Limp Bizkit finally headlined Download Festival last night, kicking off rock’s biggest weekend with a set filled with classics.
- READ MORE: Download Festival 2024 review: despite all odds, a promising step in a new direction
The nu-metal group have had a long history with the Donington Park festival, where they were supposed to be the inaugural headliners in 2003, but dropped out and were eventually replaced by Audioslave.
Limp Bizkit sub-headlined the last day of 2024’s edition, and their set, which marked their first appearance at Donington Park since 2013, drew a bigger crowd than that year’s actual headliners, Avenged Sevenfold.
Last night (June 12), they officially returned as headliners, starting their set by teasing ‘Break Stuff’, with Wes Borland’s guitar cut off by Fred Durst. “They ain’t ready for that yet!” he declared, before launching into a slew of hits, including ‘My Generation’, ‘Hot Dog’, with a guest appearance from recent collaborator Lauren Sanderson, ‘Nookie’, and more.
They also used the headline slot to pay tribute to late bassist Sam Rivers, who the group described as “the soul in the sound” and a “once-in-a-lifetime kind of human” when news of his death was shared in 2025.
As their high-octane set drew to a close, a crowd injury at the end of ‘My Way’ puts things on pause, with Durst communicating with the crowd as a festivalgoer was brought out on a stretcher, before Limp Bizkit rounded things off with ‘My Way’.
Limp Bizkit at Download Festival 2026 played:
‘Thieves’ (Ministry cover)
‘Break Stuff’
‘My Generation’
‘Livin’ It Up’
‘Bring It Back’
‘Hot Dog’ (with Lauren Sanderson)
‘Nookie’
‘Full Nelson’
‘Dad Vibes’
‘Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle)
‘Eat You Alive’
‘Faith’ (George Michael cover)
‘Take a Look Around’
‘Behind Blue Eyes’ (The Who cover)
‘My Way’ (cut short after injury in crowd)
‘Break Stuff’
Elsewhere this weekend, Guns N’ Roses and Linkin Park will make up the rest of the 2026 headliners, each a UK exclusive for the year.
Other big names set to play the event include Bad Omens, Cypress Hill, Tom Morello, Trivium, Halestorm, Pendulum, Mastodon, BABYMETAL, Architects and Feeder, while the line-up for the District X stage will feature Five, Electric Six, and The All-American Rejects.
There will also be some secret sets that will be revealed on the weekend itself, as well as sets from TokenGrass – a bluegrass tribute to Sleep Token – and a Rage Against The Machine tribute act fronted by a Nicolas Cage impersonator, titled Nic Cage Against The Machine.
Festivalgoers can download the festival app here (Apple) and here (Android) to check out all stage times for Download 2026, and find a full list of those here.
Festival organiser Andy Copping spoke to NME in 2024 about the importance of creating a platform for new and emerging talent. “I’ve always wanted to do that, and you can see it in how we’ve been developing the other stages like the Dogtooth stage and the Avalanche,” he said.
“For us, it’s about giving bands the opportunity to grow. We’ve got the platform and we want to be sending a message to those guys like ‘Come and play. We believe in you and you’ve got a great opportunity here.’ Thankfully, for the most part, these bands do step up and they do deliver.”
