Jamie Giberti

East London is ablaze with glorious sunshine and awash with black t-shirts as metallers aged 8 to 80 and beyond descend on Stratford. Their destination: The London Stadium to take in the first night of the Metallica M72 World Tour London double header. It is a Friday, and a relatively early start time, which means there is a sparse-ish but rapidly growing crowd in the door by the time Knocked Loose kick preceedings off at 5:30.

The village is absolutely heaving in all directions as we make our way to The Doghouse at the top of District X – which looks to be even bigger than last year! A rapidly swelling crowd is very much enjoying the tunes being picked out by our host Kyden Fire in one of multiple DJ sets by her, before handing over to Cancer Bats Ozzy inspired alter egos. Bat Sabbath (9) were absolutely brilliant.

The home straight for the 2026 Download Festival! If you’ve made it this far, you may (or may not) have read our previews for both the Friday and the Saturday of the annual Donington bash. If you haven’t, here’s some links so you can catch up: Download Festival 2026 Friday Preview Download Festival 2026 Saturday Preview With that out the way, let us turn our attention to Sunday’s action.