Sonisphere 2011

God what a bunch of moaners you are, seem to have more time for discussing which bands you didn't enjoy!!

I had a great time at the festival - I had an absolutely amazing evening on Thursday after setting up my tent. Me and my friend got silly drunk and wandered all over the place in utter stupor... sadly we drunk so hard (I mean unholy levels of consumption here) that I managed to lose my camera and Friday was almost a complete write-off :(

We just about managed to force our way to catch a bit of Anthrax and whilst we really enjoyed Megatdeth (one of my favourite acts of the weekend) I have to confess I spent a lot of the time trying not to be sick :o One of my biggest blunders was then missing most of slayer to head back to the tent for a recoup, but to my delight I managed to catch the end of Raining Blood and Angel of Death :D

Metallica were absolutely amazing, James Hetfield had the definition of tone on his guitar, the sound on Battery was phenomenal! I really let it out on that one. In the end we thought that Metallica just pipped Megadeth because the did a 'Lord of the Rings - Return of the King' at the end of their set, they said goodbye soooo many times. Overall, an amazing show :)

We woke up refreshed (yet still not fully recovered - another sober day... :eek:) and caught loads of bands that we didn't really know but really enjoyed. Sylosis were fantastic, as were bad religion. We thought it was a bit mean that Sum 41 had their sound cut but we were glad we got to hear their hits. And jesus christ, that circle pit during Gallows was insane, that was the most ridiculous crowd I have ever seen! Didn't really do anything to help my friend's fears of crowds.. but what a sight! I had a good dance to Weezer and thought it was amazingly apt they played island in the sun just when the rain had faded away and the warm sun was upon us. I was really surprised they covered Teenage Dirtbag and Paranoid Android... I think I might have been the only Radiohead fan there though by the blank look on everyone's face. Biffy Clyro put on a great show and we had a good sing along to that one. Then straight to bed due to still feeling a bit ropey...

Sunday was the best day by a mile for us. It was just a constant barrage of great band after great band - Arch Enemy, House of Pain, Parkway Drive were a particular surprise (I loved that boat man was still in his inflatable during Limp Bizkit), Mastodon, In me, Motorhead, Exit Ten, Limp Bizkit (boobies!), Bill Bailey and then finally Slipknot, who completely stole the entire show. Unbelievable!!! I went absolutely loopy although away from the most intense bits of the crowd... there were some very scary looking people about :D

All in all I had a great time, I saw a load of bands I wouldn't otherwise have seen and some bands I was looking forward to. Lesson to learn though, don't drink so hard at a festival because you will really regret it! Shame I missed you lot at the Shrimp tent, I did try to say hello :)
 
I was part of that group that ended up surging into Bohemia during gojira haha. No idea how it happened but I saw people going so sprinted in with them in an every man for himself style.

Hilights for me were:

Slipknot
Metallica
Gojira
Periphery
Limp bizkit
Opeth
Airborne
Sylosis
Richard cheese
Black dahlia murder

Was a bit annoyed with e sound levels in Bohemia as until Sunday, they were way too loud, so much so, that you couldn't make out most of the individual notes.

Same situation for mastodon as all you could hear with them was bass bass bass and nothing else which really disappointed me as I was looking forward to them.

Only other bad note was getting hit by a bottle of **** while waiting for airborne,but by then I was beyond caring as I was pretty ruined anyway haha.

As always though, Metallica were great, but the main highlight for me were slipknot who put on an amazing, brutal and emotional show. I destroyed my ankle in one of the pits during duality and then at the end when number 2's overalls were put forward, I saw so many people with tears in their eyes. It really was an amazing moment.

Other than that, I had a great time with everyone from the people I knew from here, to the randomers in the mosh pits like a scot called Gerard during metallica, and the many bearded people during slipknot.

Same time next year! :D
 
I thought Mastadon sounded great from where I was unlike last time they played on the Saturn stage where they sounded like they were at the bottom of a barrel filled with pillows...

What did everybody else think of Bill Bailey? Thought personally it was a complete waste of a second stage headline slot.
 
J1nxy said:
I thought Mastadon sounded great from where I was unlike last time they played on the Saturn stage where they sounded like they were at the bottom of a barrel filled with pillows...

What did everybody else think of Bill Bailey? Thought personally it was a complete waste of a second stage headline slot.
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I actually thought Mastodon was the muddiest out the bands I saw on the Apollo stage, I wanted to go up there and turn up the mids on his amp and his distortion down.

