It's Saturday morning, the sun is shining and the shuttle buses are shuttling. In fact, I have got very little to moan about, so let's go straight into the bands. Our day starts with Californian natives Dirty Honey who are playing their first show on the shores. Their retro-fuelled sound brings to mind The Black Crowes’ electrifying opening set on these very grounds thirty-one years ago. They share the ability to feel simultaneously authentic but also thoroughly modern. They have taken a much-trodden route and made it very much their own.

This is laid-back, sunshine-drenched, feel-good rock 'n' roll and it drips with utter quality. They may be only young, but they have a confidence and a presence that is well beyond their years. They know how to hold an audience in their hands and we respond by lapping it up. What makes them stand out from the clusters of other bands jumping on the classic rock bandwagon, is the songs. They are beautifully constructed, minimal enough that they don't come across as histrionic and adorned with enough individuality that you don't feel that they are simply recycling what others have done for them. They get barely 25 minutes but you can tell from the plethora of beaming faces across the field that they have certainly made their mark.

Walking from the smooth Californian vibes of Dirty Honey to the harsh techno-addled tones of Death Blooms is like moving from one festival to another. Their evolution over the last 12 months from the nervous youngsters that opened up the Download Pilot is astounding. What stands before us now is a highly competent and highly confident beast of a band, incredibly comfortable in its own skin. Last year it felt like they were joyriding in other people's genres, but now they have taken full ownership of their highly enthralling amalgamation of industrial and metalcore. The other different thing is that they now have a fan base, a fevered and highly vocal fan base that turns the Dogtooth into a thronging mass of youthful bodies. They have indeed moved from "oh my god it's a band" into one that we very much have to watch.

Another stage and another completely different genre. We are now in the court of Those Damn Crows, who have graduated out of the tents and all the way up onto the Main Stage. If I am going, to be honest, I'm not sure whether they have survived that transition unscathed. They are without doubt the perfect bar band, but this afternoon that doesn't quite translate itself to the vast contours of Download's biggest platform. They come across as a little bit lost, unsure of where to focus on.

They undoubtedly have a bag full of bangers, the issue is if they don't seem to land beyond the confines of the faithful at the front. Shane Greenhall tries hard and the affable Welsh lad persona gets about halfway up the field, but doesn't seem to connect with those beyond the sound desk. I really do love Those Damn Crows and on a good day they are unsurpassable, so it does hurt to knock them. But they really do need to think about their reach and presence if they are going to bother this size of the stage on a regular basis.

Back on the second stage and Malevolence’s council estate death metal is kicking up a veritable storm. They are another band that has gone from strength to strength since they stormed the barricades of the Download Pilot. This afternoon they crackle with kinetic energy. If you had a dynamo, you could run the entire site with the voltage coming off this band. The secret of their appeal is the fact they have taken a very American genre and made it distinctly British. It is now the soundtrack of disenfranchised youth and the traits of other zeitgeist heralding genres, such as trap and grime, are obvious to see. The sound they produce may be brittle and brutal but they operate like a hip-hop crew, forever folding in and out of each other. This is the sound of our underinvested and overpopulated inner cities, this is the sound of the future.

Once again it's like moving from one festival to another as Monster Tuck, back on the Main Stage, are a million miles removed from the potent anger of Malevolence. This is the sound of the deep South, southern fried boogie filtered through a bedrock of bluesy rock 'n' roll. Whilst Those Damn Crows looked a bit like frightened rabbits up on the mammoth stage, Monster Truck come across as relaxed and even consciously lethargic. They know they belong up there and they are going to do things in their time and in their tempo. This is music to drink beer to in the blazing sun and tens of thousands of the Download faithful take up that very opportunity.

Loathe exists in a completely different sector of the musical universe to Monster Truck. Theirs is a darkly complex web of reverberating sonics and juttery riffs. Initially, it seems challenging but when you get beneath there are wonderful oceans of distorted melody. This afternoon they are utterly magnificent. Family bereavement has put play to the rest of their European festival itinerary and you get the distinct feeling that they channelling all the pent-up energy into this one show. Becoming a four-piece last autumn seems to have galvanised them and they are a much tighter and contorted vehicle. The new album is imminent and you get the feeling that with performances like this the sky is very much the limit.

