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Monsters of Rock

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 Monsters of Rock was an annual rock music festival held every August at the Castle Donington racetrack from 1980 - 1996. Monsters of Rock festivals have also been organized in other cities around the world.

Monsters of Rock in the UK

History

In 1980 Promotor Paul Loadsby planned a day-long summer festival dedicated specifically to bands from within the heavy rock and metal genre. As he had been promoting the recent Rainbow UK tour, he asked the band to headline, which they agreed.

The venue chosen for st the event was the Castle Donington motor racing circuit in Derbyshire. Capable of holding up to 100,000 fans, it was near to the industrial Midlands and had easy access to major transport links. Early preparations were delayed after objections from locals and police but the festival organisation had addressed fears the event was scheduled for Saturday 16th of August 1980.

The rest of the bill meatime was assembled as a balanced mix of British and international hard rock; A quadraphonic sound system was installed. Parallel to a Judas Priest sound-check days before the event a test of Cozy Powell’s pyrotechnics resulted in an explosion heard some three that blew out all the P.A. and caused £18,000 worth of damage the stage set-up.

Ticket prices were £7-50 in advance. Though torrential rain over the preceding week had turned the site into a quagmire the day itself dawned bright, hot and sunny. The P.A. system only seemed to work well for those few thousand crammed down the front of the stage. But minor criticisms apart the occasion was deemed an overwhelming success. From the organiser’s point of view they had lost money but had proved the principle sufficiently to have the confidence to organise a festival for following years.

Within a few years it became the annual event for the UK hard rock fraternity, superceding the rival Reading Festival. The event was destined to become a British music tradition for over a decade, and was eventually extended to include a list of dates through mainland Europe as well.

Paul Loadsby: ‘ It was a great day, the show Rainbow put on is still one of the best headlining performances at Donny...the first of its kind and a terrible risk.’

Attendance at the first festival in 1980 was 35,000, and this continued to grow until the 1988 show when 2 fans died in a crowd surge during the Guns N' Roses slot. The festival was cancelled in 1989 because of this. When it was held in 1990, the attendance was capped at 72,500. In 1997, as the event had always been a one-day festival, organisers would add on a second day only to have the event cancelled shortly after.

In 2003 the year after the Ozzfest festival took place at the same venue after two visits at the Milton Keynes Bowl (1998 and 2001) and a Stereophonics concert at the same venue in 2001, Download Festival took over where Ozzfest had left off and is seen by some as a successor to Monsters of Rock.

In 2006 another festival by the name of Monsters of rock is to be held at Milton Keynes Bowl it is to be headlined by classic rockstars Deep Purple and Alice Cooper as a special guest.

Festival Lineups

1980

16th August 1980: First "Monsters Of Rock" Festival

Rumour has it that a member of Touch swallowed a bee while performing onstage. The whole event was recorded. An LP and cassette was released consisting of two songs from Rainbow and one each from the other acts, although there were no songs by Judas Priest. The Rainbow performance was filmed and shown on UK television in 1980-1 but has never been repeated or released on video/DVD. Rainbow performed "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" the Carol King/Shirelles song (intended to be their next single) live, though never released.

1981

22nd August 1981

Blue Oyster Cult had only recently parted company with drummer Albert Bouchard, and his place was taken by a roadie. One lacklustre set later, singer Eric Bloom was presented with a memorial plaque which he proceeded to jump on and smash

1982

21st August 1982

1983

20th August 1983

1984

18th August 1984

1985

17th August 1985

1986

16th August 1986

This concert is notable for Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen's return to live performance after the 1984 car accident that severed his left arm.

The Bad News set was filmed for the "More Bad News" episode of the Comic Strip Presents. Many fans thought this was a waste of a slot, as Bad News were a 'joke' band made up of Comic Strip actors. Motörhead's set was interupted mid way through when someone threw a firecracker on stage.

1988

20th August 1988

Largest crowd ever, approx 100,000. This was the year 2 people were crushed to death during the Guns N' Roses set.

1989

No festival this year

Monsters of Rock was canceled in 1989 because of the deaths of two fans during the Guns N' Roses performance in 1988. This was widely reported to have been due to fighting in the crowd, however, in reality it was nothing more than people at the front of a 35,000 crowd moshing and slipping in the mud (it had rained heavily). Unfortunately this was followed by the crowd pushing forward, which led to the two fans being crushed [1].

Nevertheless, it was replaced with another gigantic rock festival which took place in Milton Keynes with Bon Jovi headlining.

1990

18th August 1990

1991

17th August 1991

AC/DC's set was recorded and released as a live DVD.

1992

22nd August 1992

Iron Maiden released their set as a video and live CD. A lot of this was filmed and shown on MTV Headbanger's Ball.

1993

No festival this year

1994

4th June 1994

Main stage:

Second Stage:

After just performing two songs, Biohazard was ejected from the second stage at the Monsters of Rock festival by the organisers for allowing crowd invasion on stage, then proceeded to vent their frustration by smashing up their dressing room and was removed from the venue as a result. The band would be allowed to perform again two years later on the Main Stage with the obligatory tighter security.

1995

26th August 1995

The event was called 'Escape From The Studio '95', as Metallica were taking a break from recording their Load album.

1996

17th August 1996

Main stage:

Kerrang! Stage:

Donington's only joint-headline date was widely regarded at the time as being more of a "special guest" slot for a pre-Ozzfest Ozzy Osbourne. KISS, who performed last, had returned to the make-up and theatrics of their early days.

However, the day was regarded as being most significant for two major events in the history of nu-metal. Sepultura were forced to perform as a three-piece after the death of the adopted son of vocalist Max Cavalera. Guitarist Andreas Kisser filled in for the absent singer, who had returned to Brazil for the funeral, but this was seen as the start of events that lead to the collapse of the band.

The second major event was the first UK festival appearance of Korn. The second stage was sponsored by Kerrang magazine, who had prepared a short list of five bands to be voted in preferance order by the readership. Korn was not on this list, and the general expectation was that Type O Negative would become headliners on this stage. However, the magazine had included a write-in slot on the ballot, expecting to be able to find a popular but minor UK band to open up on the stage. When the numbers came in, Korn had received more write-in votes than Type O Negative had first votes. The hugely over-crowded bowl that housed the second stage was further proof that the underground Korn were becoming a major act.

2006

3rd June 2006

This event was the first Monsters Of Rock in 10 years and resided at Milton Keynes bowl. It was perfect festival weather and around 30,000 people attended the event.

Monsters of Rock festivals in other locations

Monsters of Rock in other locations include:

Argentina

1994

1995

1998

2005

Brazil

1996

Bulgaria

2006

01 August - 08 August Varna, Bulgaria

A Monsters of Rock festival is to be held up in Varna, Bulgaria in the summer of 2006. Unlike other festivals with the same name, this one has been planned to take place in five consecutive nights. The bands list up to this date includes:

If conducted as planned, the festival is going to be the biggest Monsters of Rock festival to date and by far the largest heavy metal event ever to be held in Eastern Europe.

France

1988

Germany

1983

1984

1988

1991

Italy

1988

1992

The Netherlands

1988

Spain

1988

2006

Sweden

1984

1986

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