Sonisphere is like a pair of your favourite slippers comfortable and you know where to find them. It maybe 3 years since the last UK Sonisphere, but nothing on the site has changed from stages to vendors, so when arranging a meeting point it was simple ‘see you at Mr Teas’.

As with all metal festivals its friendly, with veterans sharing war stories of how many times they had seen Maiden/Metallica etc and encouraging first timers to relish the moment as it will only happen once!

Friday was a relatively quiet start to what was an epic weekend. Gary Newman was first up on the Apollo Stage, looking as moody as ever with a bass line which you could feel throughout your body, the set included classics ‘Cars’ and concluded with a rousing rendition of ‘Are Friends Electric’.

After a few beers and idle banter it was off to see Limp Bizkit, I have seen them a few times in recent years and have never been too impressed, but today was different Fred was on great form bringing back the feeling of the great days of nu metal. Their set included a great version of ‘Killing in the Name’ and ‘Break Stuff’ apologising to The Prodigy for over running.

The crowd gathered on the Apollo Stage to see what in previous years would have been a ‘risky’ booking but now form part of the fabric of metal festivals, Essex’s finest The Prodigy . Their set was the usual audio visual blitz on the senses, but something was missing, yes all the old favourites were there, ‘Breathe’, ‘Voodoo People ‘,’Omen’, ‘Invaders Must Die’, ‘Firestarter’ & ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, hey I guess we are all allowed the occasional bad day.

So it was off to Bohemia for a night cap, and boy what a night cap 65daysofstatic, after a sound check which seem to take an eternity they hit the stage with their unique industrial dance sound. The guys were on top form kicking off with ‘Heat Death Infinity Splitter’ from their latest album, with the dirtiest keyboard sound I have heard in many a year, the track builds & build to a rousing crescendo. The highlight of their set was ‘Safe Passage’, which starts serenely enough and bursts into life and just keeps growing, they leave the stage to huge applause.

A double Espresso for breakfast and we were ready for TesseracT at the ridiculously early time of 11:00am (well that’s what my body said), but there was still a healthy crowd on the Apollo Stage for the math rockers. it was the first gig back for original vocalist Dan Tomkins, so no surprises that their set was made up from their first album One. Such was the quality of his vocals you would never have thought he had been away. Three years ago they performed on the Red Bull Stage today the main stage, let’s hope they build on this experience to take them to the next level.

When Baby Metal were announced the forums were a buzz, it seemed that the majority didn’t feel it was appropriate to have a manufactured band at Sonisphere. Irrespective of opinion there was in excess of 25,000 turned up to watch them, whether out of curiosity or desire is hard to tell. The band were tight, but when children appeared wearing geisha outfits I found it in bad taste, especially in light of the Rolf Harris case. I know the rock is meant to push boundaries, but…….

With a cider in our hand we went to Bohemia to see Voodoo Six, the only way to describe this band is R’n’B before the genre got taken over in the late 70’s. Front man Luke Purdie has great stage presence and at times his voice is Daltry esq, highlight of the set was ‘Sink or Swim’.

In the Jägermeister Stage were a punk band that embraced the spirit of 1976, The Hell arriving on the stage as an inflatable penis the vocalist dives into the crowd for the first of many crowd surfs. These guys know the power of a 3 minute song with tracks like ‘Sausages & Mosh’ and ‘Someday Everybody Dies’, and have the good size crowd eating out of the palm of their hand.

With a crash and a ‘Bang Bang Bang’ The Virginmarys look right at home on stage. The Bohiemia crowd welcome them with open arms and fists pumping. The raw vocals of Ally Dickerty complement his riff laden guitar work perfectly, and with the driving bass of Matt Rose turning drummer Danny Dolan into a rythmatic genius it can only mean one thing..... pure, honest rock n roll. Playing their set at breakneck speed seems to be the norm, and why not? the magnificent dressed to kill is just one of the many songs from their debut album King of Conflict and the set culminates with ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’ and as the band depart the stage, there is only one simple word to describe the performance WoW

Frank Turner a man who loves his metal takes to the stage, and states "This might be an acoustic guitar not, but I'm gonna die with a fucking BC Rich Warlock in my hands" . He kicks off the set with ‘Photosynthesis’, which is well received from the black shirted hordes, personal highlight ‘The Road’, but I must admit it would have been great to hear some of his Mongol Horde, but you can’t have everything.

When Iron Maiden last headlined Sonisphere they were promoting The Final Frontier and were playing primarily tracks recorded this millennium, this year it was the final step of the Maiden England (The Greatest Hits Tour). The crowd had grown through the day and was significantly larger than The Prodigy attracted.