I quite enjoyed Bill Bailey, although a lot of it was recycled material I have seen before. Loved the Rammstein cover of Scarborough Fair :D
 
"slinky" said:
Other than that, I had a great time with everyone from the people I knew from here, to the randomers in the mosh pits like a scot called Gerard during metallica, and the many bearded people during slipknot.
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Don't forget Camp Clingfilm :p

Oh, too anyone in white camp on Friday night, I apologise if you were kept up by the 80's cheese, however, you should have joined in.
 
I had a great weekend, saw the best sets I've seen by a good few bands I've seen before and saw a few I'd not seen before, none really disappointed. watched most of the comedy saturday and sunday.

Found camp hovis easy enough but was never anyone there when I came past.

I only camped friday night (in white) and heard a lot of cheese, I had my ipod on and got woken up every time it reached the end of a playlist, not begrudging it of anyone though, I expected it to be noisy so took with me what I needed to sleep through it.

Highlights for me:
Metallica
Richard Cheese (Biggest crowd I've ever seen that early on)
Limp Bizkit
Bill Bailey
Slipknot + the Paul Gray tributes

I heard a lot of rumour on the sunday that it could well be their last ever performance, however I would have expected them to say something if it was. There was a press conference called but I assume this was just about the tributes, anyone know any different?
 
I made it on the Friday, missed the first few songs on Megadeth so was gutted about that, but they played Holy Wars at the end and that pretty much has been the highlight of my year; seeing them live finally after 20 years of thrashing to them :D Dave is one of the best thrash guitarists I dont care what anyone says.
Slayer was awesome too, so much energy from them and the crowd. Metallica really did take the cake for live performance though. The opening was sooooo good when they played hit the lights. I would love to see them live again. 2 hours of non stop metal. I was a very happy man.
 
panthro said:
I made it on the Friday, missed the first few songs on Megadeth so was gutted about that, but they played Holy Wars at the end and that pretty much has been the highlight of my year; seeing them live finally after 20 years of thrashing to them :D Dave is one of the best thrash guitarists I dont care what anyone says.
Slayer was awesome too, so much energy from them and the crowd. Metallica really did take the cake for live performance though. The opening was sooooo good when they played hit the lights. I would love to see them live again. 2 hours of non stop metal. I was a very happy man.
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Megadeth have improved as a live band so much over the last couple of years as they were a bit crap for quite a while.

I never used to like Slayer, the last couple of times I've seen them live has changed that view totally, really enjoyed the set.

Metallica playing Seek and Destroy so early in the set was a bit of a surprise for me as I can't ever remember in the 20 odd times I've seen them it being played anything but last.
 
What a weekend, there were a number of highlights for me including: Megadeth, Slayer, Metallica, Mastodon, Opeth, Tesseract, The Mars Volta, Howard Marks, Bill Bailey and Orange Goblin (last band on sunday night on the jagermeister stage - dancing in the rain with the last beers of the festival was a great feeling!) Didn't bother with slipknot as I can't stand them personally, Anthrax were dissapointing as always at festivals. A great band too see in a small(ish) venue like the Wulfrun in Wolverhampton but they're always rubbish at festivals IMO. I also saw some of the tek one set, it was funny for around 15 minutes then I got pretty fed up of the constant 'wop wop wop wopwopwop wop wop wop', dubstep really is utter ****! :D
 
Did anybody else make it for Sylosis or Volbeat who opened on Saturday and Sunday? Both were really good and Volbeat got a 40 minute set as they came on 20 minutes early.
 

I can't find any more pro-shots, no idea how my mate found this one, if you guys find any, posting here will be much appreciated :D
 
Psymonkee im eating the jaffa cakes you gave me right now :p,
I ventured off on my own for the most part of the festival and just moshed with random people, i think if i go next year i will stick with the Ocuk crew rather than ditching them and going solo :)
 
going to be interesting if there are any security changes to sonis and/or download after flares being thrown at both
 
I spotted smoke bombs being thrown around the crowd at the front of several sets. Wasn't quite sure what to make of that, as I prefer smoke to bottles of pee tbh :p
 
Never saw flares or smoke bombs! :o

Saw loads of people in the arena with glass & cans and also I never had my wristband checked going into the campsite! :(
 
security was ridiculously lax coming into the arena, with a different crowd there could have been a lot more untoward things getting in. I got enough cans to drink in and coming from the rock royalty side (straight from the car park) I didn't even get my bag checked.
 
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