This year’s Download Festival was rampant with talent.

Bands such as Lamb of God, Dragonforce, Bowling For Soup and Paramore all deserve an honourable mention. However, five acts shone brighter than the rest for one reason or another. Rob Ansell explains who and why…

1. Slash (of Velvet Revolver)
It’s easy when writing a Velvet Revolver review to get caught up in the “Holy Shit! Slash is amazing!” mindset, omitting all else. The sad fact is though, without him, VR would be a mediocre live act.

At times their Main Stage set was tedious and lacklustre, and you could find yourself awaiting famed Slash solos to inject life back into their performance. It wasn’t all bad however as the group have written some fantastic songs including Slither and Fall To Pieces, both of which carried well across the bowl shaped arena.

The highlight of the set was Mr Brownstone, the old G’n’R classic, which Scott, Slash, Duff, Dave and Matt all played to perfection. You can take the musicians out of Guns and Roses, but you can’t take Guns and Roses out of the musicians!

2. Lez Zeppelin
Everyone is a critic when it comes to cover bands. It’s also the case that the bigger the band being covered, the more critical the audience is of every mistake made.

On top of the pressure of emulating one of the greatest bands of all time in front of thousands of extremely critical ears, Lez Zeppelin on the Tuborg stage had only 30 minutes of playtime with which to make an impression. And leave an impression they did.

Crashing through track after track, eager for the crowd hear as much of them as possible in the tight timeframe, it was obvious that there was real passion behind their playing and deep love for the songs.

Although no doubt everyone would rather the original male 4-peice was on the stage, there is no denying that Lez Zeppelin produced flawless renditions of classic songs, and as one of the crowd rightly pointed out, “it’s as damn near as we will ever get.”

Finishing on Whole Lotta Love, Led Zeppelin fans old and new went away satisfied.

3. Dream Theater
Few bands are well-respected enough to be able to get the crowd going with a montage of themselves being shown on the screens. Dream Theater -as proved on the Dimebag Darrell Stage - hold their place among these elite few.

This being their first ever time at Download, Dream Theater pulled out all the stops with a set fitting the occasion. The members, each master musicians in their own right, collaborated to produce a performance of blinding technical ability and harmonious sound, clearly showing the reason behind their long-term survival and success.

Plugging their UK tour in October to promote their new album Systematic Chaos, they left with a bow and undoubtedly left the audience with a mental note to be on the watch for future tickets.

4. Mötley Crüe
If ears could have orgasms - really loud filthy orgasms - they would scream “Mötley Crüe!”

Such was their performance on Saturday night, people inside (and outside) of the tent were cheering as loud as the band was playing, quite a feat considering the volume of the speakers was whacked firmly up to 11.

With the tent packed to well over capacity, the crowd surged as Vince Neil exercised his vocal chords by launching into Dr Feelgood, the opening number. The Mötley machine was already running full pelt. These glam veterans showed no sign of their age, nor the disputes that have split the group in the past.

In fact, they were very much a single unit and Girls Girls Girls, Shout at the Devil and Primal Scream were so ferocious that head explosions were a very real risk. The entertainment was not just limited to musical prowess however as Mötley Crüe proved themselves masters of all forms of crowd interaction.

Notably Tommy Lee, swigging Jagermeister shots with members of the crowd whilst Nikki Sixx regaled us with a tale of loving England because two sisters sucked his cock backstage.

The only disappointment was that the crowd was unable to see Tommy’s ferocious drumming due to the smoke and lights filling the stage. Whether the friction between the guitar and Mick Mars’ superfast fingers caused the smoke is unconfirmed at present.

5. Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden’s performances force other bands to push themselves just to keep up and Download 2007 was no different. Their headline set on Sunday raised the bar another million miles.

Although plagued by a few Spinal Tap-esque moments such as Bruce Dickinson falling over, Iron Maiden unleashed a performance that screamed their omnipotence loudly.

After a few belting openers, Dickinson explained how they have toured the latest album (Matter of Life and Death) to death so they’d be playing the classics instead. A statement that, judging by the deafening noise, the crowd was ecstatic about.

Diving into a series of performances that were simply incredible, crowd favourites Run to the Hills, The Trooper and Number of the Beast (now in its 25th year), lifted you to a state of euphoria surpassing a morphine hit.

Songs were accompanied by props of the highest calibre such as a 15ft ‘Ed the Head’ playing air guitar and a pop-up Satan for Number of the Beast. The finale was a masterpiece of set engineering as the stage transformed into a giant army tank (being driven by Ed obviously), compete with rotating tracks and turret.

An anticipated encore (including Two Minutes to Midnight) wrapped up the musical festivities of their set and the whole festival. They left with the promise of returning “next summer” to “a field somewhere in the UK,” news that has mortal bands shivering with fear and over 70,000 Maiden fans present, bristling with anticipation.