Sonisphere Knebworth 2010: Sunday Review: Fear Of The Dark
After the magnificence of Rammstein the previous evening, none of us were in a particular hurry on Sunday and Sunday turned out to be quite a laidback day as festivals go (if one can say such a thing on a day when Slayer are playing!).
When we did get to the arena, there was a brief shopping trip before some of our group chose to go and enjoy The Bootleg Beatles after Bjorn Again's relative success last year. I say brief, but over the course of the day Steve acquired himself 10 t-shirts and a huge hole in his wallet!
Myself, Rob and Steve, rather than see the Bootleg Beatles chose to go and see Rise To Remain in Bohemia. In the 18 months since I first saw Rise To Remain, the amount they have improved is barely describable and it is clear tours with the likes of Trivium, 5FDP, Chimaira and Shadows Fall have had a great effect on them. They are now an incredibly tight live band and this performance was no different, with the sizeable crowd going nuts for them and they may have even outdone Sylosis by creating the biggest circle pit of the weekend in Bohemia, it was massive! Needless to say, we weren't too impressed when we saw some guy running round in the pit with what looked like his 5 year old son on his shoulders - there's a time and a place for these things and with kids that young isn't it! The Rise To Remain album will be out very soon (Austin has been talking about it quite a lot on his Twitter account) and I recommend you pick that up as soon as it is. Great performance from one of the UK's fastest rising metal bands. 7.5
Rise To Remain: Keeping Up Family Traditions
We were going to leave Rise To Remain early, but we didn't and so as a result missed the very start of Skindred, but not by much. When we caught up with the others Benjii was in full flow in his dapper looking silver suit, working the crowd as very few other frontmen I have seen are capable of (with this in mind it is very easy to see why they've been signed by BMG). Old favourites like Roots Rock Riot! went down very well with Benjii playing the two sides of the crowd off against each other for the biggest circle pit, but the loudest response was for traditional closer Nobody, which has become one of the most well known UK metal anthems of the last few years. A traditionally very good live performance from the Skindred guys, bigger things potentially await them. 7.
Skindred: Nobody Gets Out Alive, Apparently
None of us were bothered for seeing Dir En Grey on the Saturn Stage so we got some food and waited for the seemingly very early appearance of Slayer. Opening with my personal favourite South of Heaven got things off to a flyer, although I did find it very sad seeing Tom Araya on stage now not being able to headbang when he so clearly wants to. New songs World Painted Blood and Hate Worldwide flew by as quickly as the circle pits they incited, showing that the new Slayer material holds up very well live, and from that point onwards it was classic Slayer.
Slayer: still metal as f*** even at 4pm in the afternoon
"Are you ready for War?" asked Tom, with only people knowing nothing about Slayer knowing what was coming next, with the duly delivered War Ensemble causing more chaos in the pits. They seemed slightly miffed at being put on so early in the afternoon, with Tom thanking everyone for coming so early and making several references to "the little time we have together". I can see his point, watching Slayer at 3.30 in the afternoon didn't feel quite right somehow. Nevertheless, there were more cracking songs to follow, with Dead Skin Mask, Mandatory Suicide and of course Raining Blood and Angel of Death to finish things off with.
Not having seen Slayer live since Download 07 (when they had the impossible job of following Machine Head on one of their career best performances, and they couldn't follow them, no-one could have that day), and having heard some uncomplimentary things about Slayer live recently, I was very pleased to see they can still deliver to the top of their powers. They might not be as mobile as they once were, but they're still very capable of kicking all our asses. 7.5
At this point, against my better judgement, I ended up watching Bring Me The Horizon. Anyone who knows me knows how much I truly believe they are one of the s******* bands ever to grace the UK, and I had seen them live before so I'm not just going on their songs and how Oli Sykes comes off as an absolute Tw*t in the press. But, I thought they were worth a second chance. And I'll give them their due, it was entertaining at times, but not from a musical standpoint. Offering a signed amp for the most original crowd surfing attempt isn't one I've come across before (though I didn't spot any naked attempts), and Oli getting his Dad out to sing the closing number with them isn't something you see very often either.
Musically though, they offer absolutely nothing. I'm not one of the "it's not metulz" crowd, BMTH clearly are metal, but they're certainly not death metal as some people think, they're just s*** metal. For entertainment value, I'd give them a 6, but for the music I'd give them a 2.
Back to the Apollo for the returning Alice in Chains, who I missed most of last year. We were all feeling pretty wiped by this point, so I must confess I spent most of AiC sat on the floor listening rather than taking in the full experience. As I said before when I first saw the reincarnation of AiC back at Download 2006, William Duvall is more than capable of filling Layne Staley's considerable shoes. He's a very good vocalist to put it mildly. I still hadn't got round to listening to Black Gives Way To Blue by the time Sonisphere rolled around so I wasn't familar with all the songs, but they put on a good show and all the AiC hardcore fans stood around us were having a great time. 7.
