A little look back at some of the highlights from the weekend's premier rock festival, Download...
Saturday mornings are supposed to be about catching up with the newspapers, long breakfasts and leisurely strolls, that type of thing.
Instead, we're in a field in the East Midlands watching thrash-metal 'erberts Lawnmower Deth.
Nottingham's noisy nutters start at 12.30pm, but they aren't going to let this ridiculously early slot pass by quietly.
Flying Killer Cobs From the Planet Bob, Icky Ficky and Sumo Rabbit And His Inescapable Trap of Doom all raise smiles and kick up dust stage-front, with a swell audience making the journey from campsite to stage in time to lap it up.
Download promoter Andy Copping is well-known for his love of the Deth, and the band hoist him out for a quick hello before dedicating Egg Sandwich to him. An eight-minute epic it most certainly ain't.
Hard boiled though? Definitely!
Watch Out Grandma (Here Comes A Lawnmower), Urban Surfer 125 and Sheep Dip are all Lawnmower classics, and the band lead off wondering if a main stage show could be on the cards should the band make a seventh appearance at the festival.
Definitely. They'd fly-mo.
The great thing about playing silly seconds' long songs is that you can cram 'em in, and so before they leave the stage LD have whipped many a fan fave out, and entertained with shepherds, sheep, trains carriages and scary bunnies on the stage.
Corrosion of Conformity don't do that, and the American-stalwarts bring the noise with The Luddite, taken from their current opus, No Crown No Cross which is a fine showcase.
From there, they turn back the decades with Broken Man, from their '94 set Deliverance.
To our right, bassist Mike Dean is feeling that fret with some force, while the duel guitar work of Woody Weatherman and Pepper Keenan spins from southern-edged groove to full on force in Albatros.
The pace quickens with Clean My Wounds, and then? That's it. The band are gone.
It seems that a few of the bands on the Zippo Encore stage today may have been short-changed – silly billy early time slots, and barely enough time to plug in before they are forced out.
They really should be playing much later in the day, and for longer.
The same can be said of L7 who arrive on stage sans soundcheck, and with a different Miss sitting at the drum stool – Drummer Dee Plakas has broken her arm, and Adam Ant's drummer Jola has plugged the gap.
Dee is still here though, with a mic. A fucked up arm wont stop her from having fun.
They break out the big guns (as opposed to breaking more arms); Andre, Fast n' Frightening, Everglade, the cathartic Shitlist and Fuel My Fire all figure.
There are technical problems – Suzi Gardner is having issues, and frontman Donita Sparks' vocals are missing from more than one track. But they still have more wow than many of those commanding on the main stage this weekend, and just like COC who came before, they demand more.
“We just been told our time's up,” Donita says, “We just got up here...”
They wrap up with the obligatory Pretend We're Dead, which no-one complains about, but with new material in the offing, it would have been nice if the band had been afforded time enough to play Back To Bitch.
With L7 down, we snake our way through a monstrously busy site and across to the main stage where Thunder are in play.
It's late afternoon, the sun is out and Danny Bowes (sporting a Little Mix tee-shirt) is singing about Higher Ground. Perfect.
Speaking to Total MK before the show, they had promised a hit-filled set with 'no pissing about,' and they delivered; Backstreet Symphony is another swell job easily done.
“How many of you were here in 1990?” Danny asks, and our hand joins others in reaching upwards, “The rest of you missed out,” he says, “It was amazing then.”
Their chorus-heavy classic rock has aged well, and when they open up Thunder-balled Love Walked In, they take things to a higher level.
So, Guns N' Roses are back. Back together (albeit without Izzy Stradlin and Steven Adler), and back at the spiritual home of rock, three decades after they first played Castle Donington.
The site is positively humming for Slash, Duff and Axl who have arrived by helicopter a short time earlier.
By the time they vacate, the band will have put in a solid, crowd-pleasing set, and it's one they gift a smattering of covers to – Pink Floyd's Wish Your Were Here, Wings' Live and Let Die and The Who's The Seeker among them. There are covers to lost voices too, with renditions of Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun, and Velvet Revolver's Slither paying tribute to Chris Cornell and Scott Weiland.
Perhaps the oddest choice though is when Axl picks up vocals for Glenn Campbell's The Wichita Lineman.
A beautiful song, but not one we imagined filling the warm air of Donington Park tonight.
So far as their own credentials, we know they are all bona fide blasts of brilliance, but the set list screams from the start with It's So Easy and Mr Brownstone, before Chinese Democracy and Welcome to the Jungle show up.
