Live Review

Sonisphere: Day One – Sonisphere, Knebworth.

• 12th Jul 2011

Sonisphere festival in the UK promised to start with a real treat by bringing the Big 4 of thrash metal; Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax playing together back to back for the first time in the UK. Unlike on Saturday and Sunday nights, only one of the main stages was open, although the smaller tents did have full line-ups for the evening. Nevertheless, it was clear from early on, that this was going to be no ordinary festival day. There would be very little hopping from one stage to another while enjoying the atmosphere and gently getting into the festival groove. No, this was different. It seemed more like a single concert and by three in the afternoon, most of the audience had already gathered at the main stage ready for the evening’s entertainment. I was personally disappointed in having to miss Firewind in the Bohemia tent, but there was no way I would have missed Megadeth for anyone.

The festival area itself seemed the same as in 2010. The two main stages (Apollo and Saturn) were opposite each other with the markets and fairground rides hiding the smaller tents to the side and the main tent (Bohemia) being behind the second main stage. The layout is generally pretty good although I wish they would move the main stage to a better location. The countryside at Knebworth is perfect for these massive concerts not only due to its location, but also because there is a lot of elevation difference. The Saturn stage showed this potential beautifully as you could have a good view of the stage from pretty much anywhere due to the stage being on lower ground than the surrounding area. The main stage (Apollo) area was pretty flat, so it does ok. It just doesn’t use the full natural advantage of the area.

As seems usual, the first day has a little later start time than on the other two days. On the menu tonight were five bands, so who did they find to fill the final slot outside the Big 4? The 1970s new wave of British heavy metal band Diamond Head certainly seemed to fit the bill, particularly due to the band being often cited as major influences of both Metallica and Megadeth.

The weather was playing it’s tricks during the Diamond Head set. The rain pretty much stayed away for the evening with only a few scattered drops during Anthrax which most of the audience would have probably mistaken for the usual beer showers anyway. This time it was blustery wind, which made the sound come and go at least from my point of view at the left hand side of the stage. Luckily even this calmed down by the end of the night so it didn’t affect the proceedings too badly.

At first, it was hard to see the influence of Diamond Head on the thrash scene. The music, fronted by a very young looking band apart from the only still original member Brian Tatler was very much of its period and sound of British heavy rock. That is, until they played their last song, “Am I Evil” probably best known for Metallica’s cover version. Even in Diamond Head guise, this had the fast tempo and aggressiveness which would make up the hallmarks of thrash in the following years.

Enter the Big 4:

Although the concept of a ‘Big 4’ of thrash was only coined for last summer’s Sonisphere tour of Europe, it’s hard to argue that Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax don’t represent the most important bands for the birth of thrash metal in the early 1980s. In particular, the three Southern California based bands; Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer share a complicated intertwined history which would make up a significant part of any historical review into the genre.

Therefore, if you have been a metal fan in the last 30 odd years, I assume I don’t need to fill you in to the importance and the coloured history of this collection of bands. Suffice to say, that I am glad that the bands have finally managed to put behind years of arguments and rivalry to showcase their music together for the new and old metal audiences.

Anthrax appeared for the third time at Sonisphere UK and with the third different line-up. This year’s change to the line-up was the band’s co-founder, guitarist Scott Ian, who had decided to take paternity leave during the European leg of the tour after the birth of his first child in late June. Scott was replaced on the stage by Andreas Kisser of Sepultura who certainly had the speed and stage presence to do justice to the Anthrax set. Kisser even got to perform a few bars of Sepultura song “Refuse/Resist” to the joy of the crowd.

Joey Belladonna back for his third stint as the singer of Anthrax (1984-1992 and 2005-2007) and his second successive year at Sonisphere UK was on great form and certainly earned the best front man of the night title for bringing the crowd alive. The Anthrax set was very enjoyable and perfectly set the scene for the bands to follow.

Megadeth was the band I was most looking forward to seeing of the night. I was a big fan of the band in the Rust in Peace to Youthanasia era, but had not seen the band live since the Youthanasia in Europe tour of 1995. So due to this and the sound problems mentioned earlier, I decided to see how far to the front of the stage I could get and relive some of my youth in the squeeze of the crowd and the inevitable moshpits.