At this point rather than wait for Pendulum, myself and Jayne decided to get ice cream and go see Fightstar in Bohemia. Fightstar are a band I've tried to see live about 10 times over the last 5 years but it's never quite happened so I figured there'll always be another chance to see Pendulum. The sound was a little ropey to start with and you couldn't hear a word Charlie was singing but they sorted that out pretty quickly. Charlie said it was the first show they had played in 5 months, but you couldn't tell as they sounded pretty spot on. Whilst I'm not hugely familar with their back catalogue either, there was a huge singalong for Paint Your Target and a largely full Bohemia tent had a great time with Fightstar. 7.
Fightstar: Definitely Not Busted
Upon returning to the others we were informed we'd missed Anders from In Flames come out and do self vs self with Pendulum off the new album, which I had thought was a distinct possibility but you can't see everything. We didn't watch Iggy and the Stooges, preferring to get a very good spot for Iron Maiden instead (When writing this I realise how many less bands I saw on the Sunday).
The Maiden set was very cool, very futuristic and apt for tying in with The Final Frontier. As I was well aware prior to Maiden starting, this tour was only going to consist primarily of material from the last decade, which wasn't going to be everyones cup of tea but I thought it could work very well. The Wicker Man has been a traditional Maiden opener ever since Brave New World came out and sure enough the very familar riff rang out across Knebworth as Bruce ran on stage in typical fashion belting the lyrics and having 55,000 people yell them right back at him. The Ghost of the Navigator and Wrathchild followed on, and it was almost like being at the Rock in Rio live CD. Bruce talked about "those w**kers at the BBC" and other people not supporting metal, but here we all were (and now Maiden have ANOTHER number one album, so the public have clearly spoken). He also spoke about Ronnie James Dio, describing him as one of his mentors before going into Blood Brothers which was the loudest Knebworth had been all day up to this point.
All together now..."Your Time Will Come!"
Considering the set was, at this point, minus wrathchild being built entirely on the 4 most recent albums there were some crackers. Bruce talked abit about the new album before introducing El Dorado, Dance of Death went down an absolute storm, and These Colours Don't Run from A Matter of Life and Death was a popular choice too. Things got even louder when they played Brave New World, and I think it was this point where I ruined most of my voice that was left singing the chorus. The changing backdrops (very similar to what Judas Priest had at Download 2008) gave some indication of what was coming so when the Fear of the Dark banner appeared and the traditional slow drum intro began there was the loudest "woooooaahh" style singalong of the weekend as we entered the "classic Iron Maiden" portion of the evening.
Fear of the Dark was, for lack of a better expression, f**king awesome, but personally I would have rather they chose something other than "Iron Maiden" to finish the main part of the set on, but you can never have everything. The track Iron Maiden did however bring about the appearance of the newest incarnation of Eddie, the giant Alien version who's a dab hand with the guitar!
Eddie: Shreds just as good as Jannick
The encore began with a very evil looking pair of red eyes on a backdrop and a very familar speech about "The Number Of The Beast". The always epic Hallowed Be Thy Name followed, and since they *almost always* close on that, I thought that might be it, but we were treated to an extended singalong version of Running Free, which Bruce said they hadn't played in a very long time. A great end to a fantastic performance. 9.
Iron Maiden: A Brave New World Indeed
The full Iron Maiden setlist was:
- The Wicker Man
- Ghost Of The Navigator
- Wrathchild
- El Dorado
- Dance Of Death
- The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg
- These Colours Don't Run
- Blood Brothers
- Wildest Dreams
- No More Lies
- Brave New World
- Fear Of The Dark
- Iron Maiden
- ==================================
- The Number of the Beast
- Hallowed Be Thy Name
- Running Free
Maiden, like Metallica last year, were the perfect way to close another very successful Sonisphere. I've seen Maiden 3 times and that is the most I have enjoyed them by far. Unlike Maiden though, Metallica didn't have Rammstein to contend with, who in my opinion just pip Maiden to band of the weekend. All 8 of us in our camp actually said Rammstein were best band of the weekend, so that was pretty unanimous.
My top 5 bands of Sonisphere Knebworth 2010:
- Rammstein
- Iron Maiden
- Sylosis
- Anthrax
- Good Charlotte
with Katatonia, Rise To Remain, Turisas and Slayer all close behind.
A thoroughly enjoyable weekend in the stately fields of Knebworth and we will all be back for next year!
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