Sonisphere - Saturday

Sonisphere - Saturday
1 August 2009
Knebworth

Introduction

The inaugural UK Sonisphere festival turned out to be a successful and enjoyable event from this attendee’s point of view. I have no idea what the actual turnout was though suggestions of 25,000 on Saturday and 40,000 on Sunday don’t surprise me, with organiser Stuart Galbraith claiming an aggregate of 80,000 across the two days.

The camping areas were not excessively far from the car park and were quite spacious. The usual complaint of not enough toilets was fair judging from the queues in the morning in the campsite and particularly in the arena on the second day.

In terms of the layout, personally I’d have preferred the two stages to have been positioned next to each other, as walking backwards and forwards after every set become tiresome and caused me to miss the ends of some sets in order to get over to the other stage for the next. There was also a bit of a bottleneck between the Saturn (second) stage and Bohemia (tent) stage. Whilst having the sides of the Bohemia tent closed made for an indoor gig atmosphere, opening them would have made it much less sweaty and allowed more people to view sets from outside. However, I appreciate this may have curtailed the finish time of this stage due to noise restrictions.

The tragic incident where one young attendee was seriously injured having been flung from one of the fairground rides was a sour note on an enjoyable weekend. Rockers Digest send our best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Review

Moving on to the music and with the various line up changes in the run up to the event it was a relief when Soil finally took to the stage and kicked off the weekend. Obviously AJ Cavalier took over as lead singer some time ago but the major line-up change since I last saw the band has been the departure of guitarist Shaun Glass. Playing with only one guitar, save for the odd song Cavalier supplied six strings, gave the band much less punch than previous performances and in terms of song writing they appear to be heading into grungier territories. Bookending the set with their strongest songs Breaking Me Down and, of course, Halo, meant a strong start and finish but the middle portion of Soil’s set was hardly enthralling.

Soil set list:
Breaking Me Down / Give It Up / True Self / Unreal / Lesser Man / Redefine / Like It Is / Halo

I hadn’t even realized Alien Ant Farm were still going when they were confirmed as Apollo (main) stage openers. With low expectations the quirky Californians actual turned out to be one of the surprises of the day with an energetic performance. Frontman Dryden Mitchell looks much less annoying without his strangely shaven head and his commitment to this performance couldn’t be faulted, though I had no need to see his cock during opener Courage. Tye Zamora mental facial contortions had us laughing with the bassist at times resembling Michael McIntyre. Of course it’s the obvious songs Movies and Smooth Criminal that got the biggest reactions from the crowd but the remainder was much more muscular than I expected. While I won’t be rushing out to purchase the band’s back catalogue they certainly won my respect today.

Alien Ant Farm set list:
Courage / Whisper / Movies / Sticks & Stones / Wish / S.S. Recognise / Smooth Criminal

If asked to pick my favourite set of the day it would probably fall to Skindred, thanks mainly to the tireless Benji Webbe. The band’s brand of ragga metal packed an infectious punch and with Benji as ringmaster it would be rude not to join in the fun. Whether he wanted the crowd bouncing, shouting or punching the air, Benji’s direct approach worked every time. With a breathless set of choice cuts from the band’s two full length’s to date, Benji’s offer to exchange mobile numbers with the crowd to text him to put their names on the guestlist for their Autumn UK tour would have had an awful lot of takers if he wasn’t joking. Wrapping up the set with the catchy Nobody the band departed to a strong response.

Skindred set list:
Ratrace / Pressure / Trouble / Bruises / Destroy The Dancefloor / Cause Ah Riot / Nobody

I had no interest in seeing Taking Back Sunday so it was off to the Bohemia Tent to check out Sylosis. With the band already on stage we entered the sweaty atmosphere of the tent to be confronted by a large crowd and lively pit. Frontman Jamie Graham, with a tattoo slithering up his neck, barked out his vocal with a strong presence backed by the shadowy figures of the remainder of the band. Picking a set from their excellent latest album Conclusion Of An Age, the Reading five piece easily showed why they had been snapped up by Nuclear Blast, with Josh Middleton’s guitar work particularly impressive. I couldn’t help but think that had they been from America they would have been over on one of the larger stages. However the attendance in the tent proved they have not gone unnoticed by fans of this form of aggressive metal.

