The big review: Download 2026 – Friday

And we're off! Download 2026 is finally here, and after some wet weather threatening to derail the fun, the sun's finally rocked up, and it's party time once again.

As well as a staggering line-up, topped by Limp Bizkit, Guns N' Roses and Linkin Park, this year's fest is bigger than ever - literally. The Apex Stage is even more hench and massive than previous years, while the Opus, Avalanche and Dogtooth stages have all been expanded as well. Perfect for one of the biggest-selling weekend's in Download history.

Here, we bring you all the action from across the weekend as it happens. So, get ready to bounce in the mosh-pit as rock's biggest party takes over Donington Park once again!

• The big review: Download 2026 – Saturday
• How Limp Bizkit triumphed at their Download 2026 headliner
• How Electric Callboy got the party started at Download 2026
• What happened when Architects headlined Download's Opus Stage
• Guns N' Roses give Download Festival flashes of brilliance

The colour red has been everywhere across Donington Park today. Some of it has been sunburn, but a lot of it has been red Fred Durst-style baseball caps. Download has a severe case of Bizkit fever, responsible for a low-level buzz all day that trumps the usual level of anticipation around headliners.

Download fact fans will remember that Limp Bizkit were meant to do this 23 years ago at the inaugural Download but dropped out and were replaced by Audioslave. Still, it’s only been in the last few years that it felt like a viable prospect again. Nu metal got thrown out like yesterday’s newspaper, their enthusiasm live lagged, and then there was Wes Borland’s phase of stepping in and out of the band like he was doing the hokey cokey.

Post-pandemic, as baggy jeans and aggy riffs became cool again, everything flipped. Limp Bizkit’s feral 2024 sub-headline slot made them a sort of honorary headliner, pulling a crowd denser than actual headliners Avenged Sevenfold. They’ve returned to claim the top spot at an impressively fast turnaround, even without much new music to promote. The setlist remains mostly the same, but nobody cares. They want the hits and they want them now.

Limp Bizkit’s set is a different sort of celebration. They acknowledge the death of bassist Sam Rivers immediately at the top of the set, along with the more recent loss of friend Dougie Millers. Both are mentioned multiple times, but in the sense of commemoration more than mourning. “We are all here to celebrate life and celebrate music,” Fred Durst says mid-set. Even the sentimentality of Behind Blue Eyes is accompanied with a call to crowdsurf for “all the ones we have lost”. Funeral music this is not – this is music to awake both your rebellious teenage self and put your monkey brain in the driver’s seat.

Read the full review: "A different sort of celebration": How Limp Bizkit triumphed at their Download 2026 headliner

Thirty-three years since its release, Sepultura’s Chaos A.D. still has the bite of a rabid dog with too many teeth. Tonight, so do two of its authors, the brothers Max and Igor Cavalera, who tear through it with the ferocious energy of man far, far south of their 50th birthdays. Opening with the belligerent Refuse/Resist is such an open goal any sensible referee would treat it with suspicion, but it’s also incredible how undimmed its raw aggression and ‘fuck you’ spirit remains. True, there’s something depressing that Max’s lyrics have only become more stingingly relevant in 2026, but it’s also gratifying to have it expressed with this much vitality. Max himself looks like there’s nowhere he’d rather be, grinning from ear to ear as he peels off each battering-ram riff, before telling the swollen tent to “make this place into a rainforest cathedral” by getting their lighters out for Kiowas. Territory is introduced with a blunt cry of “Fuck all wars”, before a riotous, celebratory cover of Sabbath’s Symptom Of The Universe. The ending Chaos B.C. remix is an odd way to finish the night, but there’s no denying the absolute might and glory of Max and Igor in full-flight like this. (NR)

There are vanishingly few people among the 100,000 people at Download this weekend as naturally cool as Pepper Keenan. There’s also nobody with quite so lush and juicy a guitar tone, either. Greeting the crowd with a jolly bellow of “Donington!”, the Corrosion Of Conformity mainman is in fine form today as he and fellow axeman Woody Weatherman - a man seemingly cosplaying as late-’80s Tony Iommi in both look and sound - crank out their enormous riffs. As a counterweight to the more digital thrills of Electric Callboy or Pendulum, COC’s more human, muscular might is a welcome tonic from a group of blokes who look like they could mend your car, especially when they sound as killer as this. When they go fast on Vote With A Bullet, they rip, as does stuff from new album Good God, Baad Man, while the more languid stoner grooves of Albatross and the pure beef of Clean My Wounds are perfect for anyone wanting grubby Sabbath worship. Oh Lord, yeah. (NR)

