Sonisphere Festival UK review 2011

Sonisphere Festival UK – 8th-10th July 2011

Sonisphere came back even bigger and better for its third year in the UK with capacity being rasied to 60,000 people and an amazing line-up including The Big Four, Slipknot, Mastodon, In Flames, Limp Bizkit to name but a few!  It was a festival filled with barmy weather of blazing hot sunshine and torrential rain, there were major highs, celebrations, sadness and remembrance all rolled into one, copious amounts of beer and cider drunk and good times had by all and this is how it started...




Friday – The Big 4!

On the first day it was the turn of The Big Four to finally grace our shores after their other Sonisphere appearances in Europe last year and they certainly rocked it! The afternoon began with Diamond Head followed by Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer and the mighty Metallica.  Great sets were played by all and Metallica were spot on delivering song after song with such passion which shows why they are still number one! The major highlight though had to be when Metallica invited their ‘guests’ to share the stage and suddenly members of Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer and Diamond Head all came on stage to play Diamond Heads ‘Am I Evil’ – what a sight to see all of them together in a fierce union of metal! And the crowd were left stunned in the number of legends on stage!





Saturday

The second day kicked off with British band Sylosis on the main Apollo stage at 11am.  For an early start they certainly got the crowd going and seem to be doing well for an upcoming band. To follow we were treated to something a little different with Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine and with the sun shining the mix of metal/rock/pop covers done in a swing/lounge style with a lot of tongue and cheek seemed to go down a treat with the crowd.

Next on my agenda was one of the bands of the weekend..The Gallows! And a shock announcement from Frank Carter that he was leaving the band to explore other avenues. This lead to boos from the crowd however he was soon whipping them into a frenzy with people out to make the most of probably the last ever time they will see them, which resulted in the biggest circle pit and wall of death of the weekend.  An amazing set full of energy and anger topped off with a finale of Orchestra of Wolves where Daniel P Carter (from Radio 1’s rock show) and family/friends joined the band on stage to sing the final words ‘The hardest thing you'll ever learn”
Is just to love and be loved in return’.. so sad to see a great British band who hadn’t reached their full potential yet call it a day with their original line-up but they’ve definitely gone out on a high!

After Gallows it was hard to pick things up again however Bad Religion did a good job with their west coast punk rock.  Greg Graffin certainly still has a great voice and their set was definitely appreciated by the numberous punk rockers who’d turned out to see them.  

Sum 41 were definitely the let down of the weekend.  Expecting a lot of classics, we were disappointed when a lot of new material was played which came over as them trying just too hard and it just didn’t impress and nor did the fact they seemed to have a fan club of screaming teenage girls on stage or that they ran out of time and had their sound cut but carried on playing...cringeworthy indeed..  Definitely one to miss in future!

After a couple of hours of unexpected torrential rain the sun came out again just in time for Weezer to take to the main stage.  I’ve seen them previously and was slightly bored, however this time I was really surprised.  They belted out hit after hit starting with Sweater Song and the crowd seemed to be singing along to every word as well as to the covers of Wheatus – Teenage Dirtbag and a perfect cover of Radiohead – Paranoid Andriod.  Overall an unusual highlight to the weekend.

The headliner of the day was Biffy Clyro however as it wasn’t really to my taste I went to check out The Black Spiders on the Jagermeister stage who I’d previously heard a couple of their songs and was interested to check out.  A huge crowd amassed around the small stage and they completely rocked out and was a great end to the day.



Sunday

Sunday started off with the best weather of the whole weekend and the final day looked promising. Black Tide kicked things off on the main stage and was a great start to the day and will be a band to watch for the future.  Then came Arch Enemy with a disappointing performance that lacked the passion and energy normally seen by the band, even Nemesis didn’t really get the crowd rocking.  Then House of Pain took to the stage and were well received with everyone on their feet dancing around to ‘Jump Around’.

