On May 25th Donnington was the home of Rock with this years Ozzfest. With 2 stages and 26 plus bands announced this years festival was set to be a monster... but did it live up to the UK Ozzfest standard of last year?

The bands were certainly what the crowd was looking for, but it was apparent from when we first stepped through the gates into Ozzfest that the lay out of the grounds was going to be a problem...

We had to que to get into the main arena area. Maybe its just because it early in the morning that its so rammed, we thought to ourselves, but no, this was to be the story for the whole day.

Many of the bands we had decided to see we never got to view because we spent so long trying to get from one stage to another. Last year there may have been fewer bands, but at least we go to see them all, with the stages being next to each other.

The main arena sound quality was much improved on last years Bowl, but the visibility was not as good. The Bowl provided onlookers with a slope to sit on and perfect all round viewing, Donnington provided us with mud and sore feet. The weather could not be helped, a bit of mud at a festival is expected. However, the mud for most of us that didn’t want to divulge into a mud wrestling frenzy really got on our nerves!

If you were luck enough to get into the second stage area then you would have seen some great bands in a small but well kited out venue. Again the visibility was shit, but the sound quality was good. The indoor hall was far to long and narrow and had many pillars in the way that blocked even more vision.

Individually the bands we saw were fantastic, Slayer ruled, Otep rocked, System and Drowning Pool put on a great show, tool again you can never fault them, Black Label were fantastic and the Mad Capsules were crazy. BUT OZZY WHAT WERE YOU THINKING OF WITH THIS VENUE!
I was really annoyed that I missed Mushroom head, Skindread, American Headcharge, Kittie and Ill Nino. The only reason for missing these bands was quite simple: we could not get out of the main arena, and even when we did the que for the other stage was so long we missed the band while waiting to get in.

Anyway, if you were there, let Blue Dog know what you thought. Lets hope that next year is better, sort it out Ozzy!