Live Review

Sonisphere Day 1 (Part One) – Knebworth

• 4th Aug 2009

And here it is at last! There has been a huge build up to the Sonisphere Music Festival Premiere in the UK and it has literally come loaded to the brim of some of the best long term rock artists known to humankind, and a diverse range of rock at that as well.

Respect must be paid out to the organisers who managed to book the likes of Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Soil, Killing Joke, Alice in Chains, Anthrax… and the list goes on!

Sensibly arriving on the Friday to get ourselves set up, Team Glasswerk got their tents up and promptly headed out to the main site to check out what was in store for us. Thankfully it was a very manageable layout. Nowhere near as big as some of the UK’s largest festivals, but quite frankly that comes as something of a relief.

There are three main areas for the music. The main Apollo stage, opposite this is the smaller Saturn stage. Both of these open air for all the advertised acts. There is then the Bohemia tent which houses a smaller stage for some of the smaller acts and a few special guests.

Around the site is the usual array of beer tents, food campers, mini attractions including a Jagermeister mini stage, and also a Monster Energy area for open air DJ and dance mayhem for the late evenings. There were a few fun fair attractions and a worrying amount of stalls that were all selling the same stuff. No Emo went without their stripey black and purple stockings at this festival! It used to be nice when festivals had cheap and artistic wear available. Now it has all but been replaces by the type of stalls you see all over Camden, and the majority are horrendously priced. But this is a festival. Even the food and alcohol is horrendously over-priced

We made good use of the Monster Energy area for dancing and witnessed a few impressive “Walls of Death” from the crowd. But wanting an early start the next day we headed back to the media camp area. Sadly sleep would not come to any of us because some group of bright sparks next to us decided to burn their candles at both ends until 6am (Funny how they were all in bed very early the next two nights running?).

Up we got and split up respectively to cover as much material as we could for our first day. The main Apollo stage kicked off on a positive note with American rockers Alien Ant Farm who put in an energetic first pass at the early crowd. Sometimes crowds can be a bit lonely in numbers in the early parts of a festival, but a good number have shown up for the start.

Whilst Soil are the first band on the second stage (Saturn Stage) it is Skindred who are second up that put in the festival’s first strongly memorable appearance. Working the crowd and kicking the music in style, it’s an effortless show. The band managed to work their short appearance well from start to finish. It also raises the bar for entertainment value from other acts, reports of Airbourne doing just that can only make one smile at how well it is all going.

Back on the Apollo stage Anthrax (with former lead John bush showing up for this show only) put in an astonishing performance. For a non fan to be literally blown off their feet by a performance is quite the impression bands like to give. By this point the crowd is full to the brim and there aren’t any complainers.

There are, however, let downs and there was an expectation that Bjorn Again would do an ABBA metal cover set as well as one Metallica song picked out by fans. And whilst their “Enter Sandman” work is impressive enough, their ABBA-Metal plan seems to be very obviously just straight ABBA with not a hint of metal anywhere near it, which to be honest does put them a little out of place (but apparently Hetfield is a fan, so what do we know!). If anything a mid day come down is what the crowd need before anyone starts to take themselves too seriously, and the crowd seem to get that and themselves laughing.

Bullet for My Valentine rounds out proceedings on the first stage, and it’s Linkin Park who finish up on the Apollo. Whilst both names are well know, they seem obviously to have been keeping much of the gold for the two outdoor stages in reserve for Sunday!

Thunder and the Wildhearts are the last bands to perform on Saturday. Both taking their spots in the Bohemia tent. It’s good to end the first day on a genuine high, and Thunder effortlessly get the crowd on their side and put in a show well worth the queue into the tent! The bohemia may be nice to go to hide from the rain, but it is also hot and limited in capacity. And some of the names in there were too big to draw a comfortable crowd. Next year they may need a bigger boat.

Satisfied with an atmospheric beginning we put our heads down at a respectable hour in the hope that we can sleep and be ready for the next and final day.