Sonisphere Knebworth 09 Part 1

As something of a Download festival veteran (I only missed the first one in 2003), the announcement of a brand new rock and metal festival in the UK was exciting to me and good news. Jayne (my awesome wife for those of you who do not personally know me) had been saying how she would like to go to a festival, and there would be no better introduction to the world of rock festivals than to see Metallica live, with a whole bunch of other awesome bands into the bargain.

Myself and my lovely wife decided Sonisphere would be a great opportunity to give her little brother Sam, who is 13, his first taste of live music. His two favourite bands (Bullet For My Valentine and Avenged Sevenfold) were playing, and it all just fit together as a plan nicely. Jaynes sister Diane and her boyfriend Rob also decided to come along for the fun, and we were all greatly looking forward to it.

We arrived at Sonisphere Thursday at about 10pm (having purchased the early entry tickets), just as the last of the daylight was fading away. We walked straight through the gates, and after having our stuff searched reasonably thoroughly (moreso than at Donington anyway), we got our wristbands and were directed to where the family camping was, which is where we were setting up camp.

After having burnt my faithful old (fairly knackered) tent to give it a good send off at Download this year (not that it would have been big enough for 3 people anyway), we had a brand new tent to deal with. I am very glad we had a trial run putting it up at home, as I do not think I would have understood what we were doing otherwise. I am also grateful for the wind up lantern my dad gave me as a present a couple of years back, that at least gave us some light to work with. We eventually got our own tent and also Diane and Rob's tent up as they were not coming up until the Friday evening, and then set onto assembling the gazebo, which turned out to be the easiest bit by far. We eventually collapsed into the tent at about 2am after getting sorted and getting some awesome hot chocolate from the toastie stand.

Once we got into the arena, on the way to dump various bits into the safety of the lockers (not sure if they do this at other festival, but both download and sonisphere have had lockers with cigarette lighter sockets allowing you to charge your phone/ipod/other device with a car charger, which at a cost of £10 for the weekend I personally think is fantastic), we literally bumped into what could be loosely described as a "travelling brass band", playing classics such as Jump and Enter Sandman, brass band style. It was....interesting. After that little stop off, we managed to acquire Steve and his sister Maisie, and after Steve collected his pre-requisite cider, we waited by the Saturn (second) stage for things to kick off.

We were then (somewhat unfortunately) joined on stage by the same brass band we'd just seen round the corner. If they had been connected to the sound system, it would have been great. Unfortunately they weren't, and the singer tried to sing through a megaphone meaning really only the first 5-10 rows of people could hear what was going on (they got polite applause nevertheless). They then marched offstage playing an (audible) jingle that would bother us for days, until Steve worked it was it was in fact, the final countdown (good work Steve!).

Soil then kicked things off with a fair half hour set, but the band are not the same who burst onto the scene with the "Scars" album at the turn of the century. Without former singer Ryan McCombs (now of Drowning Pool), the older songs in the set such as Breaking Me Down and Unreal lacked that original power, current vocalist AJ Cavalier not quite having the depth of power in his voice to carry them off as McCombs used to. The newer songs sounded reasonable, but I was not familar with them (almost no-one seemed to be familar with any of the non-scars material in fact). Set closer Halo (clearly what most people had waited half an hour to hear) disappointed, suffering from the same vocal problems as the other older songs, but still not a bad way to kick off the festival, I give them a generous 5/10.

We then began the soon-to-be familar process of legging it back up the slight hill towards the Apollo stage where Alien Ant Farm were due to kick off proceedings. They seemed to suffer from the same "old material" problem as Soil, as Movies was the only song anyone around us seemed to know (it may have been different down the front if there was some Ant Farm diehards). Frontman Dryden Mitchells attempts at engaging the crowd seemed to also mostly fall on deaf ears. Still, one closing rendition of Smooth Criminal later and everyone was happy, so like Soil I would give Alient Ant Farm a 5/10.

By the time we negotiated our way through the hordes to a half decent spot to view the Saturn stage, Skindred had just begun in front of an impressively sized crowd. Benji is one of the best frontmen in all of metal, never letting a crowd rest for a second, whether he is playing in front of 200 people or 20,000. Skindred were their usual energetic entertaining selves, my only complaint was that I had to miss the last 5-10 minutes of their set, having to make a beeline for Bohemia during the always popular "Nobody". Based on another impressive showing, I would give Skindred 7/10.

The reason that myself and Steve departed Skindred early (Jayne and Sam remained behind to watch the end and then go see Taking Back Sunday on the main stage) was that the Bohemia tent was about to see the arrival of (in my opinion), the most impressive young metal British band around today, Sylosis. There was a good sized crowd awaiting them, most of whom I think had seen their awesome set in the Tuborg tent at Download and were eager to see if they could match it or top it. Within 20 seconds of the opening riff Bohemia was a total warzone, the circle pit stretching the majority of the width of the tent while those crowded down the front headbanged like crazy to "Reflections Through Fire".

Sylosis: Know how to get a circle pit going

Vocalist Jamie Graham remarked that he didn't think anything could top Download, but this had managed it. An insane set closing wall of death finished things off, with the charge literally taking place from one side of Bohemia to the other, followed by an equally impressive circle pit where there was unfortunately a very large pile up (with Steve narrowly avoiding being at the bottom of said pile up!). Sylosis were fantastic, and thoroughly deserved at least 8/10.

After that both myself and Steve agreed it was going to take something quite special to top Sylosis' performance. We rendezvoused with Jayne and Sam who had thoroughly enjoyed Taking Back Sunday, and after grabbing some food (I thoroughly recommended the Jerk Chicken wrap if you see the chargrilled chicken stand at any future festivals!) we had a good spot observing the Saturn stage to watch what must have been the most surprising band of the weekend (on any stage), Bjorn Again!.

