Thousands of rock fans are heading to Donington Park this weekend for Download Festival, but one unexpected artist has already become the highlight of the event
Download Festival is in full swing this weekend, with tens of thousands of rock and metal enthusiasts flooding into Donington Park for the spectacular music event. Revellers will be eager to catch headline sets from the likes of Limp Bizkit, Guns n’ Roses, and Linkin Park, alongside appearances from other rock heavyweights such as Trivium, Architects, A Day to Remember, and Baby Metal.
The festival officially kicked off on Friday, June 12, but for those seeking the full experience, camping opened on Wednesday, June 10, with a handful of artists taking to the District X stage to warm the crowd up ahead of the weekend. The early bird campers wasted no time getting into the rock spirit, as one unlikely act performing at Download on Thursday, June 11, managed to spark a massive mosh pit.
Mosh pits are nothing new at Download, but this particular one was rather special, given that the artist in question wasn’t exactly who you’d expect to rile up rock fans enough to start hurling themselves at one another.
Stepping out to get the crowd going was 90s boyband Five.
In a clip shared on TikTok by a festival-goer, the crowd could be seen spinning around in circles, crashing into each other and leaping up and down, while Five performed their classic hit Keep On Movin’ in the background.
The TikTok video was captioned: “Five got the pits going!”
It might appear unusual for rock enthusiasts to be lapping up the boyband’s upbeat pop tunes, but those commenting on the video highlighted that it’s actually fairly typical. Plenty of rock fans now in their 30s grew up listening to Five’s music, so it offers a dose of nostalgia to lift spirits ahead of the main festival this weekend.
One person said: “Everyone secretly loves Five.”
Another added: “I love that metal/rock heads will always have a little bop to the cheesiest music and have the best time.”
However, not everyone was won over, with some suggesting that Five’s appearance at the festival indicated Download has drifted from its rock and metal origins.
Someone fumed: “See, Download has been destroyed with s*** like this. It’s meant to be a METAL FESTIVAL. The f*** happened?!” Another angry commenter said: “To think … It used to be Monsters of Rock.”
Yet another viewer dismissed them as “elitist”, writing: “The metal elite are out in force policing people having fun outside of their 10cm music bubble.”
After their performance at the festival, which drew a packed tent, Five posted on Facebook to express their gratitude to those who turned out to support them, despite the band not fitting the traditional rock mould.
They wrote: “Who would have thought we’d be playing such a big gig at Download Fest! We were absolutely blown away by the reception from the crowd there – they were ‘avin it so thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making that such a special and memorable show for all of us.”
Followers responding to the post also made mention of the boisterous crowd, which featured crowd surfers and enormous mosh pits. One fan enthused: “Absolutely belting set, moshing out and crowd surfing to Five was a surreal but most excellent experience.”
Another added: “Was one hell of a set, we even had a pit towards the back.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
