to make that our pre-show playlist for every show because the tent were loving it. Never did I think I would be about to play Download and see a tent full of emo’s dancing to 5,6,7,8.

All of a sudden, the gang were backstage, we were doing our little band huddle and genuinely just telling eachother how proud we were to have made it this far. By far, that small moment is the one I will remember forever. *soppy alert* I love these guys so much and they have been in my life for 10 years now; I don’t think any of us thought we were going to get to this point but here we are, and I will never take any of that for granted. It was the perfect moment to simply say, we rock, look where we are, now let’s go kick some ass.

So the avalanche tent holds 10,000 people. Yet there were so many of you, that lots of people simply could not get into that tent. We have been told that we had the second highest attendance of the Avalanche Stage during the 4 days of the festival, (beaten only by Electric Callboy, but you know what, I really don’t mind losing to them) To hear that, it just feels insane, all these people want to come and see little old socially anxious me? Looking out from the stage to see the sea of bodies in that tent, Wow. Just wow.

Okay so another small story from the day. As usual, at the end of the performance I couldn’t help myself but to jump off stage and come scream on the barrier with you guys, but as I jumped, I also pulled a muscle in my ‘upper leg’. This sent shooting pains up my whole body which genuinely made me want to throw up, so once I was out of sight behind the stage, you could find me laying on the ground trying my best to stretch it out. It took a whole 24 hours to get rid of the nausea and I can still at this moment feel the tension. (I really need to stop being lazy in this heat and do some yoga to fully stretch it out!) But because of this, we didn’t get to take a crowd photo with you all which we are gutted about.

Within 15 minutes of us coming off stage we were rushed to the press area for interviews, and then from half past seven, the evening was ours! And what an evening it was! We saw so many of you in the crowds and we were inundated with messages from all of you telling us how proud you were to have watched us grow, or from new fans telling us that they loved the performance, that show meant so much to us, and I am so happy we got there as a DIY band, with nothing but the support of our amazing fan base, and a hell of a lot of hard work!

Special thanks to:

Tom, Robbie, Justin, Lauren, & Jessy for being our amazing crew for the day!

Ian, Siobhan, Hayley & Alessandra for being our dedicated small ADF team!

And of course my handsome band mates, Ande & Timmy, I wouldn’t be here without you.

Download, that was something else.