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It's late afternoon on a sunny Friday in June, and about 40,000 people are losing their minds to Pendulum's synth-frenzied drum 'n' bass onslaught. This isn't Creamfields, though; it's Download, the UK's home of rock and metal, and Pendulum couldn't look more at home. It shouldn't be a surprise - this is the Aussie crew's fifth appearance at the festival, and they always go down a storm, their guitar-charged take on arena EDM more than propulsive enough to spark a fair few mosh pits.
Much like The Prodigy before them, Pendulum have shown that the rock community - so often accused of narrow-mindedness and gatekeeping - are more than happy to accept the right kind of bands as one of their own. As certified screamers like Propane Nightmares, Watercolour and Tarantula peel off one after the other, it's impossible not to get swept up in the giddy shape-throwing that consumes Donington, a beautifully worked cameo from Rou Reynolds for a beefed-up take on Enter Shikari classic Sorry You're Not A Winner the highlight of a set that barely pauses for breath.
And, a mere couple of hours later, it's the turn of another band from outside rock's remit to stake their claim on this hallowed ground: Cypress Hill, the kings of hard-hitting hip hop whose appearance here feels less like a novelty and more like something that was long overdue.
Warming the crowd up with a medley that teases everything from Metallica and Rage Against The Machine to Daft Punk, DJ Lord introduces his comrades with a flurry of scratches, Download welcoming B-Real, Sen Dog and Eric Bobo like returning heroes. A field of black-clad metalheads, emos and punks is turned into a singular bobbing, dancing mass as How I Could Just Kill A Man drops, and it never stops pulsing for the hour of excellence that follows.
Inevitably, a superbly deployed cover of Rage classic Bombtrack draws the biggest cheers of the set - those that saw DJ Lord and B-Real mix it up in Prophets Of Rage will have been nodding in approval - but hallmark classic Insane In The Brain isn't far off, and neither is a cheeky drop of House Of Pain's Jump Around to wrap things up. Rock music will always rightly dominate Download, but today has proven beyond a doubt that sometimes, a little variety can still be the spice of life.
