On October 4th, DOWN will release ‘Diary Of A Mad Band’ a DVD film which documents the band’s first activity following the extended hiatus that followed the cycle of second album, ‘Down II: A Bustle In Your Hedgerow’ (2002).

“The idea of reforming Down had been stirring in our collective guts since the Spring of 2005,” comments iconic frontman Phil Anselmo, “There wasn’t a member of the band who hadn’t felt the pull…we just needed to get together and jam. It’d been four years since we’d all stood in the same room, let alone played music together. With no record label, no publicity, no opening band, nothing (!), we decided to test ourselves by basically doing a ‘word of mouth’ 6-week tour of Europe.” He continues, “Adding more fire in our bellies was that the tour would be capped off by playing an ‘unannounced guest’ opening slot on the main stage at the Download Festival. Down had never been overseas in the band’s existence. The film is documented footage of the tour, screw ups and sour notes included. It’s raw and real and shows the re-rebirth of a little ‘side project’ from New Orleans that’s managed to stand the test of time for damn near two decades.”

The main DVD feature runs for two hours and incorporates the documentary footage, interspersed with live performance tracks. The 2 accompanying CD’s feature the bands performance at London’s Astoria on May 30th 2006. This is the audio of that show in its entirety- totalling over 100 minutes. On Friday 24th September, at 4pm UK time, www.roadrunnerrecords.co.uk will reveal one of those tracks- a live version of the bands legendary track ‘Stone The Crow’. The track will be available as a free MP3 download for a limited period of 48 hours.

Diary Of A Mad Band will be available as a DVD/2CD set and is available for pre-order now- HERE.