An ABBA cover band are not your typical band for a rock/metal festival and many people (myself included) were surprised to see them on the bill. I however thought it was a great fun idea, a view shared by Jayne & Diane, if not by Rob & Steve. (Matt would have also approved, as it is not uncommon to see the odd ABBA song pop up on his last.fm from time to time). They were a good laugh, and had a large crowd bouncing along to Dancing Queen and several other ABBA hits, as well as a surprisingly good rendition of Enter Sandman as a tribute, having been asked to play the festival by one Lars Ulrich from a certain popular metal band. They were definitely worth their spot on the bill, and I would give them 6.5/10.

We all reunited after Bjorn Again and headed back to the Apollo stage to watch the (apparently one off) reunion of Anthrax with former singer John Bush. I have written an article discussing Anthrax's whole situation including a review of their Sonisphere set, if you would like to read it please follow this link - John Bush and the future of Anthrax. I will say, in my opinion, they managed to surpass Sylosis, as they offered up an awesome performance and John Bush looked like he had been on tour with the band for a long time, not that it was his first show with them in over 4 years. For me they were the surprise of the entire weekend, and I give them 8.5/10.

Anthrax: Bringing The Noise

From here, myself and Jayne went to watch The Used on the Saturn stage, while Diane, Rob and Sam waited for Coheed & Cambria, and Steve & Maisie disappeared somewhere (t-shirts I think). My hopes were not high for The Used, having not really enjoyed them at Reading 2003, the only other time I had seen them, and my low expectations were vindicated. Bert McCrackens voice sounded far from it's best, their sound (as many other bands on the Saturn stage would be) was badly affected by the wind and we gave up with 10 minutes of their set left, I'd give them a 3/10.

I am not a Coheed fan (which I'm sure will get me a few interesting comments) and instead chose to go watch Exit Ten on the tiny Jagermeister truck stage. I've always been a big Exit Ten fan, having first seen them at Download last year and also with Five Finger Death Punch and they have delivered live both times. Today was no different as they kicked off with the awesome "Resume / Ignore" and carried on from there for the next half an hour. They attracted a sizeable crowd as the set went on, so hopefully they earned themselves a few new fans. Good performance from the always solid lads from Reading. 7/10.

After this, we met up with Diane, Rob and Sam to find that Coheed were infact stuck on a ferry from Ireland, had missed their slot, and would be on in the Bohemia tent at about 7 instead. We decided to get some food and watch Airbourne, unfortunately this was about the time the (already somewhat dark and dodgy) weather decided to unleash on us with the ferocity of a Machine Head circle pit (to the point where it was actually painful). As a result, myself Jayne and Sam spent the next hour plus taking refuge in Bohemia and various stalls (we left Bohemia when it started getting very rammed for Coheed) until it eased off a bit, just in time to catch the second half of Heaven and Hells set. As a result we missed most of Airbourne so I can't really give them a rating, what we saw was pretty good though, especially when the guitarist decided to climb 30 feet in the air up the side of the stage.

Airbourne: Hardcore fans despite the torrential rain

In probably the opposite situation to almost everyone else listening, I'm quite fond of the new Heaven & Hell album, but I am not very familar with the H&H era of Black Sabbath, however I thought the performance was good, the songs were good and I only wish I had been more familar with some of it, The Dio Sabbath discography is on my pile of stuff to listen to as we speak. 7/10.

In the aftermath of Heaven & Hell, we managed to successfully catch up with everyone else as the rain slowed to a drizzle so we could all watch Bullet For My Valentine together. As I mentioned earlier, various bands on the Saturn stage had sound problems throughout the weekend. However Bullet must have unfortunately had the worst luck of any band on the weekend. Not only was their sound affected by the weather considerably for the first half of their set, during opener "Waking The Demon" there was considerable feedback on both Matt Tuck and Padges guitars. The band were clearly not happy as they stormed offstage as soon as the song finished to talk to the sound engineers who you could see Matt Tuck going rather ballistic at (justifiably so when this was one of the bands biggest ever gigs). They had a few more problems with the sound over the next couple of songs but gradually the sound and the weather sorted themselves out so the second half of the set was very enjoyable, just a shame about the first half and events the band had no control over, so I give them 6.5/10.

We legged it during the very end of the BFMV set closing "Scream Aim Fire" (with me really doing a number on my throat trying to do my best growl sing along) to try and get a decent spot for Linkin Park. Our efforts were worth it as we ended up right down the front on the left hand side only about 10 people from the front for tonights headliners. I pretty much expected a 90 minute sing along and that was exactly what we got. From the time opener "Given Up" kicked in to older favourites like "Points of Authority" and "Crawling" Chester, Mike and co had 60,000 people eating out of the palms of their hands with their usual excellent level of performance.

Linkin Park: Not Breaking The Habit

The one dip in proceedings was at the beginning of the encore when Chesters side project, Dead By Sunrise got a mini set in the middle of the gig. They sounded more like they belonged at Reading or even V and it threatened to kill off the momentum and atmosphere of the previous hour. Thankfully it was only a 3 song set and the Linkin Park fun resumed with "Faint" before things being finished off with a crashing rendition of "One Step Closer". The LP boys thoroughly deserved an 8/10, apart from Chester for wheeling out his side project, boo to you Chester.

Overall, a thoroughly entertaining day and a good start to the newest rock and metal festival in the UK. The details of Sunday (with Metallica and friends) coming soon!

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