Stadium Rock in a Tent
For the first time ever, Download Festival is running for a total of 5 days including camping. By the time that Crash Diet walk on stage announcing themselves as "Crash Fucking Diet" most of the crowd have two days worth of hangovers and need to be woken up. Not an easy task for a band that have never played an international show before.
Crash Diet are a band whose riffs ooze with the excess and extravagance of that 1980's classic rock that seems to be dead. This isn't the clichéd rock that mainstream media seem to push (such as The Darkness) - but rather a combination of all the best parts of the 80s.
For a band that have never played on UK soil before, Crash Diet stand on stage looking somewhat like a young Motley Crue with a swagger and stage presence that never normally works on the third stage - let alone as the second band for the entire festival. None of the crowd have really heard any Crash Diet before, but that doesn't stop the band whipping them up into a rock frenzy. As the crowd clap in unison for songs the band walk off stage to cheers of "One More Song" over and over again.
They're not quite Guns 'n' Roses, nor are they Motley Crue - but they are a band that you'll love if you are a fan of riffs laden with Jack Daniels, crazy hair and classic showmanship.