Last day of Download and the Lepps are headlining.  Get checked out of the hotel in Brum and onto the band bus down to the festival.  Another roastingly hot day.  I mean come on, it's England and a festival.....it's supposed to be peeing it down and cold.  Get situated backstage and start taking some candids of the band and crew.  Have a wander around the backstage area and see a bunch of friends.  Nick Bowcott turns up to see Sav and Phil, always good seeing Nick, just a good genuine bloke.   See Jerry Horton and the rest of the Papa Roach guys, Jacoby is his usual sarky self and is full of beans.  Am talking to Doug Aldrich and we see Brian Wheat so we take a photo together just so Doug and I aren't mixed up anymore.  Black Stone Cherry are tearing up the place tday with their unique brand of Southern rock and I catch the boys finishing off an interview.   It's always fun being around these lads, they've gotten quite the following in the UK too.  Brian May comes in to Download to see Joe and the boys and hang backstage and seems like a very humble and down to earth guy talking to everyone in the Def Lep camp. Meet  Dusty Hill from ZZ Top and we talk a while about back home in Texas and other things, lovely guy.   The rest of the afternoon unfolds kind of like this seeing friends and meeting new people, shooting candids of the band backstage etc. Before we know it the guys are getting ready to go on.

Head off to the rear of the stage and shoot the guys heading towards it from the dreesing rooms.  Up front there are 80,000 very excited fans chanting for them... Quite the noise.  Grab a few shots as they prepare to go on and then head down to the pit where there are dozens of photographers down there waiting...  Actually I've never seen so many photographers in a pit at one time but they seemed to be very good and courteous towards each other which made the experience considerably nicer.  After three songs everyone in the pit disappeared and I got on with things without having to worry about bumping into anyone.  With the Donnington crowd you never know but I didn't see one bottle or projectile head towards the stage which was a most pleasing thing.   The guys roll through the set and never seem to change pace from full throttle until Joe gives a very touching speech about Rick Allen and the accident that changed his life.  it was 23 years ago since Def Leppard last played Donnington and that concert was Ricks first since losing his arm.  It was very memorable and you could clearly see that both Rick and much of the audience were very touched by Joes words. 

Shot most of the remainder of the show from the stage sides and behind Rick on his riser.  Tried to stay out of view as much as possible and one of the funniest moments was me blindly sticking my camera over the monitors on stage right to take wide angle shots, Viv obviously saw this, came up to the camera lens and started giving me the finger...  Of course I didn't realize until later which made it even funnier..   Finished the show by going out on stage with the guys and getting a group shot with the huge audience behind.

Quick bite of dinner for everyone and a couple of sly Mars Bars for me and then we're on the bus down the road to the hotel in London for a morning flight to Nashville.