words by Adam Hatton
photos by Martin Hoare
I may have dislocated my jaw. My fists are bruised, my legs are bruised, my ribs are bruised and the area around my kidneys is bruised – although I think that may be caused by something internal. I think Sonisphere may have just happened again. Apparently between all the drinking, fighting, mud-crawling and thumbing-in some music happened. This is a journal of the bits that I remember. Cheap Levitra online
FRIDAY
So this year saw the arrival of the ‘Big Four’, playing together for the first time ever in the UK. Exciting news if this was 1985 which, of course, it’s not. I was, however, determined to catch at least a bit of each set but gave up on Anthrax pretty quickly. They’ve played Sonisphere the last three years running, each time with a different line-up, but without Scott Ian on board they seemed a bit toothless and bored by the whole thing.
Megadeth, however, were making their UK Sonisphere debut and didn’t disappoint, despite the fact I assumed they’d be shit. Dave Mustaine looks and sounds exactly like he did 20 years ago and they bashed out a set of crowd-pleasers (and the occasional new song that sounded like an old song) that actually still sounded heavy and interesting, despite the shameless use of double-necked guitars. Vardenafilo levitra
After the Mustaine perm show I headed to the Bohemia Tent to see Black Dahlia Murder but failed to get into the tent (and this is going to be the first of many whinges about the new tent entry policy that they decided to introduce this year). In previous years if you wanted to see a popular band in one of the tents then if you got there too late the tent would be full, there’d be people spilling out of the doors, and you wouldn’t be able to get in. This year, however, they had barriers around each tent and as soon as the tent was half-full they’d shut the barriers and not let people in until someone else came out. So to see a band in a tent you had to arrive as the previous band finished otherwise you were fucked, despite the fact that people inside had enough room to swing a big cat. Like a lion. Or a bear.
So yeah, I missed Black Dahlia Murder and decided to go and watch Cerebral Ballzy instead. But I couldn’t get into the Red Bull tent either. Zithromax pharmacy Excellent. Fortunately Black Breath were playing outside on the Jagermeister Stage and they rocked. Their thrash-fucked hardcore was invigorating and forced me to go and throw myself about for the first time of the weekend. At one point the singer asked the audience who the best band of the weekend was so far and it was met by a resounding ‘You’. Which was the right answer. Order Doxycycline They played some shows in Brighton and London straight after the festival but I submitted this report late so you’ve missed them now. Unlucky.
We managed to get back to the main stage in time to see Slayer play Raining Blood and Angel of Death so we basically saw the whole set and it sounded totally like Slayer. buy drugs online Protest the Hero were probably excellent but we couldn’t get in the tent. Yeah, I know.
Headliners, Metallica, started at 20.30, which meant it was still light (great job), however they proved why they are the only one of the Big Four who still regularly play massive shows. They blasted through a greatest hits set of mainly old songs (you know, from when they were good). They were joined at the end by members of the Big Four for a cheeky blast through Diamondhead’s Am I Evil, which was fun before Hetfield politely shuffled everyone off the stage again to allow Metallica to blast through Battery. My metal companion and I spent the entire song head-to-head punching each other in the ribs.
Later, in the Bohemian Tent (yes, we got in eventually) Killing Joke did that thing where they sound like Killing Joke, which is never a bad thing, and then Hayseed Dixie amused the drunken masses by being the most talented musicians of the weekend (apart from Periphery, which hasn’t happened yet).
SATURDAY
Due to a crippling hangover I didn’t see anything on Saturday until Gallows played. Some people told me that Sylosis and Richard Cheese were good and I have no reason to doubt them. I was kind of set up to hate Gallows, based purely on my own unfounded prejudices, but they actually put on a decent show that only partially turned into Frank Carter wanking himself off about leaving.
