Sonisphere Knebworth 2010: Saturday Review: Ich Will
Having recovered from the battering in Sylosis the previous evening and the disappointments of Alice Cooper's technical difficulties, hopes and spirits were very high for Saturday. The first band of the day that any of us really wanted to see was Lacuna Coil and so we got into the arena with about 5 minutes of Sabaton's set left. This looks like it was a total mistake as they sounded brilliant and were seven shades of hilarious inviting us all to their homosexual party of a tour in October. Comedy combined with some cracking Power Metal made me wish we had seen the full set but it was not to be.
Sabaton: Good, homosexual fun
The first trek up the hill (increased trek as the gap between the stages seemed to have widened considerably) to the Apollo Stage this year was for Italy's most famous metal export, Lacuna Coil. Having only heard Lacuna Coils' latest album, Shallow Life a few days before the festival and having found it to be quite good, I was rather looking forward to seeing them. The main problem Lacuna have is that Andreas Ferro is not the best of live singers, and the louder he tried to be the worse it sounded. Even Christina Scabbia with her looks and her voice (absolutely nothing wrong with her voice live) could not cover that Andreas seemed to be having a bit of an off day, and as a result I do not think Lacuna Coil were as good as they could have been. Having seem them years before at the Astoria when they sounded absolutely fine I was a little disappointed. They may be one of those bands, like 36 Crazyfists (see my Download 2010 Friday review) who are just more suited to playing indoors. New tracks Survive and Spellbound went down well but things were a little flat apart from for finale Our Truth. Hopefully things will be much better on their tour in October. 5.5
Lacuna Coil: Off Day
"A little flat" is probably something Soulfly and Max Cavalera have never been accused of throughout their career and the trip back down the hill to the Saturn Stage saw us arrive in plenty of time for a blast of brutal Brazillian metal. Max swapped between his green and black brazillian flag guitars as Soulfly delivered a set full of old Soulfly, new Soulfly and a little bit of Sepultura (Refuse-Resist and Roots Bloody Roots)
Last year, Anthrax almost stole the show with their first show with John Bush in years and produced something quite special which I will remember for a very long time. With that in mind, personally I was disappointed that Joey Belladonna was once again fronting the 'Thrax, as I would have loved a repeat of 2009. However, launching into Caught In A Mosh straight from the off, they seemed determined to do everything they could to at least equal, if not better last years showing. Joey's voice was in fine form and all the instruments sounded great as they ripped through Caught In A Mosh and Got The Time. A mass singalong to Antisocial followed, while halfway through Indians Belladonna broke into Heaven and Hell as a tribute to Dio and got everyone to participate in very loud renditions of the chorus, not that many people needed encouraging.
A sprint through metal thrashing mad later and we were at the set closing I Am The Law, which sounded just as good as everything else had. I was genuinely impressed at how good Anthrax were as I didn't think there was a chance in hell of enjoying them anywhere near like how I had the year before but Belladonna and co proved me wrong. On this evidence lets hope for 3 in a row next year. 8.
The full Anthrax setlist was:
- Caught in a Mosh
- Got the Time
- Madhouse
- Antisocial
- Indians / Heaven and Hell
- Metal Thrashing Mad
- I Am The Law
Anyone who follows me on Twitter will have seen my repeated ranting about the clash that was about to take place, namely Katatonia in Bohemia clashing with the second half of Fear Factory on the Saturn Stage. In the run up to Sonisphere I'd pretty much decided that I was going to see Fear Factory and initially stuck with that. Burton sounded in good voice, unlike some of the recent reports I'd heard of him having totally blown his voice as Fear Factory ripped through opener Mechanize. Prior to the show, the 2 songs I really wanted to hear were Edgecrusher and Linchpin, both of them having been so good when I saw then at the Electric Ballroom back in February with Sylosis. The mighty Gene Hoglan thundered away at the drums as the pits in front of the Saturn Stage destroyed themselves to Shock, and then Edgecrusher followed straight afterwards (and sounded pretty awesome), although towards the end of it the Saturn Stage sound problems started rearing their head again.
Fear Factory: Burton was back on form
It was at this point I decided to leg it to Bohemia for Katatonia, having seen one of the two songs I really wanted. I would have love to have seen the rest, but would have regretted not seeing Katatonia more. I'd give Dino, Burton and co a solid 7 for what I saw.
Myself and Rob managed to locate Steve in Bohemia who had sacked Fear Factory off for Katatonia completely beforehand, and we did not have long to wait for Jonas and the boys to appear (with a quite comical soundcheck from the microphone guy "check check check come on we're running late its fine check check ok lets go"). Luckily for Katatonia and us, the microphone was fine as the band came out and launched into The Day and The Shade from Night Is The New Day. An awesome song but a slightly odd opening choice from my perspective. There was a great atmosphere in a pretty full Bohemia as they went through My Twin and Idle Hands before really getting heads banging with Forsaker (probably my favourite track from the majestic Night Is The New Day).
