A common thought I find myself having is “what is wrong with people?” I have this thought because I see people (or hear about people) doing things which really makes me sigh. Two things occurred today which really fit into this category. For sake of making it easier to read, I am splitting it into two parts. The first part is about homophobia in football.
The first of these things occurred when I was sitting in a Wetherspoons about to have breakfast this morning. An investigative story on Sky News came on the TV which covered homophobia in football. It is something which sadly still exists and is likely going to continue existing for some time to come. The story basically focused on the abuse that football fans would likely give to openly gay footballers. I would like to think that, as a football fan, we are not all tarred with the same brush but I fear this is the case. I would like to state that I would never dream of seriously holding a footballer’s sexuality against them because at the end of the day – it honestly does not matter what sexuality a person is. Seeing this story made me feel sad that we live in a world where a person feels that they couldn’t have a successful career in their chosen field because of something they cannot control or choose. Max Clifford was focused in this story because he said that he has had 4 footballers coming to him asking for advice – all believing that what I just said was true: if they came out, their career would be finished. The overall theme of this part of this post is that I am really sad this is the case.
Two further things came from this story. Firstly, there is a campaign video out from the FA (I think it is direct from the FA but the channel was on mute) relating to this subject. The video shows a male swaggering through a work place office, insulting gay people as he passes them. He then gets in the lift and shouts something (the reporter spoke over this bit and therefore I am unsure what was said). Text comes up on the screen saying “This behaviour is unacceptable here”. The video then changes to the same swaggering man in a football stand yelling homophobic abuse at an unseen player on the football pitch. The text then reads “So why should it be acceptable here?” This is such a good campaign video because put bluntly, it is not acceptable. I think it is the best way the FA can get this message across that homophobia at football isn’t acceptable. The second aspect of the story I wanted to draw attention to was a quote from the President of the Croatian FA from earlier this week. He said: “While I'm a president of the Croatian Football Federation, there will be no homosexuals playing in the national team." This is such an appalling attitude to have towards something which honestly is not a problem. When it comes to football, my main concern is that players play well, and that the team I support plays well. I really could not care less whether the players are straight, gay, bi or anything else for that matter. It doesn’t matter to me – I don’t see why it should matter to anyone else. I don’t wish to come across here as preaching from a mount upon high. I am someone who has and still does use shock value in jokes I tell in social situations where occasionally I have used the word “faggot”. This word is a derogatory word for a homosexual – however in the context I am using it, it is not the meaning I attribute to it. I see “faggot” as an offensive word the same as “cunt”. These words are seen as offensive and I use them as such – I don’t use the word “faggot” to offend gay people – if it does I apologise but that is not the intent. If my use of that word offends homosexuals or anyone else for that matter then the context should be analysed. When this happens, I am confident that the original meaning of these words will not be relevant to the context in which they are used. Does this excuse the use of them? In a social circle I feel it shouldn’t. I am not saying you have no right to be offended by them – but please look at the context in which they are used before demonising me. There is I believe a very small amount of times I’ve ever used that word in the presence of homosexuals anyway – and most of those occasions have been where I have not known that a person involved in the conversation was gay – and were all I believe followed by an apology. I would also just like to state that no-one has had a go at me recently for using these words; I am just clearing up my view in case someone attacks my position on this matter by saying that I do use offensive and derogatory words towards gay people. I use the words, but they are not used in a context of which a homosexual should be offended I hope. Again, I hope that I have not come across as preaching from a mount upon high, I just wanted to share my view on this matter. Homophobia in football should not be a problem in the 21st century and it is very sad to learn that it is.
Soundtrack of the Blog - Ray Davies - See My Friends
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Monday, 25 October 2010
Pompey Pains, Hangovers and Capital Trips
Oh Portsmouth,
My only Portsmouth,
You make me happy when skies are grey
You never know just how much I love you
Please don’t take my Portsmouth away...
This was a concept which as a Pompey fan was in a very small place in our minds. If I’m honest with myself, the thought that Pompey could go out of business was a small thought in the back of my mind but never really given any serious considerations. There was even talk that a deal was in place and just needed signing off to take Pompey out of administration and into the ownership of Chanrai. And then on the eve of Friday, 22nd October, a press release was released (that seems a strange thing to say) saying that Portsmouth FC was to be liquidated. Suddenly this little thought given no serious thought became the main thing I was thinking of. Seriously consideration now had to be given to a life without Portsmouth FC (or rather, a life of speaking about PFC in the past tense). It’s hard to describe to non-football fans what it would be like to lose your club – hell it’s even hard to explain it to football fans of clubs that are not and will never be in trouble. The best way to put it would be like losing a loved one (either a family member or a partner). You have a relationship with a club and when that relationship comes to an ugly end, it’s going to hurt. This is where I would go into my thought process of my Friday evening when I found out about the liquidation plans – however these next two photos will explain why that just isn’t possible...
