Hundreds Of Fans Create Circle Pit Around Parkway Drive's Winston McCall At Download Festival

If you saw Parkway Drive at Knotfest Australia earlier this year, you might have witnessed the scenes of vocalist Winston McCall getting involved with the crowd – he crowd surfed and screamed from the ground during the Deep Blue favourite, Karma. However, that was only a taste of what would happen during the band’s Download Festival set over the weekend.

On Saturday (11 June), Parkway Drive performed a too-short 35-minute set at Donington Park. After ripping through Glitch, Prey, The Void, Soul Bleach, Vice Grip and Dedicated (from the albums Darker Still, Reverence and Ire), the Byron Bay five-piece blasted into the Horizons classic, Idols & Anchors, which is when the insane circle pit took place.

Getting into the audience – just like he did in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane – McCall entered a humongous pit of over 100,000 keen metalheads. As soon as that iconic riff rang out, that massive UK audience immediately sang along to the melody.

The music stopped and McCall issued the following command: “Who’s running the circle pits out here? From my outlook, I seem like a big fucking roundabout so do me a favour: spin this fucking shit around me!”

And lo and behold, McCall looked on in awe as hundreds of Parkway Drive fans started a circle pit around him. Check out the awesome footage and the band’s full setlist below.

This year’s Download Festival commemorated the legendary event’s 20^th anniversary and featured the headliners' Slipknot, and Metallica – with two no-repeat sets on Thursday and Saturday nights, and first-time headline act Bring Me The Horizon.

Parkway Drive weren’t the only Aussies on the Download Festival line-up; we were also represented by Perth’s Pendulum, Sydney’s RedHook, Polaris, The Amity Affliction and Stand Atlantic, among others.

In March, Kill Your Stereo remarked that Parkway Drive were ready and “100% worthy of entry into the pantheon of the metal gods” after their epic, emotional Knotfest Brisbane set. You can read our full review here.

Parkway Drive Download 2023 setlist

1. Glitch
 2. Prey
 3. The Void
 4. Soul Bleach
 5. Vice Grip
 6. Dedicated
 7. Idols And Anchors
 8. Shadow Boxing
 9. Darker Still
 10. Bottom Feeder
 11. Crushed
 12. Wild Eyes