I’ve had the pleasure of attending a single Download Festival—one of the UK’s biggest rock and metal events going—and I thought I was cool with never attending another. Well, erm, that certainly was the case until about two seconds ago, when the organiser dropped another 14 acts for this year’s festival. Among them? Final Fantasy 14-themed rock band The Primals, headed up by the game’s composer Masayoshi Soken.
Not that The Primals isn’t a real band, mind: they have a full lineup, they’ve released albums, they’ve toured. But it’s also wild to see a band formed by the composer of Final Fantasy 14 with the express purpose of covering songs from Final Fantasy 14 in a heavier alt style taking to the stage of one of the biggest festivals my little island home has to offer.
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For reference, this year’s headliners include Limp Bizkit, Guns N’ Roses, and Linkin Park and past years have been graced by the likes of Metallica, Slipknot, Fall Out Boy, Iron Maiden, and Green Day as main headliners. It’s a pretty big deal! It’s also the band’s first showing outside of Asia, Fan Festival performances notwithstanding.
I can’t help but notice that this year’s Download lineup includes Tom Morello and Architects, too. Both have contributed to Final Fantasy 14’s soundtrack over the years—Architects lead singer Sam Carter lent his vocals to the last expansion, Endwalker, with its theme song Footfalls. More recently, Morello collaborated with Beartooth vocalist Caleb Shomo in Everything Burns, which featured in the game’s latest patch as the theme song to the final fight of the Arcadion raid series.
Both songs are absolute bangers, and there is a teeny tiny bit of me (huffing massive supplies of copium) that hopes one or both will make an appearance alongside The Primals to perform their respective tracks. It’s certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. It’s pretty common for artists who’ve collaborated to perform together at these things. One of my favourite memories of attending Download in 2023 was getting to see Bullet for my Valentine take to the stage alongside Pendulum for their then-new song, Halo.
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But I also hope it doesn’t happen because I am currently over here being a giant jealous baby who is suddenly ready and prepared to get over absolutely everything I hated about Download. Listen, I love listening to music and walking around all of the different stages, but I also hate shivering in a sleeping bag perched atop a crappy air mattress while some drunken bozo falls on top of my tent at least once a night. Maybe a day pass and a hotel is in order.
I am, ultimately, interested in seeing how well The Primals’ specific flavour of ‘videogame music but also just very good in its own right’ will translate over to the masses. Part of the joy of these festivals is discovering new acts and while Download is no stranger to great-but-niche additions in its lineup, I am curious if The Primals will land outside of its dedicated circle.
If you are interested in seeing The Primals live, they’ll be performing at Download on Friday, June 12.
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