Avenged Sevenfold and Stone Sour will appear at Download Festival

Two of the biggest names in the rock world, Avenged Sevenfold and Stone Sour, will be joining forces for a co-headline UK tour in October and November.

Southern California’s Avenged Sevenfold last played in the UK to sold out crowds in 2008, when they also picked up a Kerrang award for Best Album.

They appearared at the Sonisphere Festival, Download festival as well as playing with Iron Maiden at Twickenham.

Guitarist Zacky Vengeance commented “We will be returning to the UK this fall. You have been warned”.

A7X’s have had two silver albums in the UK and now release their fifth album “Nightmare” on July 26th.

In late 2009, at Sonisphere festival they were voted No.2 band in the world (behind Metallica) by Ultimate Guitar magazine.

This August, Avenged Sevenfold will be co-headlining the Rockstar Energy Drink UPROAR Festival with Disturbed around the USA.

The UPROAR tour marks the band’s first shows since the passing of their friend and drummer Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan in December last year.

Mike Portnoy from Dream Theatre plays drums on Nightmare and will also tour with the band for UPROAR and the UK tour.

Corey Taylor, front man of the three-time Grammy nominated Stone Sour, who steps over from his ‘other job’ fronting Slipknot, is excited to be returning to the UK stating; “This tour with Avenged Sevenfold is going to be great! We were looking for something different and exciting to do with our next UK tour and it just made perfect sense. The shows are going to be amazing and the fans are going to lose their minds. Here we ****ing GO!”

The Des Moines-based five-piece also release their third studio album, ‘Audio Secrecy’ on 6th September.

Download Festival celebrated 30 years of rock music at Donnington

This year, the Download Festival celebrated 30 years of rock music at Donnington. Top of the bill were AC/DC, Rage Against the Machine and Aerosmith.

AC/DC, who sold nine million copies of their last album, Black Ice, have just finished a sold out world tour. They had their own stage for the event - and rumours abounded in the music press that they were being paid anything up to £3m to perform.

This year, the Download Festival celebrated 30 years of rock music at Donnington. Top of the bill were AC/DC, Rage Against the Machine and Aerosmith.

AC/DC, who sold nine million copies of their last album, Black Ice, have just finished a sold out world tour. They had their own stage for the event - and rumours abounded in the music press that they were being paid anything up to £3m to perform.

Download Festival 2010 Highlights

First of all, apologies for the delay – technical issues. But hopefully it’s a refreshing change from the week’s attack of Glasto Festival coverage. Let’s return to Download…

The sun is shining, the birds are tweeting, and the popular festival sings of “bollocks!” are getting ever louder across the campsite. It can only mean one thing – the arena opening time is quickly near, and almost audible tingles of Rage anticipation are already running riot up the spines of all and sundry.

The live consequence is almost always amazing – if a bit of an acquired taste. But sadly, this festival setting does the extraordinary five-piece no favours and the usual passion is weak.

Fresh from the hub of alternative music that is the “Land of Song” – better known as Wales to you and I – The Blackout [4/5] win over a sceptical crowd with surprising ease on the Dio stage,

Chino Moureno has got to be one of the famous showbiz names ever, despite belonging to the frontman of one of the least glitz-glam-thank-you-mam bands around – Sacramento’s best known quartet Deftones.

While the England foeti team kicked-off their World Cup hopes,

Finally, they’re here. It’s almost inconceivable that the band that fans once thought they’d never see together again could now play two UK dates within a week – the thank you gig for all who made Killing In The Name Of Christmas Number One at London’s Finsbury Park and now, Donington. Despite being 20 fashionable minutes late, Rage Against the Machine [5/5] were welcomed onto the main stage with a roar like no other that weekend, and which only intensified as the crowd swarmed into fight circles and mosh pits for classic provocatives Testify and Bombtrack.
When a security guard ventures onstage to tell frontman Zack De La Rocha that things are getting more than a little hairy in the front rows, the iconic political rap-vocalist (in true Rage style) asks: “Brothers and sisters, please please look after each other. There’s a couple people been real hurt over here.” As the fists return to the air from face-level for the restart of People Of The Sun, it’s clear that every ear in the crowd is hanging on every LA-accented word he says.
With a dig at Simon Cowell, and an outright chastisement of both American and Israeli governments, De La Rocha, guitarist Tom Morello and the team use every track to pound home the timeless sentiments of songs like Sleep Now in the Fire and Wake up.

Two words. Acoustic Blackout. Ok, technically that should be three words – Acoustic The Blackout – but that doesn’t sound good. What did apparently sound pretty good (due to timings changes that weren’t very clear I just missed it – shame on you Download for not letting us know) is The Blackout’s acoustic set. Phew, glad that paragraph is over.

Despite thousands missing them due to said mysterious timing rearrangements, Californian metallers Atreyu were undaunted, delivering a storming set as always.