Live Review

Sonisphere Full Review 1 – Knebworth

• 4th Aug 2010

DAY 1

Ah Sonisphere, how we love you. But before I get ahead of myself and start overflowing with rapturous praise, here follows a day by day account of our time at probably my favourite rock festival in the UK.

We arrived on Thursday night to find the site pleasantly unchanged from the first festival last year, just slightly expanded around the edges like an early onset of the middle aged paunch. After quite an elongated tent erecting session and fuelled with BBQ goodness, we headed off to check out the site. Apart from some more stalls, a relocated tent and quite a few more metallers, all was as it should be and we celebrated with a few beers followed by death by dodgems. Sadly the DJs in the Bohemia tent finished at 11pm (too early!), but nevertheless the excitement of 55,000 metallers pervaded the area and, as with others, I suspect we were a little enthusiastic on the first night and certainly regretted it in the morning. Sore heads all round.

But nevertheless there was rock to be listened to and I kicked off the day with a brief glimpse at the Bizarre Intro Act, which involved a lady in a tuxedo miming along to music. My fuzzled brain wasn’t ready for this, so I left fairly quickly and headed over to Turisas.

Turisas came on in full battle gear, faces painted the traditional red and black, screaming war cries and generally rattling our brains with their Viking battle metal. There was a lot of amusing flirtation between singer Mathias “Warlord” Nygård and a hermaphrodite blow up doll. The music was explosive and the crowd certainly got very involved. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see them transform into a small Viking army and run off to storm the campsite looking for wenches and ale.

Next up were Black Spiders in the Bohemia Tent. The problem with the Bohemia tent is: a) it just isn’t big enough and b) if you are more than 20 feet from the front, you can’t see a goddamn thing, admittedly partly because I’m small, but also because of the giant speakers in the wrong place at the side of the stage and the black cladding round the support beams. But that is honestly my only Sonisphere whinge. Having said all that, Black Spiders rocked my socks off. They sound like a hybrid of stoner rock meets heavy metal with strong, rolling riffs that you can’t help but nod your head to. My highlight has to be ‘Kiss Tried to Kill Me’ and I wish I’d seen them supporting Airbourne because that would have been one fun gig.

I have to be honest, I was disappointed with Alice Cooper. The sound was frankly terrible and far too quiet. The scenes of torture, domestic abuse, decapitation and the appearance of a plastic baby all seemed a little silly somehow, although the tunes were classic and I’m never going to complain about hearing ‘Poison’ live. Maybe I just didn’t get it.

We then headed over to see Terrorvision with their very bouncy singer, Tony Wright. I admit it, I’m a fan from way back, but I don’t see a problem with a good old singalong and it was entertaining to see hardened, bearded, pierced and tattooed metallers bouncing happily to hits such as ‘Tequila’ and ‘Oblivion’, although I suspect they’ll deny the event ever occurred. The band seemed to be having a great time and really got the crowd smiling, which is exactly what you want on an opening night.

We returned to a now very over-crowded campsite for an early night in preparation for a busy day of serious rock action.

DAY 2

It had rained in the night, but thank the metal gods, it was over by morning. I headed over to Saturn, the second largest stage, at the fairly ungodly (for festival goers) hour of 11.50am. I was pleasantly surprised to see a large crowd who were already throwing the horns and bouncing around contentedly. Sabaton were equally amazed and pleased, and commented that the more hungover ones were probably loitering at the back. They belted out some more battle metal with epic power choruses, foot stomping, matching camo trousers and all, and were nicely heavy enough to wake us all up. They ended on the anthemic ‘Metal Machine’ and the now roused crowd were sad to see them leave the stage.

I’ll leave my comrade to review Soulfly and Anthrax (who were awesome needless to say), so next on my list is Fear Factory who delivered as expected to a well warmed up crowd. Their industrial metal noise machine got the crowd into a frenzy with classics such as ‘Demanufacture’ and ‘Replica’ going down a storm. It was very hot by this stage and I have lots of respect for those going crazy in the pit!

I stopped off for a delicious curried pie, which did nothing to ease my over-heated state, although an ale soon cooled me down. Hurray for serving Hobgoblin! Hopefully they are finally going to cash in on their ‘clearly amenable to metallers’ image and we’ll see quality ale at all festivals instead of just the usual watery lager.

Anyway … next up was Papa Roach. I went because many voices had whispered in my ears, “They’ve changed, they’ve changed”. Well, they have changed, but not for the better in my opinion. Someone had even told me they were trash rock now. I think not. I was equally disturbed by the fact the singer looks 10 years younger than when I remember them being really popular, which was probably about 10 years ago. However, the crowd seemed happy so I can’t begrudge the band their ability to energise those watching.

Next was Apocalyptica, who in my opinion are pure genius. Their origin fascinates me. I suppose in Finland (home of metal) it is more likely than here in the UK that a group of cellists would happen to all like heavy metal, happen to all be really good musicians and happen to want to form a band. Originating as a covers band, their covers of Metallica are inspired and strangely relaxing. Although believe me, they can let rip and the sight of headbanging cellists is definitely a thing to behold. They also played songs from their new album which contains original material and guest artists such as Gavin Rossdale. No stranger to collaborations, they have also collaborated with members of the evening’s headliners, Rammstein.

We raced over to the now rammed Bohemia tent (make it bigger!) to catch Tim Minchin. Admittedly I couldn’t truthfully say I ‘saw’ the crazy haired, eye-linered, piano tinkling comedian, but we heard him and we laughed along with many others. Personally I think a bit of comedy is always welcome at a festival. I’d suggest they do some late-night stand-up next year, in manner of Download, although obviously by 1am the hecklers are more vociferous.