The band seemed really taken back with all the applause and support they were getting, something I know Jonas is very grateful for whenever they play live as he said as much when I interviewed him back in March on their last UK tour. Their all too short set was finished off with a rousing rendition of Leaders, leaving us all to wish they had more time. The only complaints I have is that it was too short, and it was also slightly odd seeing them with the daylight poking in from the sides of Bohemia as they are such an atmospherio band they are more suited to the night, but that did not detract from the performance at all. Fantastic. 8.
Katatonias setlist was:
- Day And Then The Shade
- My Twin
- The Longest Year
- Forsaker
- Leaders
We returned to the others who had watched the rest of Fear Factory (who had carried on being very good, as I suspected they would be, but had not played Linchpin, so I was glad I did not miss it) and were taking a breather rather than watching Papa Roach, and I can't say I blamed them. Back in their Nu-Metal heyday Papa Roach had some great songs, but whats emerged from them in the last 5 years is slightly less than stellar. That having been said, when Between Angels & Insects kicked in, me and Rob legged it up the hill for a better view to see the end of their set consisting of that and Last Resort. Job done as far as Papa Roach were concerned. I'll give them a 6 just for those 2 songs.
Apocalyptica are a band who I've had great experiences with and not so great experiences over the years live so I wondered which way it would go this time. Since I had seen them last they seemed to be short a Cellist, which seemed to take a little of the bite out of their sound, which was further somewhat muffled by thr Saturn Stage. Opening with Master of Puppets can't really be considered anything other than a guaranteed win, and it duly produced a large singalong, as did the shortened rendition of Fight Fire With Fire later in the set.
The original material however was hard to hear, and it really seemed that the band had missed a trick as they could have had 2 of their most famous guest singers, Christina Scabbia and Corey Taylor join them for songs but neither appeared, another singer called Tipe Johnson who I am not familar with filling in for Corey on I'm Not Jesus. Like Lacuna Coil earlier, they seemed a bit flat but worse than the Italians and overall none of us were very impressed and a bit disappointed. The stage did not help but it cannot be blaimed totally. 4.5
The Apocalyptica Setlist Was:
- Master of Puppets (Metallica cover)
- Grace
- Fight Fire With Fire (Metallica cover)
- End Of Me Ft. Tipe Johnson
- Last Hope
- I'm Not Jesus Ft. Tipe Johnson
- Seek & Destroy (Metallica cover)
- Inquisition Symphony (Sepultura cover)
With some of the others having departed Apocalyptica for Tim Minchin partway through, myself, Jayne and Elwyn moseyed back to the Apollo Stage for the band everyone loved to hate before H-I-M, MCR and BMTH came along, Good Charlotte. Opening with The Anthem from their most well known album The Young And The Hopeless was a very sensible move and most of the first half of the set was based around that album, missed in with portions of covers by The Police and Blink 182 for good measure. Unlike at Reading many years ago when they were the victims of a large bottle fight that turned into The Reading Crowd vs Good Charlotte, the inhabitants of Knebworth were fully onside with the Pop Punk tunes of GC. Announcing that this song was for "their brother who they missed every day" before Joel Madden yelled "Jimmy!" at the top of his voice, they launched into The River (their song that was done with Avenged Sevenfold) as a tribute to Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan.
Good Charlotte: Lived up to the first part of their name
From that point on an enjoyable set took another upturn as the band sped through Dance Floor Anthem (I Dont Wanna Be In Love) and I Just Wanna Live before everyone rewound to their youth (or younger days depending) for Lifestyles Of The Rich and Famoud, which sounded great and brought a really fun portion of Sonisphere Knebworth to a close. I honestly could not believe how much I enjoyed it. Good Charlotte were really good (I never thought I'd be writing that before the festival). 8.
Good Charlotte's setlist was:
- The Anthem
- My Bloody Valentine / So Lonely (The Police cover)
- Girls & Boys
- The Story of My Old Man / Dammit (Blink-182 cover)
- Predictable
- The Young and The Hopeless
- The River (Dedicated to Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan)
- Dance Floor Anthem (I Dont Wanna Be In Love)
- I Just Wanna Live
- Lifestyles of The Rich And Famous
After that the group reconvened to take in the re-activated Skunk Anansie on the Saturn Stage. Aside from sounding a little like Lily Allen when talking, Skin has a fantastic Stage Presence and she commanded the stage in what was one of the best Saturn Stage performances of the whole weekend. I'm not familar with much of their material but Weak sounded amazing and the whole set was thoroughly enjoyable. On this effort I look forward to their new album in September and they were another of the surprise packages of Sonisphere. 7.5
Placebo were something of a wild card on the Sonisphere line-up, but I was personally very pleased to see them on the bill as they were, for me, one of those bands that fell into the category of "would like to see but will not shell out 30 quid to see them on their own show to do so". Another review I have seen gave them 1/5 which in my opinion was totally off the mark because I thought they put in a good performance. Brian Molko, who still looks closer to 12 years old than his actual age of 36 does not speak much on stage, other than referring to us as "children of Sonisphere" a couple of times, but then I think thats his style, where he just prefers to get on and play the music, like Dave Mustaine and one or two others I could mention.
