Black Stooges t-shirt, black combats, intense leer, backstage pass. I was attempting to affect the time honoured look of a grizzled Mr kick ass rock'n'roll....as I queued for my 'Lite Bite' breakfast at the Travelodge. My image was further dismantled as the grey class septuagenarians in front of me asked me if they should visit Chatsworth House or Haddon Hall for their Sunday trip. Of course, I should I have responded with the cursory, "I don't know man, I am down here to see all the bands at Download..." but I didn't. (I advised them to go to Haddon as the Duchess of Devonshire gets on my wick ... but that's another story).

I was at the Download Festival at Donington Park where awesome crunching giants such as Metallica, Korn, Slipknot, Machine Head, Slayer would be joined by the legendary Stooges, reformed with Mr I Pop on vocal duties. On the face if it, the allure of such an event is difficult to grasp.

In effect, Download is the world's most expensive campsite which, also, just happens to be teaming with exactly the kind of people you wouldn't wish to be your campsite neighbours. Last year, one slightly disturbed young wag continued to scream "I am here to slay dinosaurs" all night long ... hence my decision to skip to the Travelodge after Linkin' Park had closed the proceedings on Saturday.

Of course, I was one of the lucky ones. I was able to sneak from the gruesome bowl that contained 70,000 apparent Satanists and languish in a backstage area of serenity and light. The audience were quite sweet, really ... apart from the ones who seemed to take great delight in hurling plastic bottles full of urine at the bands. It seems that this has become a Download tradition and I have to say one that, for the most part, the bands accepted this with an extraordinary level of good grace. Apart from The Hives who, despite rocking a lot harder than their image suggests, were understandably concerned about soiling their white blazers.

To be honest, I enjoyed the fact that The Hives were there. I sense that most people who were not wearing hideously offensive t-shirts offering sexual advice to, among others, Jesus, were relieved to see a band looking so absurdly out of place. Even when The Hives swore it was in a mildly ironic fashion. Anyway, The Hives are from Sweden and Swedish people can't swear properly anyway.

It is also worth pondering just what becomes of death metal Satanist rebels when they are not actually attending such concerts? What happens to them during the week? Do they work at Boots in Cheadle Hulme?

One of the most alarming aspects of the weekend was seeing a band onstage growling their way to a heady conclusion before, ten minutes later, seeing the same chaps sitting around a table, eating cous cous, drinking merlot and chatting to irksome record company people and a sundry array of sycophants. Not, I hasten to add, that a death metal combo shouldn't enjoy a glass of merlot ... it's just that one feels let down when these people don't sit around vomiting and sawing the heads off Cindy Dolls. Somebody asked me, by the way, if Slipknot still wore their masks backstage. Well, how would I know?

I take only a small amount of pleasure in proclaiming that the most talented act of the weekend, by a sundry mile, did indeed prove to be Iggy and the Stooges. Partly due to the fact that they actually had tunes. I know its an old fashioned concept, to have verses and choruses and some point to the lyric other than screaming "Bllurrrraaaagghhhhhhh!" but The Stooges still managed to sound harder, meaner, more innovative, experimental, dynamic and, frankly more downbeat and dirty rock'n'roll than anything Slayer or Machine Head could offer. In fact, within the confines of Download or the wider context of modern music in general, they sounded ... well, they sounded like heaven.

Not that I was entirely down on the other acts. Also, and unlike many of the other journalists there, I did actually venture bravely out of the press compound and flitted from stage to stage soaking in the sounds, some of which did lift considerably above the norm. Among these were Monster Magnet, who were of those bands who make you feel like spending a night in some downbeat bar in Chicago, The Distillers, who proved that a stunning woman can rock as hard as any grizzled hairy and Bowling for Soup, one of the few baggy shorted comic punk outfits worth investing time to get to know. At their backstage television interview they even professed a love of alcohol and sex, which makes a change from bands who love Aleister Crowley and eating toilet seats. There are too many of them, I feel.

Oh yes, I have to mention Metallica and, although they should shoulder some of the responsibility from helping to transform the loving spirit of Woodstock to the maelstrom of hate we find today, they still provided a full show of stunning breadth and intensity.