It's Sunday 16th October 2005 and for some friends who met on the Download Festival Forum; this is the day they've been planning for almost a year. Tonight is the official inauguration of Damnation Festival 2005.
What started as a joke titled 'Pit in the Park' has now formed into something rather special. The Damnation philosophy is, and has always been, 'a festival for the fans, by the fans'. A non-profit, doing-it-for-the-love-of-it gig. I admire them; it takes guts and a lot of work to pull something like this off.

With 2 stages, 15 bands, 1 DJ and over 8 hours of pure temple-crushing, spine-tingling, heart-bleeding heavy metal, what else could any true metal loving fan ask for? And all for just £13 a ticket.

I'm on my way to my hotel in Manchester city centre; the day is warm, sunny, a nice day for meeting up with friends and listening to your favourite music ? indeed, that's what I'll be doing.

As I arrive, I meet up with a group of friends, who, even after travelling for several hours on trains, simply can't wait for the evenings proceedings. As we head to nearest pub, all talk is of which bands will rock, who we'll meet and what we'll be wearing. After a few drinks, we head over to Jillys Rock World, host to the festival.

No-one, not even the organisers themselves realised how big tonight would be, not even as the queue outside managed to reach the end of the street, but it all became apparent once the 'Sold Out' sign was put on the door. Success. They'd made it.

Inside, the club was filling nicely, people were meeting up with friends and making new ones and the tension was building for the first bands. And how were the organisers feeling now? Nervous, excited, waiting for it to all go wrong!? stated one.

I placed myself in Room 2, the Main Stage as Allerjen start their set. They start hard, they stay hard and even end hard screamed the compere as they walked onstage. The crowd go mad as the band begins their set. The atmosphere is electric.

All of tonight's bands are UK talent who, respectably, deserve all the attention they get. Many of them have spent years doing the touring, gigging, sweating and slaving away to get where they are today. It's the first time that many of these bands have managed to get together and do anything remotely like this.

Ground breaking, innovative and simply daring to be different. That's what separates this festival from many others alike. The bare cheek of it all, the fact that even a group of mates could pull off something this massive and yet still remain anxious.

As for the bands, well, quite simply, I couldn't choose a favourite. They all looked good, they all interacted with the crowd, and they all played their damned best and made it one of the greatest nights in my gig going history. Events like this don't come around that often.

Next year the festival is aiming to use the same venue but looking to be on a Saturday night, rather than a Sunday, booking more bands and make the event all day with pass outs for people to go out for food etc. All the bands who played this years festival have told organisers they would be more than happy to play again next year, but the organisers are looking for new bands and new talents from the UK and internationally. Nothing is set in stone yet, but a word of warning keep the second weekend in October 2006 free because it's going to be massive whatever the plans.

In short it is, quite possibly, the best new festival around today. Maybe its rivals will now stand up and take note that these guys won't take second best as good enough. They've proved they can do it, and man, are they here for the long haul. Roll on Damnation 2006.