Back on Main Stage Black Label Society are being well, Black Label Society. They are morphing into a more laid-back and less angry Machine Head in that they are thoroughly dependable. You know what you are going to get and you know it will be done well. Zakk Wylde long ago graduated from being simply Ozzy’s partner in crime. He is now a heavy mental institution in his very own right and the screams of adoration are for him as opposed to for his connection with the Prince of darkness.

However, I don't linger long as I have an appointment back in the multicoloured youth club that is the Avalanche Stage. Holding absence are yet another alumni of last year's Download Pilot, they are also another band who have miraculously gained pace during the subsequent twelve months. Last year they came across as competent but rather contrived, however they have now consolidated their cinematic alt-metal to create something that is thoroughly breath-taking.

Quite simply they are rewriting the rulebooks as heaviness should not be this lush and edifying. In the middle of their melee of noise is an astonishing core of beautiful melodies. Simultaneously rugged and accessible, Holding Absence have decided where they're going we don't need roads and are contentedly making their own way through the dense jungle that is our genre. Everyone in the Avalanche stage seems more than happy to follow.

Will Haven are very much a musicians band. They’ve been a going concern for nearly thirty years, yet here they are way down the billing order on Download’s smallest stage. If you love Will Haven you absolutely adore Will Haven and a small but rapturous faithful stand glued to the front of the stage. Everybody else sadly doesn't give a fuck. Tonight (also to be really honest this afternoon) they do what they do and they do it well. They have a template and it has worked for them since 1995. This set won’t win over new fans, but that's not the point. As I said if you are a Will Haven fan you will be here over everything else. And if you are not a Will Haven fan frankly you will be elsewhere.

It's another short sprint back over to Avalanche and something in my waters tells me that it is going to be very very special. You see there is not just a buzz about Grandson, there is a massive screaming air raid siren heralding his appearance on the scene. Everybody was to be associated with him and everybody wants his co-writing credit on their records. What we discover is essentially Eminem without the attitude. His white boy rap is not unique and it is not very new, but God is it presented well. He has the same laid-back delivery of someone like Kendrick Lamar and then he submerges it in the noodling of a thoroughly competent alt-rock backing band. Like the aforementioned Kendrick rapping over latter-day Stone Temple Pilots. For such a short and diminutive gentleman he has barrel loads of presence. I leave the place thinking I have not just seen a future Download headliner, I have just seen a future Glastonbury headliner.

When we return to the Dogtooth stage, it is not a case of the fact that we can't get in, we can't get in the same postcode of it. After seventeen years of painstakingly trying, Bleed From Within have finally made it. There are only so many times you can top the next big thing lists before it starts to look like you have thoroughly missed your bus. Bleed from Within have exemplified resilience, time after time they have fallen and they have dusted themselves up and got back onto the proverbial bike. Finally, with their astonishing sixth album “Shine”, this is their moment.

Everyone on site wants to be in this tent and the entire inside of Dogtooth has become a seething mosh pit. Bleed from Within grab this moment with both hands. They are incendiary, a fireball crashing across the stage. I had already become thoroughly convinced that they deserve a spot on the main stage, following this performance I am now convinced they’ve put themselves in pole position as a future headline.

Mastodon are one of the fundamental architects of modern metal. Where many others have followed they lead the way, exquisitely combining brutality with complexity. Therefore it is an utter travesty that not only are they shoved in this graveyard slot, but that so few people bothered to turn up to see them. However, Mastodon are true troopers and have probably plied their wares a million times to equally disinterested crowds. They know how to work a festival crowd and therefore have left anything vaguely over the six-minute mark back at home. What we get instead are eleven short sharp dollops of caustic prog, essentially Slayer meets Pink Floyd. It takes a while for the audience to warm up and the band thoroughly earn the rapturous reception they get at the end, now next time please put them in a decent slot.

