Having a wander round the site on the Thursday night none of it seemed familiar as they’ve moved everything away from the racetrack which is where the main stage used to be at Monsters Of Rock. This was to improve things according the festival website but I think it had more to do with the site owners wanting to keep marauding rock fans away from the track prior to the visit of the MotoGP boys the next week! There were three stages this year with the main stage having a much reduced capacity from the old days and a maximum total attendance of 55,000. 

The main stage on the Friday had an interesting line-up and I made my way over on a break to see Kid Rock. Unfortunately he didn’t play due to illness (although there were rumours it was more to do with him not being happy about something!) so I caught some of Disturbed’s set instead. I love the band and have seen them live a few times but this time they disappointed. Something about the airy, sunny atmosphere and the PA not really carrying their meaty riffs very far took the edge off their performance and it failed to impress. A band who’re better indoors I think!

I heard rather than saw Motorhead do their usual thundering blast through their back catalogue and the same went for Judas Priest. The latter sounded pretty good from where I was and I thought Rob Halford’s vocals were better than expected until they played “Painkiller”. They really need to drop that song from the set as he can’t hit a single note of it anymore!

I finished up for the night early as there was no way I was going to miss Friday’s headliners. I’ve been a huge Kiss fan for years and hadn’t seen them since 1999 so there’s no way I was missing their only UK gig of 2008! What turned out to be the largest crowd for any band all weekend roared as the curtain dropped, the flash bombs went off and they opened with a cracking version of “Deuce”. The current set list is mostly based around “Kiss Alive” and the main part of the show is about celebrating their heyday and boy did it work. Simmons and Stanley are still the charismatic performers they always have been and despite many of the crowd not being familiar with the “Alive” material they still had the audience in the palms of their hands. The current Kiss line up causes controversy amongst the hard core fans with Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer dressed up in Ace Frehley’s and Peter Criss’ make up and costumes and, as a long time fan myself I’d like to see Ace back in the band but if that’s not going to happen Thayer does a  fine impression of him. Eric Singer on the other hand is ten times the drummer Peter Criss is these days so I’m happy to see him on the drum stool.

The main set in the end consisted of all of “Alive” apart from three songs and ended with a cracking version of “Rock And Roll All Night” complete with huge confetti canons creating a summer snowstorm and the band being raised off the stage on floating platforms hung from the lighting rig. They came back on for an encore which in itself was a forty five minute trawl through their greatest hits. Paul Stanley’s voice was a bit ropey on the high notes of “I Was Made For Loving You” but this was a minor blip on a night of triumph for the band. Many of the audience were too young to have seen a full-scale Kiss show before and were blown away by the showmanship, the fireworks flying from the roof of the stage, the rocket firing guitar, Simmons’ blood spitting flight up into the night sky, Stanley’s flight out to the mixing desk for “Love Gun” and all the rest. On top of that the music was great too and they even stuck a bit of The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” into “Lick It Up”. Kiss may be a nostalgia act these days and have no interest in recording new material but they are still a powerful and enjoyable live act. If they tour the UK in 2009 don’t miss them! 

Saturday turned out to be a very busy day so I only heard Saxon tearing up the smallest tented stage from a distance. I did manage to get to the second stage to see Ace Frehley giving the festival more of Kiss’ finest tunes and very good he was too. Obviously a very much more stripped down rock and roll version but the solo material and Kiss songs he played went down a treat. The set was far too short though at 40 minutes, something which plagued the festival. There were far too many bands playing twenty, thirty or forty minute sets and the organisers need to book less bands next time. On the main stage that day only Alter Bridge caught my ears’ attention with their melody standing out from the rest of the fare on offer. Bullet For My Valentine went down really well but I couldn’t really understand why and The Offspring were a poor choice of headliner who put in a lacklustre performance which had many of the audience drifting off before the end. 

Sunday was another busy working day but I made a point of catching Within Temptation on the main stage. They didn’t seem to have a huge amount of support at the start of their set but Sharon Den Adel put in her usual hard working, livewire performance, exhorting the audience to clap and wave and join in until that’s exactly what they do. Meantime the band sounded great and the vocals were spot on, her beautiful voice carrying out over the crowd. The set list consisted of four songs from the latest album “The Heart Of Everything” and two oldies from “Mother Earth” and that was your lot. Another victim of a forty minute time slot the crowd had just been pulled in and interested and they had to leave the stage. The bands that followed, Coheed And Cambria, In Flames and Jimmy Eat World, none of whom made much impression. Sunday’s poor main stage line up completed by headliners the Lost Prophets and I found them tuneless and boring so my weekend of work being over I headed over to the second stage to catch the last part of the Cavalera Conspiracy’s set. I wasn’t particularly enamoured by the new material I heard but they finished the set with some Sepultura classics and “Roots Bloody Roots” had a big crowd summoning the last of the weekend’s energy to have a good old mosh. 

Maybe I’m an old fogey these days but in my opinion this festival was poorly organised and had a lacklustre line up and too many bands playing. According to rumour the circuit owners may be dropping their involvement with Download to concentrate on race events so if the festival moves on to another site I hope the organisers have a rethink as to how it works and who they sign up to play. Meantime I’m away for a rest before Bloodstock comes round!