Sylosis set list included:
Stained Humanity / Conclusion Of An Age / Oath Of Silence / Teras

No it didn’t prove to be a cover up for a secret band, as Abba tribute group Björn Again took to the Saturn stage and launched into Waterloo. Rumours that the band would get bottled did not materialise, with those uninterested wandering off and a large amount of people enjoying the kitsch. Björn Again had promised they’d perform a Metallica song to be voted for by the Sonisphere forum. Despite the cries for the likes of Battery, I felt it was always going to be Enter Sandman, whatever the result. The slightly curtailed version was actually quite impressive with guitarist Benny Anderwear impressing with a note perfect version of Kirk Hammett’s solo.

Björn Again set list:
Waterloo / Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! / Super Trooper / Enter Sandman / Mamma Mia / Does Your Mother Know / Dancing Queen

The soap opera that is Anthrax rolls on with new singer Dan Nelson out of the band and John Bush persuaded to return for this one off show. As the staccato introduction to What Doesn’t Die rang out, Bush walked on to the stage to huge cheers. The focus on the frontman continued throughout the set with shouts of “We want Bush” and “Bring back Bush”. The singer looked humbled by the response and most likely vindicated too. Noticeably not wearing his usual Bush / Anthrax t-shirt, neither what he said nor his body language gave anything away about his future. From the band’s side, Scott Ian has public said he wants Bush back and Frank Bello kneeling in a “We are not worthy” style echoed that thought.

Performance wise the band were on form if perhaps not on fire. More than half the set was dedicated to Bush’s stint with Anthrax, which was no surprise. With little time remaining Charlie Benante started the drum introduction to Indians to be stopped by Bush before Bring The Noise was played. Running over their allotted slot the Public Enemy cover ran straight into the aforementioned Indians. It may not have proved to have been Bush’s Safe Home in the past, but it was apparent that this is where the rest of Anthrax need him right now.

Anthrax set list:
What Doesn’t Die / Fuelled / Caught In A Mosh / Antisocial / Room For One More / Safe Home / I Am The Law / Only / Bring The Noise / Indians

The Used weren’t my cup of tea and a suggestion to visit the Jagermeister bar seemed far more appealing. Returning to the mainstage we learned that Coheed and Cambria had been delayed on their ferry and had thus swapped slots with Bohemia tend band FACT. You couldn’t blame the Japanese band for agreeing to take a slot on the mainstage, but as hard as they tried the crowd dissipated quickly, as did my attention to what came across as generic alt/emo metal.

The clouds had threatened and now they had opened as Airbourne took to the stage. There was no way that was going to slow down Joel O’Keeffe who declared “There’s nothing like a bit of English drizzle” shortly before heading up the scaffold at the side of the stage. Swinging precariously from the top O’Keeffe wrapped his legs around the poles in order to free his hands to play his guitar solo. He’d performed the same stunt at Sweden Rock last year but it was none the less impressive, as was the Australian’s actual performance. Managing to squeeze in most of their debut album into their short set Airbourne ensured that the rain was forgotten and the crowd were thunderstruck.

Airbourne set list:
Stand Up For Rock ‘N’ Roll / Hellfire / Diamond In The Rough / Girls In Black / Cheap Wine & Cheaper Women / Too Much Too Young Too Fast / Runnin’ Wild / Blackjack

If Airbourne made us ignore the rain, Heaven & Hell had us wallowing in the misery of it. I’d really enjoyed the band’s last UK shows but whilst the revised setlist for The Devil You Know tour would have been pleasing to diehard fans, to a festival crowd it seemed to take a huge dip in the middle. Of course there are legends on stage and indeed Ronnie James Dio proved he has lost none of his power with a faultless vocal performance. Tony Iommi as ever stuck to playing his guitar with the occasional stroll around the stage, but maybe it was the fact that despite wearing a raincoat water was seeping down my back that I was quickly losing interest. The opening of Heaven & Hell pulled me back to metal nirvana, but its extended jam then had me heading for somewhere dry.