The recent tour with Alice Cooper seems to have done wonders for Creeper. They were in danger of becoming poe-faced and a little bit too insular with their theatrics. However, a month or so on the road with the Godfather of ham seems to have instilled in them a newfound sense of mischievous melodrama. They seem to have developed a deeper understanding that capturing an audience is about far more than just pleasing the diehards up front. The tent is rammed and Will Gould has made it his mission to connect with every single soul in here. I know it's a cliché to say a band just keeps on getting better, but every time I see Creeper they seem to have taken another step towards the eventual festival headliner status that I know they crave. They are camp, they are grandiose but most importantly they are great fun and that's all we want from our headliners.

A graph of Megadeth's career trajectory would look like the Himalayas. They have been up, they been down, then they have been up again and then they have been down again. However, the fevered anticipation that has amassed for their second stage headline slot shows that they are once more in the ascendancy. I would say that they have now reached the status of elder statesmen, equally revered and envied. Dave Mustaine has never been a man to hide his indifference, but tonight he seems quite content to lean into his living legend status. He cuts a commanding presence leaving no doubt about whose band this is.

He also highly effectively manages to walk the thin line between a crowd-pleasing set for the greatest hits mob and deep cuts for the obsessive collective. ‘Angry Again’’s inclusion is both a surprise and an utter pleasure. The highlight of the Last Action Hero soundtrack, it was the moment that Megadeth nearly out Black-albumed Metallica. The inclusion of ‘Dread and the Fugitive Mind’ (from the much-maligned “The World Needs a Hero”) also raises eyebrows, and for a small gathering of the devoted warms hearts. But frankly, they are at their best when they hanker down and give the vast sea of people what they want, namely ‘Wake up Dead’ followed by ‘Symphony of Destruction’ and into ‘Peace Sells’. At times Davies has seemed to resent the more well-known members of the catalogue but tonight he seems to be in ecstasy as he spits the words out and revels in the chanting hordes. Once again Megadeth have got themselves off the canvas and proven that you can never write them off.

And so as traditional nobody clashes with Iron Maiden. They have the entire 70,000 people on-site to themselves. Now I need to temper what I am about to say with the fact that Maiden have been an integral part of my life since the mid-80s. They have soundtracked depression and they have soundtracked elation. They have been a constant in my ever-changing musical tastes since the first time I heard ‘Phantom of the Opera’ in that Lucozade advert. I am not an Iron Maiden fan, I am an Iron Maiden devotee which is why it really pains me to say that tonight they get it spectacularly wrong.

When I saw the Legacy of the Beast show back in 2019 at Manchester Arena, it was a piece of beautifully balanced theatre. Expertly balancing prop-heavy deep cuts with fan favourites. Tonight the addition of the opening three tracks from “Senjutsu” sadly tips it in completely the wrong direction. The trio of new songs may be treated with reveration by the throngs down the front, but where I was stood (slightly back from the mixing desk) they wash across the audience in a great sea of indifference. 

At that point, you throw in, as Clint Boon would say "a tune” but no, they power back into the Legacy of the Beast set with a run of ‘Revelations’, ‘Blood Brothers’ and ‘Sign of the Cross’. I know the words of each better than I know my children's birth dates but the non-maiden fans around me clearly don't and the world-weary reaction at the end of the latter track says it all (Ryder Cup clapping as my friend Pete puts it). There is a veritable sigh of relief when they charge into ‘Fear the Dark’ and you can hear audibly the unsaid whispers of "at last one I know”. It is all uphill from there onwards, however, the simple truth is by that point they have lost a good chunk of the audience.

As I keep saying I adore Iron Maiden with every bone in this body, but I emphatically believe with a different ordering that this could have been a far far more engaging show than it turned out to be (the clansman as an encore, really!!). Aces High at the end is always magnificent but it should have been the entry point into a fantastic show, as opposed to a stark reminder of what could have been. There will be thousands and thousands who will disagree with me and that is their right, but for this one Iron Maiden evangelical I truly believe that they just made the first mistake since Virtual 11.