Marillion
MONSTERS OF ROCK 1985
Change of tack this year. The 'Monsters of Rock' tag was dropped for some reason. Maybe because the two top names this year couldn't or wouldn't be associated with the heavy metal genre. Instead we got 'ZZ Top - Rockin' The Castle', the irony of all this was the fact that one of, if not THE biggest heavy metal band of the future was on the bill, namely, Metallica.

ZZ T… Moreop started a short run of Doningtons that was headlined by the 'two years previous third on the bill', if that makes sense. The Top appeared in 1983 and since then their album 'Eliminator' had gone through the roof and done a complete 'Bat Out Of Hell'..... ZZ Top were, this year, the biggest rock band on the planet.

Marillion photos courtesy John

Second on were Marillion, a stranger choice even than 1982's Hawkwind inclusion but in hindsight a clever one in terms on the bands popularity at the time. The Neo-Prog band had become huge in the UK and had built up a big following amongst metal fans after consecutive appearances at the Reading Festival, namely 1982 & 1983.
The rest of the bill was filled by Bon Jovi, yet to make their biggest move, Metallica, Ratt and Magnum who sat quite comfortably on a bill that included Marillion. They were a little bit 'proggy' too!

As for myself and my colleagues, well, we once again used the official camping facilities only this time we managed to actually get our tents up! We arrived Friday night and popped into Castle Donington for a few beers.

On the day of the concert we paid our usual visit to the local pubs, this year favouring The Turks Head (my late brother Carl was continually formulating a song about the Turks Head, bless him) which wasn't quite as wild as the previous year which we put down to the presence of the more 'bookish' Marillion fans. In fact, the pubs were a lot quieter with most people seemingly heading straight to the show.

We missed Magnum, but didn't shed any tears arriving in time for either Metallica or Ratt...
.LnGk Less