I understand that in Europe, festivals are the most popular way to see well known, bands play. Is that true? I used to read about one named Castle donnington, or just plain Donnington and it was a festival in England only for heavy metal bands. Is Donnington still in business and holding a heavy metal festival once a year, or did they go out of business? From what I read in the European metal mags it seems like Donnongton was the premier festival in Europe for heavy metal. They’d have a headliner like Judas Priest or Iron Maiden and many excellent bands also on the card.
What are some other names of popular heavy metal festivals in Europe? I’m asking our European members of the forum for help on this 
How are the people at the festivals? Do they get very drunk and/or high? If so do they get difficult to be around? or are people generally pretty cool and not overdoing drink and drugs for the most part during the festivals? Do you think a festival is better than going to an arena to see a headliner and an opening band in one night for maybe 3 hours of music?
Personally, 3 hours of very loud music is enough for me. I also like know that I have a reserved seat and hopefully more often than not I’m able to find pretty good seats. The intriguing part of a festival for me would be getting to see so many different bands, but I don’t like huge crowds. I can deal with the crowd at an arena for a concert, but dealing with a massive crowd for days one end could be a bit much. I don’t know; I suppose there are upsides to festivals as well as downsides. I went to Ozzfest which isa American festival. I went in 1997 and saw the Black Sabbath reunion which was a huge deal because people had been waiting forever to see Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Ozzy Osbourne together on the same stage again. I loved being there to see and hear them!!! It was an historic thing to experience!
The band before Sabbath was Pantera! Hell Yeah! Dimebag Darrell was playing his Confederate Flag guitar in honor of The Great Southern Trendkill and it was awesome! I love The South. They play an excellent show that night, they were extremely tight and in hindsight, I know that Phil was using heroin back then for his back injury ands somehow he managed to perform at top-level or close to it. Dime played some blazing solos and the whole band was just really tight and powerful.
On the smaller stage there was the former singer from Kyuss. Remember them? His last name is Garcia and I think the band he had that day was Unida. Some people call their type of music “stoner rock.” have you heard of stoner rock? Do you like it? I do, but not a much as my former bass player. The bass player in my band back then was a young woman who had a huge crush on Garcia, ha ha! We were there together, me, my bass player Vicky and her husband Mike who is a good friend and is also an excellent car mechanic. His favorite band is Motorhead. Vicky’s is Black Sabbath. We freaked out when Balck Sabbath played “Behind The Wall of Sleep”! We didn’t expect anything so obscure from them. It rocked!
John Garcia’s Unida - my former bass player’s absolute favorite vocalist - she worships this man, heh heh
