About the Scene
The United Kingdom is the birthplace of heavy metal. Black Sabbath, formed in Birmingham in 1968, created the template from which all metal descended. The New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the late 1970s and early 1980s produced Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead, and Def Leppard — acts that shaped the global metal landscape for generations.
The UK continues to punch well above its weight in metal, with Download Festival at Donington Park maintaining its status as one of the world’s premier metal events, held on the same hallowed ground that hosted Monsters of Rock from 1980 to 1996.
