This was the year with the bloody crap blue hospital like wristbands wasn't it?

Yeah and in that heat, they chaffed like hell!

This was my first festival. Mainly remember basking in the sun and eating snickers.  Metallica were good but I was very very tired! Also was it this year when Korn had all the other lead singers sing for them because Jonothan Davies was ill?

Axl rose being a diva amused me as well...

SYL were amazing that weekend, as were metallica. left GnR halfway through.

2006 was the last year I worked at Download, had a AAA pass as we did the comms backstage. remember sitting on top of GNR dressing room resetting the wifi boxes I had my VR T-shirt on from 2005 and being asked to take it off as it might offend!!! OFF was the second word I used. The backstage crew had to put florescent duct tape on the floor making arrows so AXL new where the toilets were in the exhibition centre.
Walking past the warm up tent on Friday night and realising Trivium were playing stood in there for about 30 minutes listening to them play some of the new stuff they had just written - must dig out those photos
 

My main memory is the sheer heat, all weekend. There was no escape! 
 
My other favourite memory of 2006 was finding £20 on the floor during Metallica and buying our first properly cold beers of the weekend from the bar. God, I still remember how good they tasted!

Yeh the heat in 06 was brutal, campsite banter was at its best apart from the fukwits on the Sunday night. Metallica, Korn kareoke, Trivium, Ax7, Prodigy in the tent. GnR were shockingly ****e, no surprise.

My main memory as others have said is how hot it was!! 
And also the horrible wristbands, they were just awful!
Metallica playing Master Of Puppets in full was great and as too was The Prodigy in the tent!! 
 
P.S. I also nearly forgot about the hundreds of free melting snickers bars!!

My first download, got there on thursday afternoon right after my final exam of my first year of uni.
 
Will Smith making a brief appearance on the main stage was awesome
Free Snickers bars!
The thunderstorm on monday morning - I was ****ting myself about being struck by lightning whilst packing the tent poles away.

THE BEST Download by FAR for me!  A VERY messy one, but VERY good at the same time!
The weather was amazing ALL weekend - think we had like a 5 minute rain shower on the Weds evening as we were pitching the tents.... then there wasn't a cloud in the sky until late Sunday night!  Got REALLY badly sunburned, but it was great!
Can't remember the Fridays bands all that well, but Metallica and Guns N Roses together at a festival was the best headliners I could have hoped for!
Watching the England match on the hill while chilling to the tunes on the mainstage on Saturday was also a treat (despite burning even more throughout) - shame we couldn't have had that in 2010!
Drunk and messy times in the Aftershock tent!  All in all, THE festival to beat for me so far, except for and despite the riots (which I somehow managed to sleep through so they didn't affect me anyway).

This was my first festival :) It was pretty good!
Apart from the heat lol... constantly slapping on sun cream every 20 mins...
But the Prodigy in the tent, amazing!
The Aftershock tent! This was a brilliant idea :)
The layout, it was just so easy to get from your tent to the arena!

This was also my First ever download festival..
and all i can say is WOW!, only 2008 has come close to this first time for me and what i mean by that is the magical feeling as a whole, i had quite an eventful year anyway and download 2006 was like a diamond in my crown for that year.. fingers crossed for this year!
 
The good>
 
Indeed how everyone has been saying that Strapping young lad were phenomenal! i totally agree
and its awesome to see 3 or more of the main bands that played in 06 are back again in 012, metallica,prodigy,devin townsend.
 
Metallica playing master of puppets album all the way through, totally historical and unique unless they do it again someplace. they were excellent, i had wanted to see them live for a very very long time and they did not dissapoint.
 
Seeing the reformed Alice in chains
another historical moment for those of us who likes alice in chains
it was magical to hear "down in a hole" again
 
Tool were also amazing and blew me away!, didn't let me down for a second and just showed why they have such an awesome following.
 

snickers bars thrown like bottles in crowds.
 
playing football in the village while very very drunk.
 
as we we're leaving in a the que of cars a guy decided to jump on top of his fan with his car radio/cd player blaring out rocking out on top of his van!
 
The bad >
 
i didn't get to see the prodigy play in 06 due to being zonked by the heat and in pain but saw them again in 09
 
The deftones can't cut it anymore seen them loads of times since and at other previous download festivals i wanted to bin all my deftones albums when i got back, absolute let down

missed down as the secret band!, caught them again though later years and was not dissapointed.
 
someone threw a glass bottle at me in the arena (dunno how they got it in)
luckyly it missed me by 1 centimeter.
 
guns n roses.. very poor didn't do anything for me, watched them from a far.
 
The heat, causing me to be in alot of pain throughout the festival but thankfully booze was a handy pain killer.
 
and of course the riots being overly rememberd for being rowdy and waking up on the monday morning like there had been a zombie apocalypse.

My first Download, and also my first festival/gig. The one that got me hooked. Most memorable thing was probably Axl coming on-stage EARLY! Got to be the first time ever? Also the weather that year was cracking, truly beautiful. 

Ahh... download 2006! My first year actually camping at download! :D 
I dont remeber much from that year, i was pretty drunk throughout! However, i remeber missing prodigy for guns n roses - biggest mistake of my life! Axel was such an arse! and of course Metallica again.... The Master of puppets album! Was amazing! :D 

Ahh... download 2006! My first year actually camping at download! :D 
I dont remeber much from that year, i was pretty drunk throughout! However, i remeber missing prodigy for guns n roses - biggest mistake of my life! Axel was such an arse! and of course Metallica again.... The Master of puppets album! Was amazing! :D 

Ahh... download 2006! My first year actually camping at download! :D 
I dont remeber much from that year, i was pretty drunk throughout! However, i remeber missing prodigy for guns n roses - biggest mistake of my life! Axel was such an arse! and of course Metallica again.... The Master of puppets album! Was amazing! :D 

Don't suppose anyone has a jpg of the 06 map do they?

2006 was my first ever download. I was entirely on my own, had very little idea of which bands I wanted to see beyond Metallica and GNR, it was if anything too warm, and of course there was the riots.
 
And I fucking loved it.
 
I've also managed to find the map :)
 

I really miss that layout it was perfect nowadays it doesn't have that donington atmosphere

Being amazed at both how good Down were and how blazed Phil Anselmo was for 11am in the morning, Korn performing with different vocalists which was cool to see, Metallica putting in the best performance I've ever seen them do, nearly fainting with surprise when GNR came on ON TIME!!! and remembering that despite what a few tossers in the crowd who didn't even stay for the whole show might say, that once Axl came back AND STAYED ON, that it was a damn good show - seeing Izzy play with GNR again was fantastic.