"Download, it's taken us 21 years to come back and play for you guys again," Grant Nicholas smiles, with just a hint of bittersweetness. "Thanks for being with us in this tent." Music can be a time machine, and as Download 2026 races back a quarter-century to 2001 and the gnarly height of Limp Bizkit, Feeder invite us to make a stop at 2005 when they became this festival's first ever Friday night headliner. Much as returning at the top of the third stage might feel like a demotion, it's worth noting the crowd is spilling out of the biggest third stage Donington has ever seen, and how Feeling A Moment and Buck Rogers - both dropped mid-set - feel enhanced by the golden rays and long shadows of sunset. There are already tears in eyes for the soul-stirring Just The Way I'm Feeling, but when Grant dedicates High to his father, currently ill in hospital, there's an almost heartbreaking sense of poignancy. Heavier material dominates later in the set with a mighty Playing With Fire but everyone's singing the 'doo-doodoodoo' riff from Just A Day before it's even begun. And although the crowd has thinned significantly by the time they get there, the closing cover of Nirvana's Breed is a brilliantly hard-edged place to leave off. Proof again that the Welsh legends are more than worthy of mixing it with rock's true heavyweights. Hopefully it's not another 21 years 'til next time. (SL)

There’s an older soul about Halestorm that carries across in their classic rock guitar work that could soundtrack a smoking cigarette, and in the wicked wails of Lzzy Hale. Never a band to half-arse anything, they attack Download at full-throttle. It’s palpable as they perform Love Bites (So Do I), and as Lzzy vocalises in a solo section among the sunset. She pushes herself to the extreme, albeit at times extreme to the point of not translating well onto the field, but takes on the band’s cover of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance exceptionally well. Drummer Arejay Hale also gets his solo moment, and pounds the shit out of his kit with oversized gag sticks. Lzzy just can’t help herself: “Big stick energy!” Exactly that, there was plenty of… (RR)

“How many stoners are out here tonight?” asks Cypress Hill's B-Real to the increasingly sunburnt crowd, before offering his joint to the camera. It’s a rhetorical question, of course, as plumes of smoke continue to rise amongst the stream of red-capped fans amassing for tonight’s headliners, blissing out to the hip-hop legends’ string of West Coast bangers. How I Could Just Kill A Man, Dr. Greenthumb, A To The K, When The Shit Goes Down… it’s a litany of hits straight from the bong, and an ideal vibey warm-up for the mauling that is about to close the night. But it’s not just a hazy chill-out sesh. Cypress Hill still bring the big guns, sending the main stage into a frenzy for the knockout triple of Bombtrack, Rock Superstar and Insane In The Brain, followed by the tried and tested sit-down-then-jump-again for bombastic finale Jump Around. The perfect aperitif before the main course of hotdogs and chocolate starfish. (LM)

"The first time we played Download festival was back in 2003," grins Adam Frakes-Sime, wryly. "Were any of you lot there?" A chorus of wrinkly faces and bald heads roar their approval. If Stampin' Ground's fan base are showing their age a bit this weekend - the frontman doing his own calf during an unfortunately-timed Pain Is Weakness (Leaving The Body) - the band as a unit absolutely aren't, lobbing about bangers like Dead From The Neck Up and Everybody Owes A Death like cannonballs at a garden party. Admittedly, the level of mayhem pale in comparison to recent sets at more exclusively extreme fests like Damnation and Lords Of The Land, but by the inevitable, climactic Officer Down even the creakiest old bones are up for knocking the shit out of each other. Killer. (SL)

Electric Callboy are sort of the Spinal Tap of the modern age, but with a little more whimsy about their character. Not jaded rockstars but proudly nonsensical and vulgar, they’re so daft, it’s a gift to us all. Their concoction of tomfoolery and heaviness is the exact type that Download laps up in all its weird and wonderful glory. Taking to the Apex, Callboy are rightfully platformed on the biggest stage, offering the perfect space for their bizarre interludes and costume changes, and a short selection of universally loved cover songs.

