Axl and I traveled to Donington, UK for the Download Festival in 2006 and it was something of a life-changing experience. We hadn’t yet come up with the idea for MetalSucks, but I’m sure the experience of being part of such a huge metal event and the people we met there gave rise to the idea only six months later that perhaps there was a worldwide audience that thought about metal along the same lines as we did.

One of the highlights of that fateful weekend was Down, who made an unannounced but widely rumored appearance at 11am one morning on the main stage. Anyone who trekked out that early to take a chance, as we did, bore witness to a fantastic set by a now-legendary band that unbenownst to those in attendance would be captured for posterity.

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At last month’s Download Festival in Donington Park, UK, our friends over at Thrash Hits were kind enough to corner Trigger the Bloodshed and interview them on our behalf – at the toilets. The quick interview centered around the surroundings, as Thrash Hits grilled them about festival toilets, their best toilet experiences, shitting in general, and potential toilet horror stories. Check it out below.

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I mean, James LaBrie is still a complete ham but there’s no denying he’s talented as fuck, and John Petrucci’s chin-whiskers are looking quite manly these days (trying to nail him down for a “Beard on Beard” interview… stay tuned). Myung’s a beast, Rudess is a fucking virtuoso and Mike Portnoy is like the best drummer EVVVARRR. Stop fronting, people! Anyone who claims Dream Theater are pussies / aren’t metal clearly has some kind of fear of being emasculated. Get over it and rock out, dicks! Show me a man that doesn’t get an erection during that heavy riff part of “Pull Me Under” (DAH-DAH dun dun dun dun dun dun dun) and I’ll show you a fucking liar.

Here they are performing that boner-worthy riff at Download Festival in the UK this past weekend (read our own Anton Oyvey’s full festival report here). And after the jump, the new song “A Rite of Passage” which comes from the new album Black Clouds & Silver Linings, out June 23rd on Roadrunner. Get manly; listen to Dream Theater.

-VN

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Hello, my Metalsucks children.  I write you on this day of rest from a flat in London as I recover from 3 days in Donington where I witnessed this year’s Download Festival.  I know a lot of you probably saw the live streaming on the festival site, so I won’t waste your valuable internet surfing time with bad Youtube clips (well, just a couple).

Why is Anton OyVey in the United Kingdom you ask?  Three words: FAITH NO MORE and three more words: AMERICAN EXPRESS POINTS.  Years ago, I had the chance to go to the holy land of Israel for free and turned it down.  But when my musical deity, Mike Patton, got back together with (most) of Faith No More, I couldn’t miss it.  Unfortunately after I had booked my flight they announced a pre-Download play at Brixton Academy, which everyone here tells me was one of the greatest concert experiences of their life. But I did get to see their first festival show in over a decade along with some other amazing (and not-so-amazing) bands.

So, on to my latest metal gospel.  If you don’t know about Download, it is the biggest UK rock and metal festival that started in 2003 and takes place at the same legendary location as the “Monsters Of Rock” Festival (back before most of you ended up being the lord’s little mistakes).  This year’s attendance was said to be over 75,000 people and had a very diverse lineup of metal, rock, classic rock and even some electronic. Three days, four stages and 120 bands, so I obviously was not able to see them all.  Here are two sentence reviews of each band I had the chance to witness (or that people were buzzing about):

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Well then, today’s your lucky day!

-VN

[Rock Sound TV via Blabbermouth]