Placebo: Great performance from the quirky Brian and co
Their hour long set was full of some of their best tracks, including opening with Nancy Boy which was something of a surprise, Meds, new single Battle For The Sun and my personal favourite The Bitter End. I could have done without the Nirvana cover, but overall it was a good solid performance and I am glad I saw them. 6.5
The full Placebo setlist was:
- Nancy Boy
- Ashtray Heart
- Scared Of Girls
- Battle For The Sun
- Every You Every Me
- Breathe Underwater
- The Never-Ending Why
- Meds
- All Apologies (Nirvana cover)
- Kitty Litter
- The Bitter End
- Trigger Happy Hands
- Infra-red
- Taste In Men
The last trip of the day to the Saturn Stage after reconvening with all my friends and my wife was for Motley Crue. Like so many before them they had initial sound issues but seemed to overcome them much faster than some of the other bands. Kicking off with Dr Feelgood was a very popular choice, and following with Live Wire was a popular choice from my point of view as I have always loved the Fozzy cover of that song. We did not stay long at The Crue, conscious of getting a good spot for Rammstein, but what we saw and heard was enjoyable.
We did indeed manage to secure a good spot for Rammstein, although the prick who was continously draping his flag over our collective heads and the people around us was very annoying. The bloke wisely moved off not long into the performance when 3 or 4 people told him if he didn't piss off he wouldn't have a flag left. When the safety curtain dropped we were greeted with an enormous German flag, which then dropped away to reveal an awesome looking factory set with a lot of moving parts. Opening with Rammlied was the perfect choice, as it got 55,000 people repeatedly chanting "Ramm-Stein" right from the word go.
Bang Bang....Feuer Frei!
Before the festival I was not that familar with the majority of their back catalogue aside from the Mutter album and one or two others so as a result I did not know most of the early tracks in the set. However that did not detract from things one bit as 1) their songs are very easy to get into, 2) their stage presence is phenominal and 3) there's always something going on on stage. The appearance of Feuer Frei relatively early on sent everyone batshit for the first of many times to come while on stage keyboardist .... ran around in a speckly costume and was promptly set on fire by Till, before magically coming back to life and spending most of the rest of the set playing the keyboard parts whilst walking on an exercise treadmill.
Rammstein: Just bloody amazing
One of the things you cannot appreciate until you see Rammstein in the flesh is just how much pyro there is. You always hear there is a lot, but as my friend Steve so aptly put it, "Hertfordshire hasn't seen this much fire since the Buncefield Oil Refinery disaster". Whether it was from parts of the stage set, or the personal flamethrowers of various shapes and sizes used by the band members, you were never more than 5 minutes away from some serious fire. You could feel the heat from where we were just behind the first safety barrier in front of the sound stage so god only knows how hot the Rammstein members were on stage. The darker it became, the better the show seemed to get (Rammstein, like Katatonia, are not suited to daylight). Du Riechst So Gut had a mass singalong, while Links 2 3 4 had the biggest mass headbang session Knebworth had seem all day. They promptly outdid themselves seconds later when the intro to Du Hast kicked in, something everyone had clearly been waiting for, Till not needing to sing a single word until at least a full minute into the song. Hearing 55,000 people sing Du Hast is quite an experience and one I won't forget in a hurry. Soomething else I will not forget either is Till blasting everyone with his massive cock cannon during Pussy, swivelling his hips and blasting everyone with foam before confetti showered onto us all, all the while with the chorus of "You have a pussy, I have a dicka" booming around us.
That rather epically brought the main part of the set to a close, but after a few minutes Rammstein returned with a cracking rendition of Sonne, followed by Haifisch which was very notable for Christian "Flake" Lorenz's traditional dingy crowd surfing ride (which some dude from the audience tried to hijack by climbing into the back of the boat for awhile)
Christian Lorenz: Surfs Up!
Finally, Ich Will (which we were very pleased about) boomed around Knebworth leaving Rammstein to bring things to a close with a very simple "Thank you, we love you, goodnight" from Till after they had taken their bows. The low key ending did not suit the performance, but aside from that you can have no complaints. It was a magnificent performance and must be one of the best performances from a festival headliner at any festival this century, easily up there with Slipknot at Download 09 and Metallica at Download 06. No way this could be awarded anything other than a 10.
The full Rammstein setlist was:
- Rammlied
- B********
- Waidmanns Heil
- Keine Lust
- Feuer Frei!
- Wiener Blut
- Frühling in Paris
- Ich tu dir weh
- Du Riechst So Gut
- Benzin
- Links 2 3 4
- Du Hast
- Pussy
- ================
- Sonne
- Haifisch
- Ich Will
NB. A lot of people were pissed off that they were only on for 1 1/2 hours, rather than the 2 hours advertised on the timetable. In my opinion, that is the organisers faults and the blame should not be put on Rammstein. They could have quite easily overrun or taken longer gaps in their songs, but they didn't. People should be thankful that they saw such an amazing show in the first place.
That brought the first full day of Sonisphere Knebworth 2010 to an amazing close leaving us all buzzing. I did not think Sunday could top that but you will have to come back to read part 3 to find out!
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