DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL 2025: Live from a Sunburnt Goblin Woman in a Yurt

Image source: Ticketmaster Discover

There comes a time in every woman’s life when she must ask herself: Is this how I die?

For me, that moment came around 3:37pm on Saturday at Download Festival, somewhere between slipping in the mud outside my overpriced yurt (twice, back-to-back, like a cursed Pixar short) and realising I had sunburn so aggressive it had blistered my chest into what can only be described as a sizzling Wetherspoons gammon.

Let’s rewind.

The Descent Into Hell (Day 1)

Friday started as all good metal weekends do: with hope, eyeliner, and absolutely no nutritional foundation. Within hours, I’d had four cans of lukewarm Neck Oil, two Percy pigs and a packet of squares (girl dinner), and the kind of dehydration that gives you weird dreams about having a meaningful chat with Corey Taylor.

There were bands. There were vibes. I screamed. I headbanged. I used a portaloo that changed me, spiritually. Everything was great.

Then came the rain.

And not gentle, sexy festival rain. This was Biblical. It was Mötley Crüe’s drug phase levels of chaos. One minute I was dry and happy singing along to Green Day’s ‘Brain Stew’; the next I looked like someone had shoved me through a Whitesnake video shoot in a car wash once ‘When September Ends’ began. I became one with the sludge. Hair glued to my face. Fishnets sagging with moisture. And of course, a series of 40-year-old men in cargo shorts telling me, “You actually look kinda hot like that.”

I did not.

The Fall (Day 2)

On Saturday, while attempting the very non-metal task of retrieving a jacket from my yurt (sentence sponsored by the Trust Fund Goth Society), I fell over twice in five minutes.

Same patch of mud.
Same knees.
Two neat little offerings of flesh to the gods of Download.

By the second fall, I was bleeding, limping, and being laughed at by a teen in a Lamb of God hoodie who shouted “Wooooah DOWN-load!” like it was the first time that joke had ever been made. I hope his vape explodes.

The Sunstroke Era

Once the rain gave up, the sun arrived like a mirage in the desert. I, in my infinite wisdom, had applied SPF “vaguely” and “only to the bits I could see while squinting into a tiny mirror.”

Result: blistered cleavage, rogue tanlines, and a deep spiritual connection with a value pack of Dioralyte sachets I cradled like a newborn. By Sunday, my body was rejecting alcohol, water, and any solid food not shaped like a crisp. I was drinking gin purely for the placebo effect, but all it did was give me heartburn and emotional flashbacks to secondary school PE (the heartburn, not the gin drinking…that would’ve made PE way more fun).

The Music Bit (Because Yes, There Were Bands)

Despite the carnage of my knees and skin, the music lineup delivered big:

• Green Day (Friday, Apex Stage): Punk-rock dads still going strong. Ripped through Dookie and American Idiot like it was 2005 and none of us had lower back pain. I screamed “Do you have the time” with the unhinged energy of someone who absolutely did not have the time. Or the electrolytes.
• Sleep Token (Saturday, Apex Stage): Beautiful, culty chaos. Vessel looked like a haunted priest, the entire crowd looked like they were being baptised in emotional damage. Tears. Swooning. Possibly a religious awakening. I’m not convinced I didn’t join a cult.
• Korn (Sunday, Apex Stage): Full tilt nu-metal nostalgia. Jonathan Davis brought the bagpipes and the trauma. “Freak on a Leash” hit like it always does; an anthem for anyone who’s ever screamed into a spreadsheet.
• Malevolence (Secret Set, Dogtooth Stage): AND THEN. The secret set to end all secret sets. Sheffield’s finest, Malevolence, rolled in like the Avengers of riffs and absolutely decimated the tent. My fave band absolutely blew the roof off. If I’d had any remaining stability in my knees, it would’ve been gone by track three. They sounded tighter than my budget after payday. Crowd went feral. Grown men wept. I left with a mild concussion and no regrets.

Lessons from the Trenches

• Dioralyte is the true headliner.
• Don’t trust the weather. Ever. It hates you.
• There is no dignity in a yurt.
• 30+ at a festival hits different: I can’t bounce back from three days on a diet of warm beer and no food like I used to. I can, however, develop a heat rash behind my knees and cry into a wet hoodie.

Final Rating: 10/10 (Would Die Again)

Was I physically ruined? Yes.
Did I hallucinate a little on Sunday afternoon? Also yes.
Was this the best festival I’ve been to in years? Fuck yes. As it is every year.

Download 2025 broke my body but healed something weird in my soul. It reminded me that even in a corporate life filled with KPIs, slide decks, and passive-aggressive Teams messages, there’s still space to scream in a field with 100,000 other likeminded weirdos and feel completely, wildly alive.

And that, my friends, is worth every blister, every bruise, and every unsolicited compliment from a damp man named Keith.