Sonisphere Festival | Live Review

Sonisphere Festival
Knebworth House, Knebworth
30/07/10 - 01/08/10

The second Sonisphere in the grounds of Knebworth House – the hallowed site of Led Zeppelin’s final UK gig – is this writer’s first festival experience since Reading 1994.

Sixteen years on, the clean campsite, working showers, wide range of vegetarian food and absence of mile-long queues are a revelation.

On Friday night, Alice Cooper, Gary Numan and Europe make the most of the fact that the main Apollo Stage is still being built.

The golden oldies crank out the ’70s and ’80s hits on the only slightly smaller Saturn Stage like their pension plans depend on it, with top draw Alice remaining the finest live act ever to be beheaded, hung, decapitated and injected with an oversized syringe filled with, yes, ‘Poison’.

Saturday morning comes to life with Swedish urchins Enforcer on the Bohemia Stage, who deliver old-school metal from a time when drop-D tunings and drum triggers were simply nightmare visions of the future.

Earache label-mates Evile – the Metallica to Gama Bomb’s Anthrax – have plenty of energy, but the thrashers’ overly complex new material inspires more sighs than slam-dives.

Over at the Apollo Stage, Anthrax themselves are wheeling out the classics. It’s a nice dose of nostalgia, but the band seem ill at ease with having Joey Belladonna back on vocals. Elsewhere, fellow New Yorkers Sick Of It All fail to live up to their reputation as the greatest live hardcore band of all time, while Soulfly just scrape by on Max Cavalera’s charisma.

As for comedians Andrew O’Neill and Tim Minchin, there are bigger laughs during Rammstein’s Apollo Stage headline set. The industrial loons certainly know how to put on a show, with more fire, explosions and barking in German than the Third Reich.

Post-‘Du Hast’, those still wanting to party head for the Bohemia Stage, where Therapy? are playing 1994’s Troublegum album in full. The tent is rammed with ’90s survivors in Helmet and Pantera long-sleeves. Therapy? launch into ‘Knives’.

Thirty seconds in, the power cuts. No sound, no lights. Ten minutes pass, then Andy Cairns and co reappear. ‘Knives’ again. This time, we get a minute in.

People are losing patience, no one more so than Cairns’ guitar tech, who is demanding that the promoters come onstage and explain what the hell’s going on.

The tent is emptying, but the patient are rewarded when power is restored and the Larne trio steam through the 14 tracks of Troublegum. ‘Screamager’, ‘Nowhere’, ‘Die Laughing’ and ‘Trigger Inside’ are every bit as catchy as they were when Therapy? first took the rock scene by the scruff of the neck.

On Sunday, after Henry Rollins shakes the site to life with his 11am sermon, the laid-back grunge of the Bam Margera-approved CKY is the ideal soundtrack to a veggie burger and Coke in the sun. ‘Laid-back’ is not a word that can be used to describe Slayer, however.

Their 45-minute set on the Apollo Stage is mercilessly executed, with new tracks ‘World Painted Blood’ and ‘Hate Worldwide’ sounding just as savage as unhinged oldies ‘South Of Heaven’, ‘War Ensemble’ and ‘Angel Of Death’.

Watching in the crowd is US comedian Brian Posehn, who, along with Sean Hughes and the genius Jim Jeffries, delivers a winning afternoon of laughs on the Bohemia

Stage. Jeffries’ politically incorrect schtick draws gasps from even the most heavily tattooed-and-pierced audience members.

On the Saturn Stage, The Cult do what the disgraceful Mötley Crüe couldn’t manage the previous evening – play their classics in a competent and engaging manner.

Ian Astbury is 10 times the singer and frontman the wheezing, complacent Vince Neil is, while guitarist Billy Duffy and drummer John Tempesta leave Mick Mars and Tommy Lee in the, well, dirt.

By the time the main men of the weekend appear on the Apollo Stage, excitement levels for Iron Maiden’s only British show of 2010 are at fever pitch. At least half of the sold-out crowd of 55,000 are wearing Maiden shirts, but for more casual fans the nine-minute-epic-after-nine-minute-epic routine is a little much.

There are only six vintage tracks in the two-hour set, five of which come at the end. It’s a lot to wade through, but Bruce Dickinson’s enthusiasm is infectious, and Metal Ireland ultimately submits to the galloping beat.

In what has become a standard rant in any Maiden set, Bruce blasts the UK media for pretending heavy metal doesn’t exist. But the quote of the weekend, and the perfect riposte to those who would write off hard rock, comes from Sunday’s Saturn Stage headliner Iggy Pop.

As the shirtless Stooges legend writhes on his belly, shrieking along to James Williamson’s proto-punk riffs and Steve Mackay’s saxophone squalls, he points out that, “Yes, this too is a form of music.”

– Andrew Johnston ::: 09/08/10