Within the first half an hour of their set, the uber-silly, sugar-coated lot give Download a variety of fit changes, and a whole lot of funky dance moves. Nico Sallach and Kevin Ratajczak bounce off each other’s charisma, but all together the five of them are the spectacle. They routinely line up like a 90s boyband, most impressively in their 1980s shell suits that look as if they’d completely light up near a naked flame, which they literally are as pyro fires up in front of them, and they don’t show a single quiver. (RR)

Read the full review: "It’s Download cranked all the way to 11": how Electric Callboy got the party started at Download 2026

There's a bit of a squish in the Avalanche tent. A busy showing for Sleep Theory was always on the cards after their UK tour in February went through three rounds of upgrades, but the Memphis rockers are here to prove that their hype isn't about to burn out like a firework. They sound immaculate, with bass that feels like a punch in the chest and their guitars growl sharply through Stuck In My Head and Gravity, but they're carried by the caramel-slick charisma of vocalist Cullen Moore. “I don't care if you have bad knees," he yells. "I don't care if you feel like it, start jumping!” The crowd throws all their enthusiasm at the singalongs, bonding strongly with the inky drama of Falling and the crowd-pleasing catchiness of closer Static. Sleep Theory have created a supernova of hype and they have the live chops to keep it alive for the long run. (EW)

"Perhaps you have heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV?" grins Michael Christopher Koji Fox, playfully. "Well, this ain't no Super Mario." It's not your average between-song banter at Download, but The Primals are anything but an average band. Michael is a game developer, you see, moonlighting, along with visionary colleague Masayoshi Soken, as a rock star this weekend to bring XIV's excellent soundtrack to rib-rattling life. Even up against the mighty Electric Callboy, there's an impressive crowd in the Dogtooth tent for this rarer-than-hens'-teeth European exclusive performance, but what's even more impressive is how well music written for a sprawling digital netherworld works in a muddy field in the Midlands. Part of that is down to the help of Godhead frontman Jason Charles Miller and the crack team of session musicians filling out the stage, but more so it's about how the uninhibited madcap genius of compositions like Under The Weight could never really be contained. A bonkers, brilliant musical boss battle. (SL)

It could be interesting to see how Rain City Drive's notably shiny studio output translates to a rougher live setting, but the picture they paint today isn't a flawless one. Their big hitters such as Talk To A Friend and Wish You The Best are swamped in bass, while the kick drum has a strange, tinny echo, yet it still all feels a bit synthetic. The guitars bite harder by the time the neon-soaked groove of closer Medicate Me arrives, but vocalist Matt McAndrew is washed out by an overpowering backing track. It's competent and it's clearly enjoyed by the punters, but it isn't exactly the most memorable set of the day. (EW)

Periphery are without keystone guitarist Jake Bowen this afternoon, but rather than disrupting momentum, his absence seems to spur them to deliver something special in his honour. Playing their first show of 2026 - and airing material from last month's excellent sixth album A Pale White Dot for the first time - there's no time to waste for the D.C. djent pioneers anyway. With the great Misha Mansoor leading from the front, dropping molten riffs thick and fast, they devastate and thrill, with a massive Letter Experiment and glorious closer Blood Eagle staggering in their power. Basking in rich teatime sunshine, most of the crowd seem more interested in soaking it in than raising hell, but stillness only emphasizes the technical ecstasy. Perfect djentlemen. (SL)

"Oi oi oi oi oi oi oi!" Sammy Ciaramitaro looks like he's smashed about six Red Bulls before getting onstage on Friday afternoon, and DRAIN are all the better for it. "They put on extra security for this show, so let's make them fucking work!" Within the first few songs of an anarchic 25 minute set, the livewire frontman has hurled his mic out into the middle of the heaving pit and watched maybe 50 bodies topple over the barrier in return. Then proceedings get paused for a warning about throwing stuff at the crowd. Sammy duly responds by climbing down off the stage and joining the fray himself. With Pendulum tearing it up on the main stage at the same time, the Californian hardcore supremos actually play to one of the smaller crowds of the day, but they wring maximum chaos and a couple of epic singalongs. "This is fucking awesome!" Sammy grins through a face full of sweat towards the end of their half-hour of power. No word of a lie. (SL)

