// PC GAMER — GAMING
I went to the UK's largest rock festival to see its one and only videogame band
The Primals took to the stage at Download Festival in their first non-Fanfest appearance outside of Asia.
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Welcome to Critical Hit, where I (or someone else on the PC Gamer team) celebrate and lament all things videogame music, audio design, and the ways our favourite games make our ears tingle.
I often think of the times the mainstream dips its toe into our colourful corner of pop culture and tries to fit in—Beyoncé tapping away at a Nintendog, the multitude of weird Hollywooded videogame movies, real-life athletes turning up in the videogame version of their respective sport, WEED3.
But it is so rare to see the reverse. When the 2021 Tokyo Olympics paid homage to the industry with a fantastic videogame music-filled opening ceremony, it was newsworthy. It is still incredibly funny every time I think about the fact the Vatican was made privy to the existence of Undertale's Megalovania. Small pockets of nerd culture bleeding out to the masses.
I couldn't help but keep these sporadic moments in the back of my mind as I ventured into the large blue-and-red gazebo that sprawled across the Dogtooth Stage at Download Festival—the largest rock and metal festival in the UK—offering a pleasant respite from the sun beating down over Donington Park. It's a space I'm familiar with, grass I've trodden before. Dirt and dust I've washed out of my hair after too many days of the dreaded wet-wipe-shower.
But this time I wasn't here to live out my perpetual emo teen dreams of drinking in a field waiting for bands like Linkin Park or Limp Bizkit. I was here to see The Primals—Final Fantasy 14's official in-house band. One which has never done a live performance outside of a Fan Festival or Asia tour. A wonderful marriage of my two biggest interests coming together under one very sweaty tent.
With a surprisingly tasty timeslot of 5:50pm, The Primals' biggest competition being Electric Callboy at the nearby main stage, I was curious exactly what the crowd would look like, and how it would respond to something relatively niche. Festivals are always the perfect place to discover a band you've never heard of before, but a very specific videogame band? That can make popping over to a stage on a whim a harder sell.
I turned up approximately 20 minutes before the set was due to start and was met with a small but tightly packed crowd, a dense throng of bodies clustered close to the barriers. I took a spacious spot towards the back, feeling myself become increasingly closed in over the next 15 minutes. I took a quick look over my shoulder shortly before the timeslot and was pleasantly surprised to see how many more people had packed in.
The Primals weren't exactly drawing the crowds showing up for the more mainstream bands populating the larger stages. But as I scanned the area, spotting several folks wearing Final Fantasy 14 t-shirts chatting away about the game, the nerves I'd felt on behalf of the band began to settle.