Dave Mustaine certainly made an impression turning up to the stage with his double-necked V Dean guitar and launching to a great set of real “Best of…” style material. It was great to see Dave Ellefson back with the band and Chris Broderick did a good job in making me forget how great Marty Friedman was.

Despite my now much closer position to the stage, I still thought the crowd was a little subdued and decided to blame this on the Metallica crowd who sometimes seem to be unable to enjoy anything but Metallica itself. This is the problem with festival crowds in general, that apart from the headlining acts, the audience can be much harder to please.

Megadeth also played a song from their upcoming album TH1RT3EN called Public Enemy No. 1. I will reserve my judgement on the new material for now, but the new song certainly didn’t enthuse me to the new album yet. All in all it sounded very generic metal with little of the Megadeth that I love.

Megadeth finished their set with a great set of songs, A Tout Le Monde and the Symphony of Destruction finally bringing even the Metallica audience singing and causing me bruises. Peace Sells brought on stage Vic Rattlehead; Megadeth’s version of Iron Maiden’s mascot Eddie and the show was rounded up with Holy Wars. The Punishment Due.

And just as the show and the crowd for me had really started, it was all over. I wish they had had a little longer slot and maybe played some of their famous covers like Paranoid or Anarchy in the UK, but in the end I was comforted that the band still had it after all the line-up changes, Mustaine’s injury etc. I suppose I will now need to keep my eyes open for the next tour and go and see the first Megadeth show for me in over 15 years.

Slayer was the only one of the Big 4 bands who had a chance of appearing in their original line up but unfortunately Jeff Hanneman was still out with the flesh eating bacteria said to have originated from a spider bite. He was replaced by Gary Holt from Exodus adding another name into the near sixty people who have played in the big 4 bands over the last thirty years. Luckily Tom Araya was back to his best after his neck vertebrae surgery in 2010 which seemed to have affected his performance last year.

Slayer got off to another great start with Disciple and War Ensemble which got their army of fans going. I had moved back close to my original spot after Megadeth, but Slayer’s Marshall induced wall of sound seemed to finally defeat the wind problems of earlier in the day.

I have a huge admiration to the speed and technicality of the music, particularly Kerry King and Gary Holt swapping their ridiculously fast, pitch shifted solos and generally how tight the whole band is despite the complexity and speed. However, as the familiar tunes of Raining Blood and finally Angel of Death started ringing, I couldn’t feel but a little relieved that this assault on senses was about to end. It seems that I can only take my Slayer in small doses and the hour mark probably was close to all I could have taken.

Then all that was left was Metallica. If you have ever been to a Metallica show, you will know how it was. As Ennio Morricone’s Ecstasy of Gold started playing to The Good, The Bad and the Ugly snippet on the screen, the crowd that had patiently stood still for hours through bands that they either didn’t know or didn’t want to waste their energy for finally really erupted from front to back to a massive sing along of two hours. This was one of those festival performances which almost everybody at the festival had turned up to see, and I have it on good authority that there were some performances in the smaller tents being played to only a handful of people at the time.

Metallica are one of only a hand-full of bands next to Iron Maiden who can put up this kind of spectacle. The festival set list comprised nearly completely of the older songs from the Black/Metallica album backwards intermingled with pyrotechnics, a couple of Kirk Hammett guitar solos and even a bass solo from the very impressive Robert Trujillo. If you have never seen a Metallica concert, you should definitely go, whatever you think of their music. This band is superb live.

The final treat of the night came in the encore, when what seemed to be the full line ups of all of the Big 4 bands came together to do a second take of the night of Am I Evil accompanied by the original composer Brian Tatler from Diamond Head. It was particularly nice seeing the old Alcoholica back together with James Hetfield and Dave Mustaine singing and playing guitar like it was 1981 again. Metallica came back again afterwards to finish off with a barrage in the form of Battery and Creeping Death to close the show.

I had made plans to continue my night by taking a look at Hayseed Dixie in the Bohemia tent, but after a tired pint and sitting down for what seemed like the first time of the day, I decided to call it a night.

The festival couldn’t have got off to a better start, but it did raise the worry of how on earth could the festival improve any further from the first night. In my opinion, it never quite did, but there were plenty of highlights left for the next couple of days as well.