Before Pendulum show up on the Apex Stage, some rather creepy puppets do. Their fuzzy faces talk at Donington Park about the kind of noise and energy they expect today, before melting away into an even creepier display. By the time Rob Swire hits the chorus of ‘Bring it on home’ from today’s opener Propane Nightmares, nightmarish puppets become a distant memory, and the Aussie hard drum and bass gang foreshadow what’s to come. With a guest appearance from Enter Shikari’s Rou Reynolds for their twist on Sorry You’re Not A Winner, completed by Rob’s flash guitar that creates the base of their electronic sound, they successfully mould themselves to what the people want at a corker of a Download set while retaining all that makes them great on their own. (RR)

Creeper could be Download's house band at this point, having played five years out of the past six, on every stage, and this year playing twice. Unsurprisingly, the crowd will drink every drop of their sexy, bloodsoaked rock 'n' roll. Opener Mistress Of Death conjures instant sing-alongs, Headstones is a hot-blooded party starter, while Hannah Greenwood takes the lead to awe-inspiring effect on the slinking goth cabaret of Razor Wire. Her bandmates are on great form too, with guitarist Ian Miles headbanging so hard he could risk becoming the second member of Creeper to have his head severed (if you know, you know). Talking of which, it happens to vocalist William Von Ghould again at the end of the set, in which the Mistress of Death grabs him by the scruff and shoves him into the guillotine. Which technically scuppers Sunday's second appearance. Worth it, though... (EW)

"Hang on a minute," asks one gobsmacked punter on his way out of a packed Avalanche tent. "Is this a pro-drink driving song?!" With Lakeview smirking through the intro tape to unapologetically boozy highlight Bad Day To Be A Beer - a news report on good old boys angry about being told when they can and can't get behind the wheel - it's hard not to wonder whether the Pennsylvanian lot are broadly taking the piss. Not so, apparently. Delivering a weirdly effective blend of metalcore and pop-country with otherwise straight faces and blue collar earnestness, core duo Jesse Denaro and Luke Healy seem fully bought-in, pouring heart and soul into their songs and punctuating them with messages about not trusting the government and working-class unity. "What binds us together is our differences," they announce. "One person picks up where the last one left off." Judging by the mass sing-along for twangy closer Home Team, it's a message that many of the Download audience are on board with. Yee'haw! (SL)

Hollywood Undead might have discarded their colourful masks since they first landed on Download's Main Stage back in 2009 but very little else has changed about their in their IQ-obliterating rap rock nonsense. There's no masking the bare-faced boneheaeedness of songs like Coming In Hot and Saviour anyway, but that's very much the appeal for a massive crowd happy to shout back every bawdy rhyme while soaking up the sun (and a Jagerbomb or five). An impromptu chorus of Sweet Caroline before the acoustic-driven Bullet unexpectedly gets the biggest sing-along of the day, but it's duly upstaged by Everywhere I Go, which remains an irresistible, brain-munching earworm. It's not big or clever, but it is terribly good fun. (SL)

Beneath a sparkling pink banner donning their name is Berlin’s Vianova. Alexander Kerski marks the end of their tracks with a little “Hell yeah!”. Relaxed and low-key during the inbetweens, his vocals go the complete opposite when in performance mode, soaring between unclean sounds that grumble up right from the gut, to controlled high-pitch levels that match up to Mariah Carey at Christmas time. And, the kooky bunch have managed to pull off a miracle: with two drummers having fallen sick, their guitarist is filling in on drums today after just three days of practice. Can we get a hell yeah?! (RR)

If Marc ‘Zelli' Zellweger seems extra vicious today, it's apparently because he's hangry. “They only gave us one free meal for the whole day and it's for dinner,” the Paleface Swiss frontman grumbles, “and I'm a sassy little bitch when I'm hungry.” The rumblings of his empty stomach get channeled into a fireball of a set as the corrosive riffs of The Orphan and the merciless Hated, not to mention Zelli's barbed screams, get crowdsurfers barrelling over the heads of their fellow gig goers. Later, Everything Is Fine counteracts the fury with heart-tearing emotion, and as the crowd are swept away with it, Zelli cracks a smile. Paleface Swiss have whipped everyone here into a feral state, solidifying their emerging reputation as an epic live band. Now, can someone get them some sandwiches? (EW)