Picture One: http://twitpic.com/1xbegz
Picture Two: http://twitpic.com/2zw1sb
That is not a 100% accurate representation of my Friday evening on the grounds the bottle wasn’t brand new. But it had about 500ml in there. That was quite something and forgetting the next day involved many a train journey and screaming teenagers, the whiskey flowed. Pompey FC was going out of business and I was determined to toast its downfall along with the downfall of my sobriety.
Morning came, and the sun rose. This was something I didn’t think would be possible in a world without Pompey FC (despite the fact that the club still existed but essentially were on death row). I heard news that the administrator of PFC was saying there was nothing to be worried about. I dismissed this as the word “liquidation” is a word to be concerned with. Anyway, this morning was now filled with sadness, unease and of course, a hangover. I had a train journey to make with the promise of fried foods at the end of it, courtesy of Wetherspoons (well, they were gonna cook it, I still paid for it). Me and Dave (who was not hungover) heard news of promise on the journey to London but again, could not be sure. How can anyone be sure until the paperwork declaring that the club is not going out of business is signed, sealed delivered and yours (hang on, that last bit is from a Stevie Wonder song). Signed, sealed and delivered at least! This news came through thick and fast a few minutes before kickoff. The deal was done – so the weight was off the shoulders, and the hangover was for nothing (which I must confess, did wind me up somewhat). What can be drawn from this? Scaremongering and playing with people’s emotions works; what a fucking horrible message to draw from this situation. But that is the message it would seem. Still, I can proudly sing that I am Portsmouth Till I Die! I know I discussed the virtues of short blogs, and they are easier on the fingers. But this is gonna be a long one. As I’ve now discussed up until the moment we arrived in London, but why were we in London this Saturday? Speaking of which, how did the Tuesday London adventure go? Read on...
Ok, so we arrived in London and the journey there was fairly painless (well, as painless as a train journey with a hangover can be). We had decided to come up slightly earlier than we needed to and visit random tube stops with no real purpose. There is still a mission both me and Dave have and that is to find a Wetherspoons which we visited on a previous London weekender – but that mission failed again on this trip (all the information I have on it is that the ‘spoons in question is literally next door to a major station’s exit, or one of its exits, and it is huge!) Anyway, we did pop by Leicester Square which led to an impromptu walk down Whitehall to the Palace of Westminster and around the general area before strolling back to LS. KFC was the food of choice before heading to the tube to head to Hammersmith. Who would have thought the Leicester Square tube at around 6pm on a Saturday would be busy when it is raining? Anyway, got to Hammersmith after Dave was almost killed by a couple who were essentially using him as a standing mattress (which I thought was hilarious) and then decided to cave. It was near 7pm and my hangover was still going strong as ever. I relented and dropped by a Boots and bought some aspirin. On reflection, they did very little to help me but you know, when you pay 40p for aspirin – you get what you pay for. I paid 40p for aspirin and refused to pay 50p to use a toilet; got to love London at times. After a fair bit of time outside Hammersmith Apollo looking at the queue and thinking: “fuck that” we decided that a trip to a nearby pub made sense. We found a nearby Wetherspoons and sat down for a drink (non-alcoholic for me, the hangover might have disagreed with me drinking alcohol). Anyway, killing time in the Wetherspoons was cool (it was either that or seeing Twin Atlantic). Having successfully avoided TA, we headed back to the venue. There were about 6 people outside smoking which I observed were all the adults who were at the gig taking a break (I’m quite hilarious at times). The reason for the journey was here.
