DONNINGTON report

Hello there! I had a fabulous time in Donnington last weekend. Here's already a hand full of pictures. I'll write a report around it in the upcoming days. Download was an excellent opportunity to see the brother bloggers from Abruzzo and AC/DC Italia again, and also meet some new friends (Shane, you'll be happy that this site finally got updated again...).

UPDATE: Attending the gig was my sole mission on Friday. The only flight still available for Friday was the BmiBaby flight that arrived at East Midlands Airport at 20h15, knowing that the band would start playing at 20h30. We all know that the band's time schedule is a very tight one, so no help from there. I had made sure that all I packed was "hand luggage" so that I was ready to rush to the festival grounds, 3 miles away from the airport, as soon as I landed.

Those interested can contact me for advise on how I smuggled my tent, sleeping bag, cloths for 3 days and musquito repellent into the overhead compartment. The customs confiscated my tent pins (10 in total) because I could have killed somebody with them. Bet my right hand knuckles are more dreadful than those blunt tent pins ends... Anyhow, to cut a long story short, the flight came in 15 minutes earlier. I missed the first 20 minutes of the show. The RNR Train video kicked off when I entered the (enormous) festival grounds, so I was able to hear everything clearly though. I knew I had to hurry up when I heard Brian scream: "I can smell the rock and roll here". Last time I heard that was in the 2003 Hammersmith Odeon gig, and that just blew the roof off. Not any less this time.

Shot Down in Flames has a perfect running rhythm (the band should consider selling the song to a Start to Run program) and while shouting the chorus I bounced my way up front, right in time to witness The Jack. Angus must have thought in vain about the numerous times he had been stripping on the Bad Boy Boogie, when he noticed that only few women were showing their assets. Not that it poured cats and dogs, or that it was too cold: I really experienced my first indian summer in England. You could bake an egg on Phil's cymbals. And I didn't have any place left in my hand lugage to bring sunscreen, so I returned home as red as the letters in AC/DC's logo. Talking about the logo, it was missing on all festival communication, but hey - I came for AC/DC in Donnington - Download was just bonus.

Of course I won't keep this courageous birdie for myself....

The pleasant thing about England is the generosity of its pints. They were more than welcome after this very nice open air show, with an ever lasting Let There Be Rock performance, a nice atmosphere, a whole lot of people and a real good warm up for Friday's show in Paris. See you there!

Setlist (thanks JJK for being such a good timekeeper!)

RnR Train

Hell Ain't A Bad Place To Be

Back in Black

Big Jack

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Shot Down in Flames

Thunderstruck

Black Ice

The Jack

Hells Bells

Shoot to Thrill

War Machine

High Voltage

You Shook Me All Night Long

TnT

Whole Lotta Rosie

Let There Be Rock (18 monutes long)

Highway to Hell

For Those About To Rock (9 minutes long)