With the hangovers still raging strong in our heads, we head down to the main stage to check out last year’s returning heroes the Stone Gods.

It appears that quite a few people have given in to temptation and slept in as the crowd is far from swelled which is a pity because the Stone Gods turn in a quality performance today. They open with the riff-heavy crowd pleaser ‘Burn The Witch’ (which bears a little more than a slight resemblance to Metallica’s ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’) and proceed to cram as much from their brilliant debut album Silver Spoons & Broken Bones into their short set as possible. A great start to what is largely seen as the ‘Monsters of Rock’ day and here’s hoping it will be third time lucky next year and they will get a longer set – fingers crossed. The rock then keeps on rolling with American veterans Tesla.

The band have been plying their trade in good old-fashioned American hard rock for some 20 years and the fact that it is so distinctly American may explain why they’ve never really been as big in Europe as they have back home. 

They do go down pretty well though and they do play a great set, it’s just a bit of a shame that more of the younger crowd waiting around for Def Leppard, Whitesnake et al. are unfamiliar with lesser known classic rock acts like Tesla. Unfamiliarity could also have easily been a thorn in the side of returning British rockers Skin.

Thankfully though, the Skin faithful have turned out in full and even those who don’t know them are won over completely by what is, by all accounts, a triumphant return. Gone is the grey cloud of Right Said Fred (and also ironically some of the hair) and what we have today is a band genuinely glad to be back and for 40 minutes, it’s smiles all round – band and audience alike. Definitely a band worth checking out more for those who don’t know them and one to go see on a rare UK tour this December. The big guns of the day kick off in earnest with Southern rockers, Black Stone Cherry. 

  It’s been a fantastically successful 12 months for the band since they last played Download and this year they draw a much bigger crowd.

 Seemingly incapable of playing a bad set or writing anything less than a great song, the Kentucky natives get a huge cheer and with songs like the crushing set-opener ‘Rain Wizard’, ‘Lonely Train’, ‘Blind Man’ and in the shape of ‘Things My Father Said’, a ballad that could move mountains, it would be a crime if Black Stone Cherry aren’t playing arenas in 2010. After a brilliant cover of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ it’s all over a bit too quickly for everyone and the shouts of ‘more’ are absolutely deafening. One of the most anticipated sets of the weekend comes from cheese-maestros and the kings of the power-ballad themselves, Journey.

The band come out to a roaring ovation and launch into a rendition of ‘Separate Ways’ that literally had us pumping our fists, singing along at the top of our voices and weeping into our pints all at the same time – yes, it was THAT good and it may just be the best song ever written (hey, why not? ;-) ). On a more serious note though, Journey do play an absolute blinder today and the addition of YouTube starlet Arnol Pineda on vocals is an absolute revelation. 

Admittedly, if you close your eyes then you could be forgiven for thinking Steve Perry had rejoined the band but this is no bad thing and if Pineda is just a karaoke singer (as his critics have suggested) then he is the finest karaoke singer on the planet. 

This guy can really sing and his magnificent voice carries Journey’s greatest hits all the way to the other side of Donington Park and by the time the band launch into the closing salvo of ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ (which might be THE most popular song this weekend) and radio-friendly fist-pumper ‘Any Way You Want It’, everyone in the crowd has been converted to the church of Journey and they sing along as if their lives depended on it – a truly spiritual experience. With Journey’s power ballads still humming round in our heads, we decide that we’re not really in the mood for Dream Theater so we head off to the 2^nd stage for some good-time rock n roll with a twist in the form of crazy Danes Volbeat.

Sounding like a cross between Johnny Cash, Elvis and The Misfits, Volbeat are one of the most unique bands at Download this weekend and although they’ve been massive in mainland Europe for a good few years now, our little island is only just beginning to catch on. They don’t have the biggest crowd by any means but you wouldn’t know it by frontman  MIchael's fantastic rapport with the audience and it’s clear that the band are just happy to be here and they are most definitely long overdue for a slot at this festival. They finish on a gloriously tongue-in-cheek cover of ‘I Only Wanna Be With You’ and although they’ve only had a short 30 minutes on stage, it seems from the crowd reaction that there are many here that will be checking them out further. It’s time to head back over to the mainstage for a rare UK appearance by rock legends ZZ Top. 