Bad Religion then reminded us how excellent punk used to be, despite the fact they all look like someone’s dad. Then Sum 41 reminded us how much Bad Religion have to answer for. Walking away from the stage though (which was necessary) I was amazed by the amount of people singing along to their songs. They are somehow incredibly popular, but the experience only served to make me lose all faith in humanity. Buy antibiotics online without prescription. Online Drugstore. Then You Me At Six happened and closed the deal. They are, undoubtedly, a talented bunch of kids who know how to put together a half-decent pop song but it was completely ball-less and when the singer started shouting ‘two world wars and one world cup’ I wanted to punch myself in the actual cock. Florida codes bank
I tried to see Pulled Apart By Horses but, unsurprisingly, couldn’t get into the Bohemia Tent (although apparently some onstage vomiting occurred – lovely) so headed to see Tesseract in the Red Bull tent, which I also couldn’t get into. Finally managed to get into Bohemia though to catch Periphery, Buy zestril which more than satiated my djent cravings (incidentally, ‘djent’ is much funnier if pronounced in a French accent). Periphery are made up of six men who clearly spend all of their time in their bedrooms learning how to play guitar rather than getting interesting haircuts and shopping for the right kind of trousers. They also proceeded to be fucking incredible. They started one song with all three guitarists tapping and it made me want to give up music forever. The plan was to watch 15 minutes of Periphery and then head out to watch Weezer but after 15 minutes I looked at my compadré and we wordlessly decided that we were going nowhere. Post-Periphery we did head to Weezer, just in time to catch them play My Name is Jonas, Hash Pipe, their rather excellent cover of Paranoid Android, Pork and Beans and Buddy Holly. So yeah, we almost certainly ticked the Weezer box and they were ace.
The Mars Volta did everything they could to alienate the audience with a rather superb prog jam set that succeeded in alienating most of the audience. That is in no way a criticism but after that something metal was in order so I headed to see Gojira. Unfortunately I’d mis-timed it by about 30 seconds and didn’t manage to get in to the Bohemia Tent. According to the 20 people who were allowed in the tent though they were heavy as fuck.
Biffy Clyro inexplicably but inevitably headlined Saturday night. It seems that Biffy Clyro fans fit into one of three categories: people who like their old stuff when apparently they were good; young people who don’t know any better; and people who are Scottish. Levitra generico I fit into none of these categories, so went to see some black metal. After finally getting into the tent (is this getting boring yet? NOT AS BORING AS IT WAS IF YOU WERE TRYING TO GET INTO A TENT!), I was confronted with a stage consisting of flaming tridents, flaming standards and, well, a flaming fucking stage. Watain vomited out an exhilarating and entertaining show of proper black metal that burned away the spectre of Biffy Clyro. It was then a short walk to the Jagermeister Stage to catch Black Spiders who suffered from a slightly flat stage sound but still managed to put together a ball-breaking real rock n’ roll set that made me want to drink more than I’d already drunk.
I tried to see Sisters of Mercy but the foggy sound was only surpassed by the foggy stage, which conspired to create the most boring live show since the Slayer acoustic show that happened in my head in the 90s.
SUNDAY
Sonisunday started with a gentle visit to see Howard Marks, whose easy charm and inclusive banter was enough to distract me from the ‘LOL DRUGZ’ crowd. I then decided to forego House of Pain (I feel safe to assume though that they told everyone to jump around and that quite a few people jumped around) to catch Norn Iron’s Mojo Fury, who chucked out some superbly angular rock songs with an obvious ear for a chorus. I imagine that this is what Biffy Clyro sounded like back when people gave a fuck. Although Mojo Fury actually are really good. Kylesa were good when being sludgy and rubbish when being psychedelic.
At 2pm there was a poignant two minute silence for the late Slipknot bassist Paul Gray that was remarkably well observed, save for the odd drunk person falling over. Then the silence was well and truly ended by Mastodon who have finally managed to match the quality of their recorded work with equally powerful live shows. They seem to enjoy themselves now as well. Apparently Brent Hinds kept whistling along to songs but I missed that as I was getting my head kicked in.
