As you approached the site on Friday early afternoon it was very clear to see that the buzz for this year was very real indeed. There were red baseball caps galore, huge queues to get in to the arena, blazing hot sunshine and a whole lot of impending fun.
First on the cards for us was the first of many nostalgia hits across the festival this year as P.O.D. (9/13) hit the stage to frankly an enormous crowd given the time and status of the band. To give them credit, they did keep the majority of the people before them very much engaged despite things sounding a bit ragged. Closer Alive seemed to be the moment everyone was waiting for with a lot of half serious, half joke-y, sing-alongs breaking out across the arena.
Wandering up the hill towards our first foray on the Opus Stage now as Paleface Swiss (10/13) did their best to cause untold chaos as early as they could. Vocalist Marc Zellweger seemed to have a particularly high level of venom in their opening number. Turns out that this was because he was hungry and didn't like health & safety rules. We're not kidding. The festival's offer of only one free meal to each band member seemed to spike a level of ire in him it at least created a new point of entertainment amidst a fairly standard deathcore live show. Next time Download should tell him it's no meals at all and ask him to wear a safety helmet - even just for the intrigue of what might happen.
Shooting back to the Apex Stage now and perhaps the first really "big big" act to perform in 2026. If you have a raised eyebrow to that comment and greet it with some scepticism, you'd need only to look at the sheer size of the crowd Pendulum (11/13) drew to quickly rethink. It was gigantic - on par with many headline sets over the years. Opening with Propane Nightmares was a cracking call. A Kerrang and Scuzz TV staple back in the day, the reaction was huge and set a great tone early on. Important context for this set, after two days of seriously heavy rain and a weather forecast on Friday morning not giving any level of reassurance, the sun came out just before Pendulum came on (and never really went away again until Monday). It just added to a level of euphoria that this wasn't going to be one of those weekends, especially from all the campers who had endured it all for those prior two days. The blazing sunshine and crowd enthusiasm just added to everything when the classics like their Voodoo People cover and Tarantula belted out across Donington. Highlight of the set came about halfway through as Rou Reynolds of Enter Shikari fame joined the band to play through the Pendulum remix of the BIG Shikari favourite Sorry, You're Not A Winner.
A little further down the evening and on the main stage came one of the sets of the weekend. We said it as part of our preview coverage, it feels almost hard to believe that it's taken until 2026 for Cypress Hill (13/13) to have been part of a Download Festival, and given their level of performance it was a comment more than justified. Perennial entertainers, Cypress Hill just get it - they grab the brief by the throat and don't let up for one moment. This was probably the first point in the weekend where the entertainment was high enough (no pun intended) where it truly felt like it went by in a blur. Opening with How I Could Just Kill A Man and throwing in favourites like Hits From The Bong set the mood. A mood which elevated to fever pitch when they cracked out a cover of Rage Against The Machine's Bombtrack before a final run of (Rock) Superstar, Insane In The Brain and a brief cover of House Of Pain's Jump Around. You've got two rappers here either close to or already in their 60s who sounded better than many, many, vocalist on the Donington turf this year - sometimes acts are just on a different level and there's a reason why "legendary" feels apt rather than thrown around. A brilliant and perfect Friday sub-headline performance in every sense of the word.
On then to the first of our Main Stage headliners and the frankly incomparable Limp Bizkit (11/13). Not many would have foreseen the level of popularity this band would have in the year 2026. When they last played Download in 2024, no one anticipated the resurgence at that point either - gathering a crowd so beyond the size of any other sub-headliner for years we imagine Fred Durst and co. simply walked off and signed the contract for headlining in the future there and then. There is a danger that hangs in the air with a Limp Bizkit show - yes there is an awful lot of revelry (and even more red caps) - but there's an anticipation which just pops like a balloon come go time. And go time it is when you're opening your set with Break Stuff. The place erupted in to the loudest sing-along party all weekend - amusingly assisted by the band's backdrop purely being the lyrics of every song karaoke style.
It's tough not to draw a direct comparison to the set in 2024 - the slight disappointment here is that this show was pretty much a not quite as good carbon copy really. There wasn't anything uniquely special to distinguish it as a headline performance and whilst the fun aspect didn't let up at any point, it did kind of feel more like a top of the range sub-headline show. Look, there are mitigating factors to consider here as well - the passing of bassist Sam Rivers is still unbelievably fresh for the band and Fred Durst revealed early on that their long-time driver on tour passed away en route to Download. There was an energy dip on stage. But when you're armed and loaded with the likes of Livin' It Up, My Generation, Nookie, Rollin' and more, the momentum of the songs alone carry so much value. Another dampener on the set came late on as unfortunately there was a crowd injury shortly after the band kicked in to gear with My Way - speculation being it actually meant 2-3 tracks had to be axed from the set list.
A cracking first day all in!