You Could Be Mine, Civil War and Sweet Child O'Mine follow, as the band work their vast stage, and 100,000 strong audience.
Thirty years have passed since they brought their swagger n' roll to this stage for the first time, and punters got their monies' worth tonight – with a mammoth three-hour set.
A quick motorway sprint, and we are back, bright-eyed although maybe not so bushy-tailed, and manage to check in for the tail end of Kreator's set on Sunday lunchtime.
Incredibly, today's Zippo Encore set is the first time the German thrash-metal stalwarts have graced the legendary site. They bring a few pyros too, nice work for an afternoon set, and there's a hungry audience devouring their deliveries, including Satan Is Real, Hordes Of Chaos and chant-a-thon Pleasure To Kill.
The return of Body Count and Ice-T is a festival gem, and they don't disappoint, shoving a meaty rendition Slayer's Reign in Blood at us by way of introduction.
“Men are starting to grow vaginas, have you noticed girls?” Ice-T states before giggles give way to a heavy as hell Manslaughter, and even the stage front security crack smiles when Ice says ”They let us through customs again!”
It's a machine of force, and one that today brings No Lives Matter and There Goes the Neighbourhood, as the band straddles the old and the new.
Of course, Copkiller (which sees Hatebreed's Jamie Jasta joining for mic duties) raises one of the biggest cheers, and the audience are invited to let loose too: “It's ok,” Ice says, encouraging the crowd to get mouthy, “I play one on TV!”
The band temporarily gains a member when Ice's daughter makes a little stage invasion – Chanel is two-years-old and not at all phased by the noise, the audience, or the fact that there's a man on stage holding a firearm and looking more than a bit stern. Yep, she's Daddy's girl, for sure.
A little liquid refreshment later, and a stroll around a dusty arena (which makes a nice change from the muddy fiesta it has become known for in recent years), we hit the Avalanche stage just in time to see a revitalised A singing about Old Folks.
Spot the newbie guitarist in the ranks? It's McFly's Douge Poynter owning the stage in a musical fit that he wears better than his pop-parade band who are currently on hiatus.
He's good too, although really that shouldn't be such a surprise.
They save their biggest hit until the end, delivering Nothing, which climbed the charts some 16 years ago. And they'll be back out on the road later this year.
From there, it's a quick dash to one of the few (but increasing) vegetarian and vegan food operators for a damn tasty burger almost cost the same as a week's mortgage, and then we snake our way to the main stage where 'shock rocker' Marilyn Manson is commanding.
It's actually less shock these days, but still plenty of rock – and just as many costume changes for the controversial character.
Watching him meander up and down the runway with outfit after another is akin to being at the biggest fashion parade around. But this isn't for airheads.
Manson has delivered plenty of prime cuts in his time, and Disposable Teens, Mob Scene and Dope Show are all stellar. Remember back when Beautiful People was issued?
It was the sound of a fresh era in music, and that song unifies today. In fact, it's funny just how well it still works in the afternoon sun as in the darkened goth clubs you recall from its prime.
We went to catch a moment of his stage time, and stayed put for the duration.
That says all you need to know.
After more than 100 bands have shown out across four stages in three days, Download needed to bring down the curtain with someone special – and there is no-one better qualified for the job than The Prince of Darkness himself.
Not 18 months since Black Sabbath bowed out for good, and here we are watching their frontman Ozzy Osbourne take on his solo headlining appearance at Donington.
Frankly, it's a privilege.
Speaking in the lead-up to the event, keyboardist Adam Wakeman promised the band would make for a special night, and he, and they, stayed true to their word.
Guitarist Zakk Wylde is a beast at his craft, hardly breaking news there, then, but the kilted commander is always one to watch, and tonight he takes his playing stage front for a prolonged solo. The crowd laps it up, while the security suck it up.
Songs? Ozzy has them by the ton; Bark At The Moon, Mr. Crowley and I Don't Know rip open the evening, before the first Sabbath delivery of the set, Fairies Wear Boots.
Suicide Solution, No More Tears and Shot In The Dark all jostle for position in a dream of a set-list before we are invited to take our seats on Crazy Train.
But the journey continues with Mama, I'm Coming Home and Sabbath's obligatory Paranoid.
He's got some way to go on this No More Tours Volume Two run before he's done.
Any chance of a return as part of the No More Tours Volume Three package in couple of years?
Now that would be totally Ozz-some...
Ozzy Osbourne pics: Ross Halfin
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