Live Review

Sonisphere Day 2 (Part Two) – Knebworth

• 5th Aug 2009

So we wake up on Sunday morning, raring to go, (Well at least one of us is!). We are hyped by such an amazing line-up to follow, not to mention the fact that the sun is shining and can’t wait to get in the arena and feast ourselves on the atmosphere.

Despite us being a bit useless with the starting time of Buckcherry, we still make it to the main stage to hear their last two tracks. Nice to see a band with a bit of old fashioned, trash rock attitude and had they been playing a bit later in the day, I think more of the crowd would’ve appreciated what they had on offer.

We hot foot it to the second stage to catch Paradise Lost. The guys managed to warm up the crowd well with classics like: ‘Pity the Sadness’ and ‘Hallowed Land’. No ‘As I Die’ though which was only the slightest bit disappointing. Despite a poor sound to start, Paradise Lost climaxed sounding better than some acts that were to follow.

With barely enough time to grab a camera and get to the photography pit, Lamb of God take to the stage with guitarist Mark Morton not in attendance, as his wife is expecting. The backup guitarist proved just as flawless as both new and old material pummelled the crowd into submission. Singer, Randy Blythe, immediately owned the stage with pure viscerality in his vocal attack and as usual, Chris Adler’s drumming blew away pretty much every other drummer of the weekend. Sadly, there was no choreographed wall of death in the crowd like the peach of madness in the Monster area on Friday night.

I was thoroughly impressed with the way that both the main and second stage didn’t clash with each other but I think it was an oversight to have Lamb of God before Mastodon. These bands share a large proportion of fans and as Mastodon let rip, half the crowd were still ambling from the other side of the field. Mastodon proved good fare but I get the impression they were on a bad day. Either Brent Hinds’ amp settings were all wrong, or the soundman gave him a complete nightmare. Still, the quality of Mastodon’s overall wall of noise, mixed with sick melodies and crushing riffs gave me the impression that if this is Mastodon not fully on par, then I cannot wait to see them give it to the crowd big-time. No stage banter – the music did the talking but highlights included ‘Blood and Thunder’ and ‘March of the Fire Ants’.

Machine Head proved to be a poor man’s Lamb of God in our eyes. Yes, Rob Flynn is a top front man and always has been but there was rather too much ranting into the politics of why they were ‘begged’ back into the line-up, (Originally, they had pulled out). I’d have much rather heard one or two more songs in their limited set, rather than hear him slag off Limp Bizkit. Old classics were belted out with a certain amount of gusto and a very much failed attempt to beat their record for circle pits in the crowd ensued. They wanted twenty; they got maybe 5? Still, I’d be pretty happy with that response!

Having taken some photos of Limp Bizkit, I only feel it right to review what I did see of them; not that I saw much. I’m not the biggest Bizkit fan but I was genuinely surprised to hear Fred Durst’s measured reaction to the jibes that Machine Head’s singer had bleated earlier. Not often Mr Durst takes the moral high ground. Wes Borland looked truly atrocious in his garb. He looked like he ran into a clown at high speed; but his guitar sound was ballsy and enviable; not that his riffs are anything to be inspired by however.

Leaving the other half of Team Glasswerk to review Alice in Chains and Nine Inch Nails, the latter of whom played one of the most moving sets I have ever seen, we went in search of sustenance for the Beast that is Metallica. (This was way more important than seeing Avenged Sevenfold.) Metallica have had it pretty rough over the last four years or so, during the ‘Some Kind of Monster’ movie and ‘St Anger’ debacle. Many demons have needed to be exorcised. One of which was the need to write another classic Metal album. Death Magnetic proved that job pretty much done. The live set that was to follow was to cement Metallica, in the UK anyway, as continuing to be the unstoppable machine it is. Pyrotechnics were at an all time high. How the band were not caught in the onslaught of explosions is beyond me; another demon Mr Hetfield does not need to be revisited by! Metallica had near perfect sound. They look and act like a band reborn; all the mire trodden through and wiped off their soles; the absence of any material from the ‘St Anger’ album proves this point. The band crammed into every corner hordes of classics in their two hour set and still had to leave out many others that one could expect to hear. The crowd were eating out of the band’s hands, as you’d expect for a show of this magnitude and Metallica knew it. After their encore of Seek and Destroy, the band stuck around on stage, obviously grateful of their fans’ love and patience. James Hetfield was also proved not to be too old that he can’t be showered with custard pies on his birthday. As the band left the stage, the crowd began their long journey back to their tents with a mixture of adrenalin rush and ‘end of festival blues’ hanging heavy in their bellies. They’re almost certain to be at Sonisphere 2010, if the promoters can put on even half as good a line up as they’ve all seen this weekend.