I truly did not know what to expect from a live My Chemical Romance show. I’ve been very outspoken about them in the past and a lot of that was due to having not listened to that much of the music and joining the hate emo brigade. When I matured somewhat, it occurred to me that MCR are actually a really good band. Anyway, someone played with the lights before MCR came on and the crowd screamed. My hungover head disagreed with the high pitched nature of the scream – especially knowing that this was just a lights test. I now dreaded the band coming on stage. Sure enough when they did the screams were deafening which hurt. The actual show was really bloody good. All the songs I knew really well from MCR were played which was nice (right now I can’t single out one highlight because honestly there were so many). There were some others I recognised as well and the new stuff sounded really good (with an honourable mention going to Planetary (Go!)). In an old school moment – when the band played Welcome to the Black Parade, I was stood saluting (this will make no sense whatsoever if you didn’t come to route/chaos in 06/07 and spent time with the friends that I did). The gig was just awesome and a solid 10/10 for their performance. One thing which I do honestly believe is that I’ve never seen a band do what MCR do to a crowd. I’ve seen bands like Metallica/Iron Maiden come really close with people clapping, cheering and signing along (thinking about it, Iron Maiden – Fear of the Dark is probably the closest I’ve seen to whole crowd participation). But MCR did something to that crowd which I’ve never witnessed a band do before. From front row to back, there were people singing, dancing, clapping and (unfortunately for me) screaming. Would this be the same in the o2 arena? Hard to know truthfully – but the atmosphere was electric just like the performance. One of the best live bands I’ve seen (I’ve been to fewer gigs in 2010 but pretty much all of them have had bands that are great live). The journey home was fairly painless aside from how long the fecking train took to get from London to Portsmouth. I’ve been on trains from London to Manchester that were quicker! Some of the stops are stupid. However what was entertaining was if one of these pointless little stations would come up, me and Dave would make jokes about it and someone sitting right near us would get off there. Always awkward, but pretty damn funny at the same time. My Chemical Romance is a great live band and the trip was well worth it. Would I go to see them again? Definitely.
So that is the second London trip of last week discussed. Seems strange to work backwards but now I’m going to review the first one. This trip was the first midweek London trip I’ve done without taking holiday from work since early 2009 when I did it twice in 2 weeks. Slight bit of context for this trip – 1) We knew just over a week before doing it that we were going; and 2) I worked 7.15am-5.15pm the day before travelling up to London. Surely there had to be a good reason for this? The reason was to see Stone Sour – a band I’d not seen since 2007 and didn’t think I’d get the chance to see this year (I love SS but not enough to pay £30+ to see them + A7x who I don’t like). They then announced they were doing a tiny show in London in a room that holds 490 people for MTV and that tickets cost £14 (with fees). This gig was worth the pain of working a 10 hour day, then travelling 90mins and tubing across London and back with the end result being not getting home until gone 1am. Anyway, this gig fell on a Tuesday which isn’t exactly a fun day at work to begin with but with the good grace of the other decontamination tech, I was able to escape slightly early so I could get sorted and make the train station for the desired train, which I did. Journey up to London was fairly smooth (thinking about it I’ve said that twice in this blog – I don’t recall any journeys where the outbound leg has been a bastard). Anyway, the travelling to Camden went by fairly painlessly as well (the tube was surprisingly quiet but I guess most of the work traffic will have dispersed by 7.30pm). We had a slight issue in that we got to Camden town station and had no bloody clue which way to go then. After a quick check with Google Maps, we were sorted and on the way. The venue, Dingwalls, is a decent distance from the tube station which is good to know for any future gigs that I happen to go to there. Got to the venue and there was a bastard of a queue (always the way with ticketless gigs). The actual venue in itself is very strange in that it’s all standing but it is on different levels. We got as close as we could and waited for SS. All I can say is holy fucking shit! The gig was superb. Again, another example of a very tight live band with the ability to take over the entire venue (granted not as impressive as the earlier example due to the size) but the atmosphere was much the same as the MCR gig I discussed earlier. This gig had more of a party atmosphere about it and is up there as one of my top gigs of all time. The setlist was near perfect for me (almost everything I like from Audio Secrecy, and the best of their first two albums). There is no song I’d lose from the setlist, but I could easily add 3 or 4 more. The gig was just everything I hoped for and more! The journey back from this one was a bit of a bugger as there was a replacement bus service from Havant which was due to make 3 stops which ended up making about 9. One of those did end up benefiting me somewhat but still, annoying. As I said in the previous posting Wednesday morning was not a work morning for me so everything ended nicely. Two awesome London trips and another two awesome gigs this year. These gigs rank in this year’s chart at 2 (for Stone Sour) and 3 (for MCR) which is quite something. Both fantastic gigs but Rammstein @ the MEN arena is still the best one so far. Next up, Thursday night and the 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster!
My only Portsmouth,
You make me happy when skies are grey
You never know just how much I love you
Please don’t take my Portsmouth away...
