Sonisphere 2010 - Part 1

AHOY THERE MATIES!

Decided to come back for another blog post. I'm on a roll today!

Okay, so this article is going to be about my experiences of Sonisphere 2010, and a brief detailing of my hopes for 2011.

As you can see from the carnage in the picture on the left, I had a great time. The headliners for 2010 were Alice Cooper, Rammstein and Iron Maiden, with other performances from bands like Pendulum, Placebo, Europe, Alice in Chains and more.

It was absolutely fantastic being at Knebworth again. I went in 2009 and as soon as I got there, it was like a continuation of where things left off last year, like a sequel to a film that desperately needed one - Different way of describing it, but there you go.

Although me and James got there on the Thursday, the events didn't really kick off until the Friday evening - After, 5:00 PM the festival kicked off with openers Delain, who are like a gothic female-fronted rock band. Think a cross between Within Temptation and Nightwish. We didn't really fancy seeing them, so we had a wonder around the festival site, getting aquainted with what was what and where to find things. I managed to get a Trivium t-shirt from a stall for £5... Absolute bargain because it would have sold online for about £18 if I got it from their online shop.
Had a little wander around, and then we decided to see our first band of the festival - Turisas, a kind of viking/battle metal band. To be perfectly honest with you, their crowd interactions were good but the music itself wasn't. Not my thing. Going back to the crowd interactions though, it was obvious the fact someone had brought a sex doll and put it on a flag pole was going to get noticed by the band, and they subsequently asked if they could bring it back stage with them for the "after party".
Fun fun fun.

Next up, it was Europe. Now, I'd listened to these guys briefly before and when I heard they were playing new stuff at the festival I thought... Better look into it. I listened to their new album, which is called "Last Look At Eden". It is now sitting on my shelf in CD form, suffice to say. They're a great band and they've really moved on from their golden days from singing The Final Countdown - But they still have the grace to play it in the encore, for which the crowd went absolutely crazy.



After this, we saw someone who I personally did not expect to be any good, let alone be at this festival. He's been cited as a main source of inspiration for Trent Reznor, the frontman for Nine Inch Nails and a legend in the synthesised music genre. I thought he was one of those relics from the 80's, who had a one hit wonder and then his musical career ceased to exist.
And he's called Gary Numan.

Gary Numan appeared on stage in a very heavy and industrial set up. Lots of smoke effects, heavy tunings on the guitars and he brought his blend of very dark and bleak music to the festival. He went into some of his newer songs, but the song that stood out to me the most had to be Cars; the song that put his name on the map back in the 80's. He was very good and I can't wait to see if he does any more tours.

After Gary Numan, we went back to the camp for a bit. Sadly, that was it for the Friday as my stomach decided to start playing up right before Alice Cooper came on. Tried to watch him but I couldn't do it. It was either me just adapting to the festival or I ate something bad when we got there, but I would like to see Alice Cooper again properly soon.

The first evening of the festival came to a close and I was feeling tired. I had a very rough night's sleep ahead of me, as I was in a tent next to a busy road where all the lorries and tour busses drove past. We also got a lot of drunk metalheads staggering past making as much noise as possible, OH and the Bohemia tent decided to have a early hours disco rave. Fun. Roll on Saturday!

Part two coming soon, watch this space.