Skunk Anansie next on the Saturn stage, who totally kicked arse. Despite years of liking the band, I disgracefully have never seen them live and loved every minute of it. Great admiration for Skin who ran about all over the stage and even leapt into the crowd for a spot of crowd surfing – several times. After a short intro of ‘Yes It’s Fucking Political’, ‘Selling Jesus’ went off like a bomb and if anyone was having a touch of late afternoon beer-related doziness, they were soon raucously awoken. Highlights for me have to be ‘Charlie Big Potato’ and ‘Twisted’ which took me on a total nostalgia trip to my youth in dirty Suffolk rock clubs.

After a small pit stop to refuel, I headed out in frankly a state of extreme excitement to see Motley Crue. The set was a communist inspired street scene and as soon as the band came on the screams of thousands of females (and bi-curious males!) could be heard echoing around the field. Ok, I may have been one of them. Proving they’ve still got it, the band sauntered around stage, firing out hits and inspiring many boob flashes from the ladies in the crowd. They opened with ‘Kickstart My Heart’ which had us all singing joyously from the get go and by the time they reached their closing number, ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’, voices were hoarse, bras were lost (not mine I hasten to add) and feet were aching from stomping. Definitely my highlight of the day.

Leaving my other half to review Rammstein, with a passing acknowledgement to an amazing utilisation of flames and explosives, next up was Therapy? A long awaited gig for me with them playing the entirety of Troublegum. The tent was packed with other nostalgic rockers and Therapy? certainly didn’t disappoint. Despite technical problems at the start of the set, the band sounded strong and enthusiastic. To be honest, I think everyone was so happy to hear the album they’ve been playing at full blast in their cars for years in its entirety, I don’t think they cared what technical issues there were, or how packed with hot and sweaty metallers the tent was. Being one of the many yelling my lungs out to ‘Screamager’ was a fantastic way to bring the night to a close.

We finished the evening’s entertainment by heading for nightcaps in the media area, unsuccessfully (as usual) stalking rock gods and listening to a disappointing DJ who didn’t seem to appreciate the need for more classic rock to dance to. However, it is always nice to finish off with some beers and dissect the day’s events with Team Glasswerk, all of whom seem to have had a pretty fine time.

DAY 3

Ah, the best laid plans. Last night at around 2am we were determined we were going to see Rollins and I was genuinely disappointed to have missed hearing him set the world to rights.

A tasty bacon and brie bagel from my favoured food stall put me on my feet again and ready for another day of pure, unadultered rock. First on my agenda were Voodoo Six in the Bohemia tent who got things off to a flying start. Apparently Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris is a fan and I have to say I’m in full agreement. They sound like a band that should be playing in a dirty, Americana themed biker bar in a Rodriguez film, despite being from London. Reminiscent of The Almighty with great sounding riffs and strong vocals, the band sounded confident on stage and won my vote for my best new discovery of the festival. Songs like ‘Take the Blame’ got the crowd ready for the rock madness that was to come in the day ahead.

The metal mightiness that is Slayer will be reviewed by someone far more knowledgeable than me, so after a brief nap (yes I’m old and no, it wasn’t during Slayer as that would be sacrilege), I headed off to see a band who deserve more than they’ve got, namely G.U Medicine, play on the Jagermeister stage. I happen to have seen them a couple of times and would count myself as one of their fans. They are an unrelenting noise machine. Nevermind track ‘Mind Like a Motorbike’, they sound like a motorbike, in the best possible way. With lyrics like ‘Get the formalities over, and let the sleaze begin’ from ‘Taking Her Lead’, you can picture the kind of pure rock filth this band unleash. Singer Lee Storrar’s voice is an assault of growling, raw rock and I was sad to hear him announce his departure from the band. I hope the others will keep going as I for one would be sad to see G.U Medicine disappear and hope very much that Lee pops up somewhere too.

Having seen Pendulum several years ago at Glastonbury, I was quite looking forward to a little dance this time round. There was a big crowd, but also the distant sound of boos from the back at this unlikely Sonisphere choice and I can understand why. Their big bass sound is certainly very catchy and gets the old feet moving, but in my opinion it is somewhat spoilt by the girly sounding vocals over the top which instantly takes the edge off any bass-induced rush to the head you may be feeling. This problem was removed when Anders Friden of In Flames joined the band on stage and I kind of wish he’d stayed, or they’d turned the mic off.

My esteemed colleague will cover Iron Maiden in more depth, but I can’t sign off without a word of tribute to the legend that is Maiden. The anticipation was enormous all weekend and Bruce and gang certainly didn’t disappoint. The classics came one after another, but with a decent sprinkling of new material to keep us on our toes. Mr Dickinson ran about the stage like a man possessed and the banter made you want to go down the pub with the lot of them quite frankly. ‘Aces High’ and ‘Run to the Hills’ were missed, but singing along with a crowd of 55,000 to ‘Fear of the Dark’ was an amazing experience, not to be forgotten. Eddie of course made a welcome appearance and older track ‘Runnin’ Free’ finished the show on a high note.

We staggered over to check out the Silent Disco as it is always amusing to watch people dancing to music you can’t hear, but in the end, after discovering the Strongbow Bar was inexplicably playing something that sounded suspiciously like house music, we decided to catch a last tune in the media area where thankfully the DJ was playing Guns n’ Roses this time and we danced the last five minutes of the night away. After a failed attempt at stalking Iron Maiden near to their special party area, we returned to the tents; exhausted, smelly, a bit beered out, but exceedingly satisfied. Sonisphere has it all – great bands, friendly atmosphere, ale, enough rock shops to burn out even the fattest wallet and let’s not forget the bacon and brie bagel. Bring on Sonisphere 2011!