This was a concept which as a Pompey fan was in a very small place in our minds. If I’m honest with myself, the thought that Pompey could go out of business was a small thought in the back of my mind but never really given any serious considerations. There was even talk that a deal was in place and just needed signing off to take Pompey out of administration and into the ownership of Chanrai. And then on the eve of Friday, 22nd October, a press release was released (that seems a strange thing to say) saying that Portsmouth FC was to be liquidated. Suddenly this little thought given no serious thought became the main thing I was thinking of. Seriously consideration now had to be given to a life without Portsmouth FC (or rather, a life of speaking about PFC in the past tense). It’s hard to describe to non-football fans what it would be like to lose your club – hell it’s even hard to explain it to football fans of clubs that are not and will never be in trouble. The best way to put it would be like losing a loved one (either a family member or a partner). You have a relationship with a club and when that relationship comes to an ugly end, it’s going to hurt. This is where I would go into my thought process of my Friday evening when I found out about the liquidation plans – however these next two photos will explain why that just isn’t possible...
Picture One: http://twitpic.com/1xbegz
Picture Two: http://twitpic.com/2zw1sb
That is not a 100% accurate representation of my Friday evening on the grounds the bottle wasn’t brand new. But it had about 500ml in there. That was quite something and forgetting the next day involved many a train journey and screaming teenagers, the whiskey flowed. Pompey FC was going out of business and I was determined to toast its downfall along with the downfall of my sobriety.
Morning came, and the sun rose. This was something I didn’t think would be possible in a world without Pompey FC (despite the fact that the club still existed but essentially were on death row). I heard news that the administrator of PFC was saying there was nothing to be worried about. I dismissed this as the word “liquidation” is a word to be concerned with. Anyway, this morning was now filled with sadness, unease and of course, a hangover. I had a train journey to make with the promise of fried foods at the end of it, courtesy of Wetherspoons (well, they were gonna cook it, I still paid for it). Me and Dave (who was not hungover) heard news of promise on the journey to London but again, could not be sure. How can anyone be sure until the paperwork declaring that the club is not going out of business is signed, sealed delivered and yours (hang on, that last bit is from a Stevie Wonder song). Signed, sealed and delivered at least! This news came through thick and fast a few minutes before kickoff. The deal was done – so the weight was off the shoulders, and the hangover was for nothing (which I must confess, did wind me up somewhat). What can be drawn from this? Scaremongering and playing with people’s emotions works; what a fucking horrible message to draw from this situation. But that is the message it would seem. Still, I can proudly sing that I am Portsmouth Till I Die! I know I discussed the virtues of short blogs, and they are easier on the fingers. But this is gonna be a long one. As I’ve now discussed up until the moment we arrived in London, but why were we in London this Saturday? Speaking of which, how did the Tuesday London adventure go? Read on...
Ok, so we arrived in London and the journey there was fairly painless (well, as painless as a train journey with a hangover can be). We had decided to come up slightly earlier than we needed to and visit random tube stops with no real purpose. There is still a mission both me and Dave have and that is to find a Wetherspoons which we visited on a previous London weekender – but that mission failed again on this trip (all the information I have on it is that the ‘spoons in question is literally next door to a major station’s exit, or one of its exits, and it is huge!) Anyway, we did pop by Leicester Square which led to an impromptu walk down Whitehall to the Palace of Westminster and around the general area before strolling back to LS. KFC was the food of choice before heading to the tube to head to Hammersmith. Who would have thought the Leicester Square tube at around 6pm on a Saturday would be busy when it is raining? Anyway, got to Hammersmith after Dave was almost killed by a couple who were essentially using him as a standing mattress (which I thought was hilarious) and then decided to cave. It was near 7pm and my hangover was still going strong as ever. I relented and dropped by a Boots and bought some aspirin. On reflection, they did very little to help me but you know, when you pay 40p for aspirin – you get what you pay for. I paid 40p for aspirin and refused to pay 50p to use a toilet; got to love London at times. After a fair bit of time outside Hammersmith Apollo looking at the queue and thinking: “fuck that” we decided that a trip to a nearby pub made sense. We found a nearby Wetherspoons and sat down for a drink (non-alcoholic for me, the hangover might have disagreed with me drinking alcohol). Anyway, killing time in the Wetherspoons was cool (it was either that or seeing Twin Atlantic). Having successfully avoided TA, we headed back to the venue. There were about 6 people outside smoking which I observed were all the adults who were at the gig taking a break (I’m quite hilarious at times). The reason for the journey was here.