One band who, disappointingly, seemed to be simply going through the motions though was Motörhead. I don’t know if the recent passing of former guitarist Würzel was still playing on their minds but they didn’t look like they wanted to be there and, because of that, the show was lifeless and boring. Opeth smashed through a heavy and entertaining prog-nonsense set that even involved a few jokes in between riffs. It did start to rain like fuck though.
Limp Bizkit were embarrassingly bad. Levitra reviews I cringe to see a grown man shouting ‘I live life in the fastlane’ and cringe even more when I see people singing along. I heard people try and justify it by saying ‘yeah, but it’s fun, it reminds me of being a kid’. Something else that reminds me of being a kid is shitting in my pants but I don’t choose to do that in the middle of a field with 60,000 people. Although, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Anyway, fortunately, Bill Bailey cheered me up a bit with his usual whimsy about insects, cockneys and gubbins. The addition of a full band made the songs more suited to the big stage than the usual solo, stand-up versions and he was clearly well chuffed to be there.
The weekend climaxed with a sentimental yet typically visceral show from Slipknot. As a band they seem to have grown up with their audience, introducing more progressive elements to their work but this was all about smashing out the big songs and bringing the theatrics, including that spinning drum kit thing (yeah, the drum kit that spins and flies around and shit – the spinning drum kit thing). And fireworks. Also, if there was a world record for the most people ever to say the word ‘eyes’ at the same time then I reckon it’s wrapped up. Paul Gray’s suit remained on stage throughout while all the bass duties were carried out backstage and the band paid a visibly emotional tribute to him after closing up with Surfacing.
I managed to drag myself over to the Jagermeister stage for one final hurrah and chipped my tooth whilst watching the riff-tastic Orange Goblin, which closed up the weekend quite nicely and proves what Mike Patton says – that it’s always funny until someone gets hurt… and then it’s just hilarious. Apparently, I danced to some dubstep later that night but I don’t know what dubstep is, so it’s probably a lie.
You didn’t watch Ginger? Or Cancer Bats (did they play?). You are a bad man. Goody goody goo good goody review though.
Fortunately you managed to make a plausible argument about the virtues of Orange Goblin , and sadly you spent more time sucking off Slipknot. You clearly did not attend the same Sonisphere that everyone else did…. Slayer may have been Slayer as they are, but clearly worthy of more respect and written review than you gave them. Metallica…… were amazing. I am interested to understand how you were dedicated as an authourity on music especially of this capacity.
Andrea, surely all reviewers and critics have a certain amount of subjectivity in their position of ‘dedicated authority on music’. The world would be a very boring place if everyone loved Slayer and Metallica, especially so if they always played as bad as they apparently did at Sonisphere.
Haha! I never claimed to be any sort of authority on any kind of music. I’m clearly not, as you can quite obviously tell from the nonsense I spunked out above. However Slayer did nothing that they haven’t done the last two years at Sonisphere, which isn’t a criticism, they’ve been doing the same thing for the last 30 years, but they were very much Slayer, which is what I said. That’s why I decided to mainly watch Black Breath instead, who were better (that’s a scientific fact).
Also I don’t think I ever sucked off Slipknot (I know I was drunk but, shit, that would be one hell of a black spot), but they put on a fucking great show, as they generally do. But, as you say you say, I was clearly at a different festival to EVERYONE ELSE, you know, apart from the other 40,000 people or so who seemed to enjoy Slipknot.
And I’m pretty sure I said that Metallica were good didn’t I? The only vaguely bad thing I said about them was that that their old songs are better than their new ones, which isn’t the most controversial opinion I’ve ever held.
If you’re interested, my favourite bands of the weekend were Black Breath, Watain, Periphery and Mojo Fury so stick that in yer pipe and blow bubbles.
I’m not sure what we’re arguing about here to be honest but I bow down to your musical authority, whatever that may be.
Thanks for reading anyway, to be honest I’m amazed anyone bothered. I mainly wrote it to make myself laugh.
…oh and Mastodon as well. Shit, how did I forget to mention Mastodon?