At 2pm it was announced that there would be a 2 minute silence in remembrance of Paul Gray, the late Slipknot bassist who sadly passed away last year.  A dummy with Paul Gray’s boiler suit and mask was put on stage and everyone paid their respects.  It was such an eerie thing for a venue that’s normally so busy, noisy and manic to be still and silent.  A very moving moment indeed.

Next to the stage were In Flames with a hard job on their hands coming directly after the 2 minute silence, however Anders stated this fact to the crowd saying ‘how can you follow something like that’.  But they were well received and after a couple of songs everyone got into it with them playing a nice mix of old and new songs and from the way the new single ‘Deliver Us’ went down it looks like there are good things to come.
This then led onto Mastodon who previously I’ve always been disappointed with live and felt their music didn’t translate well to festival appearances but I eat my words, I was completely blown away, their sound was perfect, brooding and brutal.  Definitely another highlight of the weekend.

In the mid afternoon we went to check out the comedy on offer and stumbled across Brendan Burns, a mouthy egotistical Aussie who however was quite funny but only in small doses.  This was then compared by Andrew O’Neill, a classic metaller turned comedian who persisted to tell the most funny stories of hetero transvestite adventures in London.  Very entertaining.  So comedy wise it was going well and then Sean Hughes came on.  As a headliner for the comedy afternoon I was hoping for good things however he was bland, unfunny and just really didn’t seem to get a feel of the audience which resulted in the most of us leaving, which was a shame.

Back to the music and Anberlin were on next.  Musically they were quite good however the singers voice was quite high and whiney and hard to overcome but he redeemed himself with an amazing cover of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy The Silence.  Now to a change of pace when Cancer Bats took to the stage, the tent was full and they ripped it apart completely! With classics such as Lucifers Rocking Chair, Hail Destroyer and their cover of the Beastie Boys Sabotage it was just what was needed to lead into the evening.

Back on the main stage were Limp Bizkit who delivered a faultless set of hits however was slightly nauseating with Fred constantly asking the crowd what song he should play and loving the attention when all we wanted was for them to get on with it.  Musically they are back and on form and everyone seemed to be singing and dancing along.  Then we had a very different act in the form of comedian Bill Bailey but it fit the line up perfectly.  Even in the pouring rain a huge crowd amassed full of anticipation of what Bill would deliver and he didn’t disappoint at all with comedy video, stories and best of all his homage’s to various bands, most notably Scarborough Fair sang in German in the style of Rammstein, Gary Numan Cars done a la Megadeth Tout Le Monde and Metallica Enter Sandman played on car horns – all I can say is it was pure genius and as the biggest comedy gig ever played it will go down in history as one of those moments you will never forget!

Finally to close the weekend Slipknot took to the stage. Corey dedicated the gig to Paul Gray and said it had been an emotional time but they were making it a celebration and we should celebrate too...so we certainly did.   As soon as the first sample was heard the crowd went mad and even in the heaviest rain of the festival and cold winds the crowd was with them every step of the way. With a huge stage show, lots of pyro, various stage changes, the percussion rig spiralling up and down on stage and Sid diving from the sound rig onto the crowd below it was an action packed set.  Classics were played such as Wait and Bleed, Duality, Psychosocial and Spit It Out and we were loving it.  They certainly went out with a bang and it was an awesome end to an amazing weekend.



In terms of the festival itself as a whole there were a few downsides.  There were not enough toilets on the campsites and they weren’t cleaned often enough. The staff helping to park the cars parked them too close so that I could hardly get my car out. And lastly the Bohemia tent having too many restrictions on numbers that they kept shutting it and not letting people in even though you could see there was plenty of room at the back which was really annoying when one of your favourite bands were playing and you couldn’t get in. However there were way more positives to the festival than the couple of issues that I experienced, the arena was well organised, there was plenty of beer, some really nice food and a good variety of it, a good crowd of people, amazing bands and duel main stages really made it the number one festival in the UK for me.  So let’s see if the organisers manage to top it all for next year...bring on 2012!

Review: Vicky Gosling
Photos: Enzo Mazzeo
http://www.enzomazzeo.com