Download gets a bit of a bad rep sometimes for having predominantly male line ups, bringing in heavy police surveillance or just for being a heavy rock mud party for people who like wearing Napalm Death t shirts and drinking Tuborg. But when it comes to celebrating the heritage of hard rock, you have to admit that they always nail it, whether it’s securing Rammstein’s pyrotechnic hell orgy, to confirming a Saturday night where you can stay in the same spot for three hours and catch Deftones into Black Sabbath. Now, they’ve kinda outdone themselves, by renaming their main stage after the Dionysian rock n’ roll legend that was Lemmy Kilmister. For 2016, the main stage at Download is called ‘The Lemmy Stage’.
It’s been just over a month since the Motorhead man passed away, and the wave of tributes has only just started to simmer down. Now, the focus is more on how his legacy can be upheld into the future, hence a timely and respectful gesture like Download’s. The festival wrote on their website: “Whilst we’re saddened to say Motorhead will no longer be performing at this year’s Download Festival, we will honour a true rock n roll icon who inspired so many others on the bill, Lemmy Kilmister.”
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Read our piece about how meeting Lemmy in person helped one of our writer’s stave off alcoholism and drug abuse, over here.
