AC/DC, Them Crooked Vultures To Headline Download Festival

UPDATE: See end of story.

Hard rock legends AC/DC and new super group Them Crooked Vultures are among the first acts announced to play this year’s Download Festival, which takes place at Donington Park between June 11-13. The festival, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, will also see performances from Stone Temple Pilots, Megadeth, Motorhead, Deftones, Bullet For My Valentine, Wolfmother and Volbeat.

The eighth Download festival marks the 30th anniversary of rock festivals at Donington Park, dating back to the first Monsters Of Rock in 1980.

Download Festival promoter Andy Copping said this year’s event would be “one for the history books.”

“It will see the return of the world’s greatest rock band to the most legendary and spiritual home of rock,” he continued. “AC/DC are huge, absolutely immense, and we’re talking about a band that don’t do festivals, they only do they’re own events.

“Now they’ve finally agreed to do Download and we’re pleased as punch to have them.”

It will be the fourth time that AC/DC have appeared at Donington; the first was at the second Monsters of Rock in 1981, followed by appearances in 1984 and 1991. Copping said the festival would be a tribute to Maurice Jones, who started the Monsters of Rock festival at Donington Park in 1980 and died last year.

Commenting about the news that Them Crooked Vultures would be playing, Copping added -

“Them Crooked Vultures is a real coup as well. Everyone wants to see this band because of the people in it. “They did a small run of dates in December that sold out unbelievably quickly but this looks like it could be their only show here in the summer, which is amazing.”

This year’s festival is also set to expand, with show organizers opening up the arena further after a sell-out last year and 85,000 fans on site each day.

John Probyn, spokesman for Live Nation, said:

“The Donington site and its continuing flexibility should take some of the credit for the longevity and success of both Monsters of Rock and the Download Festival.

“We are thrilled that our 30-year association with the site will be marked not only with a superb line-up but also by the expansion of Download 2010 to accommodate more festival-goers than ever.”

Tickets for this year’s festival go on-sale at 9am this Friday (January 29).

Update:

According to NME, Rage Against The Machine and Aerosmith have officially been confirmed today (2/15) for Download Festival as well. Rage Against The Machine will be nearby in Dublin playing the X Factor victory show on June 8. However, what’s more interesting is that NME is confirming the specific fact that Steven Tyler will be fronting Aerosmith for this show. Is this the last hurrah?