I truly did not know what to expect from a live My Chemical Romance show. I’ve been very outspoken about them in the past and a lot of that was due to having not listened to that much of the music and joining the hate emo brigade. When I matured somewhat, it occurred to me that MCR are actually a really good band. Anyway, someone played with the lights before MCR came on and the crowd screamed. My hungover head disagreed with the high pitched nature of the scream – especially knowing that this was just a lights test. I now dreaded the band coming on stage. Sure enough when they did the screams were deafening which hurt. The actual show was really bloody good. All the songs I knew really well from MCR were played which was nice (right now I can’t single out one highlight because honestly there were so many). There were some others I recognised as well and the new stuff sounded really good (with an honourable mention going to Planetary (Go!)). In an old school moment – when the band played Welcome to the Black Parade, I was stood saluting (this will make no sense whatsoever if you didn’t come to route/chaos in 06/07 and spent time with the friends that I did). The gig was just awesome and a solid 10/10 for their performance. One thing which I do honestly believe is that I’ve never seen a band do what MCR do to a crowd. I’ve seen bands like Metallica/Iron Maiden come really close with people clapping, cheering and signing along (thinking about it, Iron Maiden – Fear of the Dark is probably the closest I’ve seen to whole crowd participation). But MCR did something to that crowd which I’ve never witnessed a band do before. From front row to back, there were people singing, dancing, clapping and (unfortunately for me) screaming. Would this be the same in the o2 arena? Hard to know truthfully – but the atmosphere was electric just like the performance. One of the best live bands I’ve seen (I’ve been to fewer gigs in 2010 but pretty much all of them have had bands that are great live). The journey home was fairly painless aside from how long the fecking train took to get from London to Portsmouth. I’ve been on trains from London to Manchester that were quicker! Some of the stops are stupid. However what was entertaining was if one of these pointless little stations would come up, me and Dave would make jokes about it and someone sitting right near us would get off there. Always awkward, but pretty damn funny at the same time. My Chemical Romance is a great live band and the trip was well worth it. Would I go to see them again? Definitely.
So that is the second London trip of last week discussed. Seems strange to work backwards but now I’m going to review the first one. This trip was the first midweek London trip I’ve done without taking holiday from work since early 2009 when I did it twice in 2 weeks. Slight bit of context for this trip – 1) We knew just over a week before doing it that we were going; and 2) I worked 7.15am-5.15pm the day before travelling up to London. Surely there had to be a good reason for this? The reason was to see Stone Sour – a band I’d not seen since 2007 and didn’t think I’d get the chance to see this year (I love SS but not enough to pay £30+ to see them + A7x who I don’t like). They then announced they were doing a tiny show in London in a room that holds 490 people for MTV and that tickets cost £14 (with fees). This gig was worth the pain of working a 10 hour day, then travelling 90mins and tubing across London and back with the end result being not getting home until gone 1am. Anyway, this gig fell on a Tuesday which isn’t exactly a fun day at work to begin with but with the good grace of the other decontamination tech, I was able to escape slightly early so I could get sorted and make the train station for the desired train, which I did. Journey up to London was fairly smooth (thinking about it I’ve said that twice in this blog – I don’t recall any journeys where the outbound leg has been a bastard). Anyway, the travelling to Camden went by fairly painlessly as well (the tube was surprisingly quiet but I guess most of the work traffic will have dispersed by 7.30pm). We had a slight issue in that we got to Camden town station and had no bloody clue which way to go then. After a quick check with Google Maps, we were sorted and on the way. The venue, Dingwalls, is a decent distance from the tube station which is good to know for any future gigs that I happen to go to there. Got to the venue and there was a bastard of a queue (always the way with ticketless gigs). The actual venue in itself is very strange in that it’s all standing but it is on different levels. We got as close as we could and waited for SS. All I can say is holy fucking shit! The gig was superb. Again, another example of a very tight live band with the ability to take over the entire venue (granted not as impressive as the earlier example due to the size) but the atmosphere was much the same as the MCR gig I discussed earlier. This gig had more of a party atmosphere about it and is up there as one of my top gigs of all time. The setlist was near perfect for me (almost everything I like from Audio Secrecy, and the best of their first two albums). There is no song I’d lose from the setlist, but I could easily add 3 or 4 more. The gig was just everything I hoped for and more! The journey back from this one was a bit of a bugger as there was a replacement bus service from Havant which was due to make 3 stops which ended up making about 9. One of those did end up benefiting me somewhat but still, annoying. As I said in the previous posting Wednesday morning was not a work morning for me so everything ended nicely. Two awesome London trips and another two awesome gigs this year. These gigs rank in this year’s chart at 2 (for Stone Sour) and 3 (for MCR) which is quite something. Both fantastic gigs but Rammstein @ the MEN arena is still the best one so far. Next up, Thursday night and the 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster!