We only catch the first half of their set as there’s a certain band from the Sunset Strip about to take the stage over in the Tuborg tent and unfortunately ZZ Top seem to be saving their rock n' roll big hits for the second half and we only get the more bluesy numbers before having to run off and the stage seems to have a certain air of emptiness as the band stay pretty much rooted to the spot. The novelty of their trademark synchronized hip-shaking wears off pretty quickly and they overall fail to impress and end up coming off as just a little bit dull. At completely the other end of the fun and stage-presence scale are L.A. glam-rockers Steel Panther. 

With tongue firmly in cheek and other body parts lodged firmly elsewhere, the Tuborg tent is as full as it’s possible to be for the comedy rockers. Although they’ve spent the majority of their musical life as a cover band and they have a ludicrously fake back-story in place that many of rock’s elite seem more than happy to join in with and back up, Steel Panther’s new album Feel The Steel has proven that there’s more to these lot than meets the eye. Every Hollywood celebrity’s favourite band, Steel Panther have most of Download’s backstage area jocking for position on the side of the stage to catch their set and before they even take the stage the entire tent is chanting ‘Panther, Panther’ and it’s a wonderful sight to see after so many dull and self-indulgent years in rock that people actually want to have fun again. And this is what Steel Panther represent. 

They are a glorious celebration of everything the Sunset Strip in the 80’s stood for – fun, sex, big solos and choruses and even bigger hair. The band are introduced by everyone’s favourite jackass Bam Margera, who gets the comedy started by dropkicking one of his associates right in the face and given that it’s Steel Panther he’s introducing, the whole thing actually fits pretty well. They only get a criminally short half-hour set and it seems like everyone in the tent wouldn’t be satisfied unless we got a live playback of the entire album. The Panther try to give us as much as they can though and although they mysteriously leave out the terribly crass but even more terribly funny ‘Fat Girl’, we do get hilariously un-pc (soon to be) classics like ‘Turn Out The Lights’, ‘Community Property’ and of course ‘Death To All But Metal’ which is up there for largest sing-along of the weekend. The crowd banter is fantastic and funny as are the songs and it seems that for everyone here, the Panther can’t come back fast enough. There’s no time to waste after the Panther however, as the classic rock continues down on the main stage with the mighty Whitesnake.

Whitesnake have never disappointed me whenever I’ve seen them and today is no exception. Coverdale, ever the silver-tongued Yorkshireman has the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand from the off and the current crop of musicians he’s surrounded himself are on top form too, particularly Doug Aldrich, who manages to do justice to the older Whitesnake material whilst still putting his own individual stamp on the songs. This is almost a co-headlining set for Whitesnake and the band get a 90 minute set tonight so the only gripe is that perhaps they could have fit some more songs in place of some rather extended solos but given the average age of the band is well over 55 then it’s perhaps understandable. Of course it’s the big hits like ‘Fool For Your Loving’, ‘Here I Go Again’ and set-closer

‘Still Of The Night’ that get the biggest cheers but songs from last year’s Good To Be Bad album are well received and go a long way to disproving the critics’ claims that Whitesnake and their ilk are nothing but nostalgia bands. I’m not sure the same can be said for headliners Def Leppard, however.

When the band play tracks from last year’s Songs from the Sparkle Lounge album the crowd response is tepid at best and it takes the band a little while to get going. But once the hits start coming, the Sheffield natives really get into their stride and there’s no denying timeless classics like ‘Armageddon It’, ‘Hysteria’, ‘Make Love Like A Man’ and ‘Photograph’, all of which get the crowd singing at the top of their voices. It’s been 23 years since Def Leppard last played Donington and it was their first show after Rick Allen’s accident and when frontman Joe Elliott introduces his drummer tonight the audience response is truly moving and brings a tear to everyone’s eyes – band and fans alike. 

Nearly 2 hours of Def Leppard may seem a lot and although there were times during the set where it felt a little anti-climatic (particularly Rick Savage’s bass solo – really, was there a need for that?), all in all it was a triumph for perhaps the most famous rock band to come out of England and the finale of ‘Let’s Get Rocked’ spawns a line of people air-guitaring almost all the way across Donington Park. Having the UK’s most successful musical export return home and headline the country’s most prestigious festival was a fitting end to the biggest show here for over two decades and as we walk away from yet another great year at Donington Park, we are once again sad to leave but wonder what the festival organisers will pull out of the bag to top this in 2010. Same time next year then Download...