The set had that end of term feel, as Bruce Dickenson proclaimed “Tonight is the last night of a three-year tour, it’s all been building to this. If we don’t get it right tonight, then we never will.” The two hour set had everything you could wish for including ‘The Number of The Beast’, ‘Run To The Hill’s, ‘Fear of The Dark’ and ‘The Evil Men Do’, plus a curve ball ‘Revelations’, which Dickenson announced was last performed in Canterbury Cathedral with Jethro Tull, he set concluded with Sanctuary. Walking away with Monty Pythons ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ ringing in our ear, it was clear that our day was not a ‘piece of a shit’ as Brian would have us believe, indeed the day had been complete opposite.

Photo: Chris Poots

Another ridiculously Bacon & Brie roll in our hand it’s off to see French extreme metallers Gojira, with about 20,000 others. Their performance was as high energy as ever and even at 11:00 they managed to get generates mosh pits.

Over on the Bohemia Stage fresh in from Tennessee were The Cadillac Three, a three piece playing good old southern style rock, having been present 38 years ago I couldn’t help but compare them to Lynyrd Skynyrd. Their sound was rich and warm, their songs were clearly based upon on where they were brought up as indicated in the ‘Tennessee Blues’.

Also performing on the Bohemia Stage were Bo Ningen, with their driving, relentless guitar sound. You can’t help feeling that it’s just one great jamming session, but there is real structure and stage presence. The theatrical nature of the band was highlighted when bassist Taigen Kawabe, climbed into the crowd, while continuing with the mesmeric bass lines.

Back up to the Apollo Stage to catch the AC/DC inspired Airbourne fronted by the human dynamo that is Joel O'Keeffe, an Englishman’s epitome of an Aussie, brash, in your face and up for a laugh. There are the usual antics of climbing the rigging while playing the guitar and hitting himself on the head with beer cans, but there was also a softer moment when he asked everyone to raise a glass in memory of Rik Mayell.

It’s easy to get distracted by O’Keefe’s antics, that Airbourne are one of the best live acts around and well worth seeing when they are next on tour. Their set included ‘Black Dog Barking’ and ‘Runnin Wild.’

Playing on the Saturn Stage were the Dropkick Murphys, there is always something special about seeing Irish punk bands live, the mixture of traditional instruments/music and yes sounding Irish. They immediately get the crowd going with a great rendition of ‘The Boys are Back’ (including Bagpipes). The banter between tracks is kept to a minimum but the music keeps flowing, it’s difficult to imagine a better band to be on stage in the late afternoon.

Photo: Chris Poots

You always know what you are going to get when Animal and his boys take to the stage and today is no different, as the Anti-Nowhere League bang out their punk anthems to the hordes that had filled the Jägermeister stage to pretty near capacity it was always going to be hot, sweaty and very loud. The biggest sing-a-longs are reserved for 'So What' and their first single 'The Streets of London'.

The idea of playing an album in full always seems to be a strange thing to do at a festival, but Therapy? pull off the concept perfectly. Front man Andy Cairns introduces 1995’s ‘Infernal Love’ (we all knew before) but this gave us all the opportunity to shout, holler & scream in sheer delight. Every word, every chord and every drum beat was played out perfectly by band and crowd united in their album. Stunning versions of ‘Jude the Obscene’, ‘Me Vs You’ and ‘30 seconds’ just made this performance the perfect end to our Bohemia year.

After a tricky away game at Glastonbury the previous week Metallica are back among their faithful, no foxes, bears or nervous starts here, ripping into ‘Battery’ closely followed by ‘Master of Puppets’. The performance is part of the Metallica by Request European Tour and allowed members of the ‘Metallica Family’ to introduce some tracks. The stage provided a magnificent background during ‘One’, it was one of those rare occasions when the video truly brought home the futility of war.

A great sing song ensued during ‘Enter Sandman’ , the encore included ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ , the fans choice of the day ‘And Justice For All’ finishing off with ‘Seek & Destroy’.

Photo: Chris Poots

As a veteran of more Downloads than I care to remember and all the Sonisphere’s, this was the best large metal festival that I have been to by a country mile, but it wasn’t sold out!

Sonisphere delivered at all levels, there was something to watch all day, you can move from stage to stage in a few minutes, the atmosphere was great and the food and booze was reasonably cheap (by large event standards), my only gripe was that Trooper wasn’t available at the main bars.

The good news is that Sonisphere looks like it will be back for 2014, see comments from Stuart Galbraith, Sonisphere Festival Director

"We’re already working hard on lining up headliners for 2015 and will make further announcements in due course. We want to thank everyone who made Sonisphere 2014 such a special moment and hope that they enjoyed it as much as we did.” 

Article by Mick Game