Heaven & Hell set list:
E5150 / The Mob Rules / Children Of The Sea / I / Bible Black / Time Machine / Fear / Falling Off The Edge Of The World / Die Young / Heaven & Hell

That dry place was the Bohemia tent in time to see Oceansize. The Manchester progressive rockers lean more into indie territory than metal, but their short set was equally rocking and enthralling. The sound in the Bohemia tent served them well as they wove complicated arrangements with underlying strong melodies. The musical talent on stage was evident as was the fact that Oceansize truly envelope themselves in their own songs, without becoming self indulgent.

Oceansize set list:
Unfamiliar / A Homage To A Shame / One Day All This Could Be Yours / You Wish / One Out Of None

With the rain finally stopping and a need for dry clothes it was back to the tent meaning I missed the whole of Bullet For My Valentine and the start of Linkin Park. In truth my liking of Linkin Park evaporated rapidly following their first album and what I did see today did little to change that. To my eyes and ears this performance almost felt dialled in and if I was told the band was miming I wouldn’t have been surprised, so close was the renditions to the recorded versions. Maybe this doesn’t seem a bad thing, but to me it made for a lack of passion. Some of my friends who are fans of the band had the completely opposite opinion, so maybe I wasn’t the best person to judge on this occasion. Even those fans were a little put out that Chester Bennington’s side project Dead By Sunrise were afforded a three song set in Linkin park’s encore and surely this would have been better saved for a slot on the Bohemia stage.

Linkin Park set list:
Session / Given Up / From The Inside / Somewhere I Belong / No More Sorrow / Lying From You / Points Of Authority / What I’ve Done / Leave Out All The Rest / Numb / Breaking The Habit / Shadow Of The Day / Hands Held High / Crawling / In The End / Bleed It Out
Dead By Sunrise set list
Fire / Crawl Back In / My Suffering
Linkin Park encore:
New Divide / Faint / One Step Closer

As Linkin Park are still playing in the background we enter the Bohemia tent for Canadian’s Fucked Up. Frontman Damian Abraham isn’t concerned by the clash with the headliners declaring “We’d rather have less people and no Linkin Park fans in here”. Certainly not a shy frontman the rotund Abraham soon has his shirt off to reveal his hairy back before pulling his shorts up as high as possible. Abraham disappeared into the photopit for most of the remainder of the gig, save for the last two songs when he ventured over the barrier, roaming around the tent with the crowd holding up his mic lead. The good thing is Fucked Up have songs to carry this eccentric display. Imagine Sonic Youth and The Pixies punked up and you’re somewhere near Fucked Up’s sound. The more instant David Comes To Life was my particular favourite but the wall of noise created by the band to songs from the band’s latest album The Chemistry Of Common Life was particularly impressive.

Fucked Up set list:
Son Of The Father / ? / David Comes To Life / Twice Born / ? / Crusades / Police

The added bonus of catching Fucked Up was that we were now right at the very front for the last ever performance of Thunder. I couldn’t even see to the back of the tent due to the crush, but was informed a one-in, one-out policy was being employed with many left outside. With only 45 minutes scheduled Thunder packed in a set of classics with Dirty Love as opener ensuring things started on a high. Frontman Danny Bowes ensured the crowd’s reaction didn’t drop and afterwards I felt like I’d been through an aerobic workout. Aside from a mention of “So this is it” the performance was not overly sentimental with the band choosing to go out on a rocking high. I Love You More Than Rock ‘N’ Roll was a fitting way for the band to bow out and their performances will be sorely missed on the live circuit.

Thunder set list:
Dirty Love / Higher Ground / Low Life In High Places / Gimme Some Lovin’ / The Devil Made Me Do It / Love Walked In / I Love You More Than Rock ‘N’ Roll



LINKS:
Sonisphere