Monday, 11 October 2010
Reviews and Forecasts
I mentioned before that I’d bought a ticket to see Jason Manford very early on this year. I’m not 100% how early on in the year it was but I’d happily guess February. Which means since then, I’ve seen Skindred, Trivium, Jeff Dunham, RATM, Bill Bailey (x2), Airbourne and been to Sonisphere! That is a lot to get excited about before Jason Manford. But I was still; whenever it came up in conversation (whether it was talking about his DVD or the show itself) me and the others who were going would talk about how awesome it should be. Interestingly he had no support. Now I’ve been to comedy shows before in big rooms such as Guildhall and there was no support, but it still seems strange. Anyway, the night before Manford came to Portsmouth – the dinosaur which inhabited a place on Southsea common burned (or was burned) down. This led to some early jokes about that. The show was very good. One of the main highlights for me was him taking a stab at Southampton and admitting he will do the same to Portsmouth when he plays in Southampton (got to admire his honesty). I don’t honesty recall an awful lot of his material right now but it was a good show. I’d definitely recommend going to see him live if you get the chance. He did about 2.5hrs in Portsmouth. It is quite funny because he has a joke on the DVD about someone from the city at a show letting the city down (I made sure to wear shoes just to ensure it wasn’t me). Some of the conversations with the crowd were really quite funny but some were plain weird. I don’t recall the context but someone shouted out about Coco Pops. This might be creative license, but I think it confused Jason slightly before he retorted “COCO POPS, THEY TURN THE MILK CHOCOLATEY!” Not to be outdone, during the Q&A, the coco pops man decided to have another go at being funny and asked him if he preferred werewolves or vampires (a clear Twilight reference). The response was funny (“neither really. If I had to choice a mate I’d prefer a milkman. I’m always low on milk!”) The purpose of highlighting that was that I thought it was funny a previous joke of Jason Manford’s was about someone letting the city down, and this man acting like a complete knob-head – letting the city down. Anyway, it was a really good show and well worth the wait. We discussed going again the next night but money got in the way and also I think it was sold out. Shame – still, Soton next year is a possibility (not actually discussed this with anyone!)
Comedy is all well and good (very good actually) but I hadn’t seen any live music since Sonisphere until last week. Bill Bailey has music in his act but I consider that as a part of the stand up show rather than seeing live music. Anyway, one of the bands I thought I’d definitely see at Sonisphere was Lacuna Coil. Before Soni, they had announced a Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms date but I thought I’d give that a miss as I’d be seeing them at Soni and I’d seen them at the Wedge at the tail end of 2008. However, then stage times were announced and they clashed with Evile. This was tough because I loved both bands. I opted for Evile as I hadn’t seen them since the passing of Mike Alexander (which has just passed its one year anniversary – RIP Mike!) This worked out quite nicely for me because it meant I could justify spending the money going to see Lacuna Coil. However Chimaira were due to play the Wedge the day after LC. My original thought process was that gig takes priority as I’d not seen them do a headline show (just a support and festival slot) where with LC; I’d seen them 3 times previous. Anyway, long story long, Chimaira cancelled their tour so LC became top priority again. I’d like to take this time to thank Chimaira for cancelling their tour as LC were fantastic! I cannot believe I even second guessed myself about going. They released an album in 2009 called Shallow Life which not only did I not know about, I only heard it in July for the first time. The album is superb, probably their best yet. There are a few fantastic songs on the album which come across great live. I’m Not Afraid; Survive; I Won’t Tell You; Underdog; and Spellbound – all fantastic songs. They played a fair whack off Karmacode which is by no means a bad thing! Slaves to Gravity supported and they seemed cool as well.