“This is the lion’s den over here. Lions only!” declares P.O.D. vocalist Sonny Sanduval. There’s certainly a lion’s appetite for them among the very healthily-sized crowd this afternoon, who headbang and yell along eagerly to the kerosene-fueled opener Boom. Unfazed by the blasts of wind diluting their mix, P.O.D. balance their swagger with a hyperactive love for pleasing the “party people” in the crowd, with Sonny making an upbeat MC as he gets the crowd punching the air for a genuinely uplifting Youth Of A Nation. “I wish we had two more hours to play but we'll take what we can get.” Triumphant closer Alive gets dedicated to guitarist Marcos Curiel's new baby daughter, with a gigantic sing-along from the crowd helping to send it home. Decades of performing haven't worn down their clear love for it one bit and they might just be Download's dark horse. (EW)

“Real rock music still exists in 2026,” celebrates vocalist James Joseph, as James And The Cold Gun kick off. The Cardiff crew are giving it all they’ve got, but Donington Park is still waking up on this patch of the land. James pulls out his best bribes, calling on the Dogtooth tent to pull out its most weird dance moves for a tenner in reward for popular track Guessing Games. As he eventually calls for the circle pit, the band are finally speaking Download’s language. A slow but steady start swells into a rewarding set full of dizzying action, coming to a crescendo with Chewing Glass. It takes some determination, but what a result. (RR)

"Honk! Honk! Honk!" A surprise Mary Wyatt merch giveaway has punters around the rear of the Avalanche stage practicing their best farmyard sounds in return for freebies on Friday afternoon, but even that racket isn't as enthusiastically idiotic as Silly Goose. Between a high-energy barrage of hardcore-inflected rap rock (think Stray From The Path after a lobotomy) and approximately 1,000 instructions to "jump the fuck up", the Atlanta crew deliver more blunt force than real mischief, but they still put plenty of smiles on faces. Neither as outrageous as Hollywood Undead nor as bombastic as Limp Bizkit, there is a danger that they could suffer from their place in the, er, pecking order on today's stacked bill. But from box-fresh cuts Goodnight and Set It Off, to old favourite Bad Behaviour, they stubbornly hold their own. "I expected a little bit more energy from the UK," frontman Jackson Foster teases as they launch into a spring-loaded Tsunami. "Y'all feeling a little sleepy out there?" Absolutely not after this. (SL)

There's only one artist who could be announcing herself by blasting Barbie Girl across Donington Park. True to form, Scene Queen is popping the cork on Download in a glitter bomb of pink and profanity, which is all the more amusing when she mentions her family flew out to see her play “the most offensive set imaginable”. Said set is loaded with sledgehammer riffs, candyfloss hooks and cut-throat putdowns aimed at everyone from pretentious male musicians (Mutual Masturbation) to creepy catcallers (Pink Rover), plus some eye-watering screams for good measure. Though this set does a lot to loosen both hips and inhibitions, there's a note of sincerity too. “Love is love, trans rights are human fucking rights and rock and metal was made for the outcasts,” she declares. It's 50 per cent sex and 50 per cent violence, but 100 per cent party. (EW)

Native James grins with the suggestion of something wicked, like he knows what he’s got up his sleeve is going to shake Download to its core. Opening with the growl-heavy FALLEN, bodies pile into the pit and it doesn’t take long for him to notice. Taking a minute to catch his breath, a glimmer of AJ, the human behind the demon of Native James, peeps through proudly as the Avalanche tent chants his name over and over. You’d never guess this is his first time here as he delivers the mosh-inducing GTFU, and even brings out guest Frisco for unreleased track Never Been Scared. To close the show? None other than Professor Green rolls out. It’s so good it’s actually nutty. That first grin all makes sense. (RR)

'You make me feel nothing,' sings Matthew Flood as Caskets get the Opus Stage up and running. 'Leave me to rot!' Coupled with the stained glass on the video screens, big opener Make Me A Martyr should have the Leeds crew delivering something like a religious experience, but they're undermined by a choppy mix and substantial sound bleed from Scene Queen. Having made their way up the bill from a slot at the Dogtooth tent in 2023, however, these lads aren't about to back down, and seeing them crank the volume and lean into their slinky R&B grooves all the way to impassioned closer Glass Heart is a pulse pounding pleasure. "This is Day One of the best weekend of your lives!" Matthew grins. Not a bad way to get it started. (SL)