Sonisphere 2010 - Part 2

Following on from where we left off from Part One of my pilgrimage to Knebworth, we begin Part Two with Saturday, and this was when the fun really started. Today's line up featured, in order of appearance on the line up...

Rammstein
Placebo
Good Charlotte
Papa Roach
Anthrax
Lacuna Coil
Family Force 5
Motley Crue
Skunk Anansie
Apocalyptica
Fear Factory
Soulfly
Sabaton

Along with some other guys playing in the Bohemia tent and the smaller stages - Most notable in Bohemia were Gallows and Corey Taylor of Slipknot and Stone Sour fame performing an acoustic set. As we didn't spend much time in Bohemia, I won't go into this stage in too much detail only that it was always packed, smelt of sweaty metal heads, and it was very hot.

Kicking off the Saturday was Lacuna Coil, a band not unlike Evanescence, except probably better live... I've heard horror stories about THAT time Evanescence played Download a few years back... Oh dear. But back on topic, Lacuna Coil were about average, they didn't stand out to me but they got the ball rolling for the festival and they seemed to get the crowd going, so... All's good.
Afterwards, we went to pay Soulfly a visit over at the Saturn Stage, which is the second mainstage - Basically Sonisphere operates on three major stages: Apollo, which is where all the main headliners play, Saturn, which is about the same and Bohemia, which is a huge tent for a more intimate performance. The rest of the stages are the sponsors, and you get local bands playing.
Anyway, Soulfly were decent, the guitarist was really getting into it. He was leaping all over the stage, spinning the guitar... Something tells me he liked playing live. I also found it pretty funny that we were stood next to a guy wearing an "I Love Justin Bieber" t-shirt. The man had some guts.

When Soulfly had finished destroying Saturn, it was decided that we would return to the camp and chill a bit. Me and James decided we didn't want to do it like I did last year, which was when I saw pretty much EVERY band on the mainstages on both days - Starting from the morning all the way up to the headliners which trust me, if you're standing from 10:15 AM to 11:30 PM for two days, does a number on your feet.

When we had chilled, we went off to see Papa Roach. I'm not a HUGE fan but he gave a better-than-expected set, and his crowd interaction was great - Although I'm not sure what the point of slagging off "Shitney Spears" was, although I found it amusing to hear Jacoby Shaddix comment on the amount of girls flashing for the cameras recording the video shown on the big screens, even showing off HIS chest - And I guess the guy from Soulfly was at the front of the crowd, as Shaddix randomly told someone to take his shirt off before he went off on a rant about the musical abortion that is Justin Bieber.

And then we had a bit of a wander around the site, hit the merch stalls. Bought me an event t-shirt for a grand total of £20. Such a rip off, but you can't put a price on good memories, I guess.

The next band we had a nose at was Motley Crue - They were okay, was a bit disappointed as I expected a bit better. They were late on stage and they just didn't seem to put much effort in - And yes, I am talking about Motley Crue here, not Axel Rose. We left the set about 10-15 minutes early in order to get a good spot for the highlight of the Saturday...

Rammstein.

Now, Rammstein are a weird band for me. I really enjoy their music even though I can't understand a word they're saying, but it proves that it doesn't matter, as they made up for their German lyrics with an absolutely fantastic stage show which really pushed the outdoor venue to the limits. They had fireworks being shot AT the crowd and being shot back at the stage, we had foam sprayed all over us from a phallic-shaped cannon which lead singer Til Lindemann sat upon. They had a keyboardist burnt alive, we had a great time, and with songs like Du Hast, Rammlied among others being played, it was very hard not to.

I kid you not, the pyro was so immense that we could feel the heat from the halfway point in the crowd - and this is a festival with a capacity of some 60,000-65,000 people at a time. It was absolutely immense and they were on top form. This was their first UK festival appearance ever, and apparently a huge slap in the face to Download Festival, who have, according to forum posts on both the Sonisphere and Download forums, been trying to get Rammstein to play for a very long time.



Our time spent with Rammstein went very quickly and it looked as though they finished early, but apparently they started earlier than they were supposed to, or something, and... yeah. Point is, they absolutely fantastic.

So after another day of metal-related carnage, we headed back to the campsite, ready for Sunday, and perhaps one of my favourite bands of all time.

Part Three coming soon.