I said in a previous blog that I am aiming to squeeze one more London trip out of this year. I then managed that and am going to see MCR later this month (in less than 2 weeks to be exact). I somehow managed to squeeze in another. I love Stone Sour. They have released 2 awesome albums (I’m still unsure on Audio Secrecy. It’s a good album certainly but the jury is still out on whether it’s awesome). I really hoped they would tour post Download 2010 as I was unable to get there to see them (and actually I’d probably have missed them in favour of Aerosmith had I gone). They announced an arena co-headlining tour which sounded good aside from one major elephant in the room....AVENGED SEVENFOLD AS THE OTHER HEADLINER?! As a famous dragon from the Den would say: “A’m OOT!” (How lame, I do apologise). Anyway, I have no desire to see A7x again after their “performances” at Twickenham and Wacken supporting Iron Maiden. I was never that much of a fan anyway, but the self titled album just turned me off them completely. I haven’t listened to the new album truth be told but I’m just not interested. Anyway, I had resigned myself to another Stone Sour-less year. Haven’t seen them since Download 2007 and it appeared this streak would continue. BUT! They announced a special headline set for a show at a venue called Dingwalls in Camden. In a nutshell, this band that are touring arenas, are playing in a little room in London just a touch bigger than the Wedgewood Rooms (487 capacity!) Oh how win. I arranged to have a week on Wednesday morning off work as well which is nice. So Stone Sour and MCR make up the London trips this month with a little 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster thrown in at the end of the month for good measure. Excellent!
Final unrelated thought – Am I alone in hating X-Factor? I know this is something I’ve probably spoken about before. And this might seem somewhat surprising as I did mention a previous contestant from the show on the last blog (I was criticised for writing about that, but I see that as more of an immigration and hypocrisy issue than one which relates directly to X-Factor). I’m not going to waste my time on this too much but I really don’t see the draw of this show but the social networks become seriously bogged down with people expressing surprise, or their joy/dismay at picks. At the end of the day, it really doesn’t fucking matter. They’ll pick who will make them the most money, regardless of singing ability. Is the contest fixed? There’s a good chance it is – who cares though? If it is, stop giving them your money, simple!
I’ll do my best not to give them a mention again but my word bookface and twitter were overtaken with this bollocks over the weekend!
Comedy is all well and good (very good actually) but I hadn’t seen any live music since Sonisphere until last week. Bill Bailey has music in his act but I consider that as a part of the stand up show rather than seeing live music. Anyway, one of the bands I thought I’d definitely see at Sonisphere was Lacuna Coil. Before Soni, they had announced a Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms date but I thought I’d give that a miss as I’d be seeing them at Soni and I’d seen them at the Wedge at the tail end of 2008. However, then stage times were announced and they clashed with Evile. This was tough because I loved both bands. I opted for Evile as I hadn’t seen them since the passing of Mike Alexander (which has just passed its one year anniversary – RIP Mike!) This worked out quite nicely for me because it meant I could justify spending the money going to see Lacuna Coil. However Chimaira were due to play the Wedge the day after LC. My original thought process was that gig takes priority as I’d not seen them do a headline show (just a support and festival slot) where with LC; I’d seen them 3 times previous. Anyway, long story long, Chimaira cancelled their tour so LC became top priority again. I’d like to take this time to thank Chimaira for cancelling their tour as LC were fantastic! I cannot believe I even second guessed myself about going. They released an album in 2009 called Shallow Life which not only did I not know about, I only heard it in July for the first time. The album is superb, probably their best yet. There are a few fantastic songs on the album which come across great live. I’m Not Afraid; Survive; I Won’t Tell You; Underdog; and Spellbound – all fantastic songs. They played a fair whack off Karmacode which is by no means a bad thing! Slaves to Gravity supported and they seemed cool as well.
I said in a previous blog that I am aiming to squeeze one more London trip out of this year. I then managed that and am going to see MCR later this month (in less than 2 weeks to be exact). I somehow managed to squeeze in another. I love Stone Sour. They have released 2 awesome albums (I’m still unsure on Audio Secrecy. It’s a good album certainly but the jury is still out on whether it’s awesome). I really hoped they would tour post Download 2010 as I was unable to get there to see them (and actually I’d probably have missed them in favour of Aerosmith had I gone). They announced an arena co-headlining tour which sounded good aside from one major elephant in the room....AVENGED SEVENFOLD AS THE OTHER HEADLINER?! As a famous dragon from the Den would say: “A’m OOT!” (How lame, I do apologise). Anyway, I have no desire to see A7x again after their “performances” at Twickenham and Wacken supporting Iron Maiden. I was never that much of a fan anyway, but the self titled album just turned me off them completely. I haven’t listened to the new album truth be told but I’m just not interested. Anyway, I had resigned myself to another Stone Sour-less year. Haven’t seen them since Download 2007 and it appeared this streak would continue. BUT! They announced a special headline set for a show at a venue called Dingwalls in Camden. In a nutshell, this band that are touring arenas, are playing in a little room in London just a touch bigger than the Wedgewood Rooms (487 capacity!) Oh how win. I arranged to have a week on Wednesday morning off work as well which is nice. So Stone Sour and MCR make up the London trips this month with a little 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster thrown in at the end of the month for good measure. Excellent!
Final unrelated thought – Am I alone in hating X-Factor? I know this is something I’ve probably spoken about before. And this might seem somewhat surprising as I did mention a previous contestant from the show on the last blog (I was criticised for writing about that, but I see that as more of an immigration and hypocrisy issue than one which relates directly to X-Factor). I’m not going to waste my time on this too much but I really don’t see the draw of this show but the social networks become seriously bogged down with people expressing surprise, or their joy/dismay at picks. At the end of the day, it really doesn’t fucking matter. They’ll pick who will make them the most money, regardless of singing ability. Is the contest fixed? There’s a good chance it is – who cares though? If it is, stop giving them your money, simple!
I’ll do my best not to give them a mention again but my word bookface and twitter were overtaken with this bollocks over the weekend!
Saturday, 11 September 2010
9 Years Later
Before starting this post, I would like to post my condolences to the families and friends of those who lost their lives 9 years ago today in New York and Washington. The September 11th attacks on the USA will never be forgotten by anyone. The people who lost their lives that day and in the subsequent days afterwards may be gone, but they will never be forgotten. A friend of mine posted on Facebook that even now, 9 years on, looking at the footage is still shocking. I feel this feeling of shock may take a long time to disappear, if it ever does.
I tweeted about watching 102 Minutes That Changed America. I watched it twice. For those who haven’t seen it and have no idea what it is, it is handcam footage of 9/11. The documentary starts just after the first tower has been hit, and tracks the 102 minutes that follow in real time. It is one of those shows that you know is horrible (you see footage of people jumping from the towers, the 2nd tower being hit and both of them falling) but you cannot stop watching. When watching it for the 2nd time I expressed relief for never having gone through anything even half as bad as that. I simply cannot imagine what these people were going through – watching 102 Minutes helps you to understand as best as you can without being there I guess.
Of course, 9/11 is a significant event in history. Just like some significant events (and some insignificant events) – people consider that 9/11 has a conspiracy theory attached to it. Already this morning I’ve seen someone post that the US government should be ashamed of itself. Now, if that was in the context of suggesting it has been 9 years since these attacks at the world is still as volatile as ever, I would agree the US government has failed. However this is of course suggesting that the US government is to blame for the attacks (Al-Qaeda would probably say they are at fault for 9/11 with their middle east policy – that is not the context I am inferring, more that the government allowed people to attack the towers and kill thousands). I’m not out to call all people who believe conspiracy theories stupid – but to believe them without any real basis is questionable. On YouTube there are quite a few videos “proving inconclusively” that the attacks were caused by the US government – I’d imagine that is why its tucked away on YouTube and not being debated in the corridors of power (oh right, its being suppressed – I’m with you.....) I’m not saying it is not possible that there was more to these attacks than some pissed off extreme Muslims (if indeed, you can even call members of Al-Qaeda Muslims), I’m just saying it’s unlikely – and to suggest you have complete utter solid conclusive proof that it was the US govt or Israel or aliens (could have been right?) on YouTube completely defeats your argument anyway. If you believe in conspiracy theories, today is not the day for them. Today is a day to remember the people who lost their lives in this tragedy.
Some other thoughts
• During the World Cup, I gambled a little bit and aside from one good win, it was a story of lost money. It was then I thought “maybe this isn’t for me” as the win/lose ratio was very poor. However the new football season has started and we’re well into the football league and I started gambling here and there again. For me, betting on football is better than playing the lottery. Granted, if you win the lottery you tend to win fairly big (jackpot wise) and as a rule this isn’t the case when you are betting 50ps or £1s on football – it is more likely that a win will occur. I appear this season however to be a black cloud on betting. I bet in accumulators usually. It is better returns if you can get games come in though so it is good. The story of the beginning of the season was just getting nowhere near the good results. I tend to do 6-7 games and the standard return would be 3 or 4 coming good but not enough for the win. The latest strings of bets have ended missing 1 or 2 games. I’ve decided that I need to bet on different games if doing more than one accumulator and to keep it to a max of 5. Granted, I have a 9 game one on this weekend but I also have a 4 game and a 5 game one on. This sounds quite bad on the face of things but I am quite sensible about it. I still feel shivers when I go into a Ladbrokes branch (my bookie of choice) and see people drop 100s of pounds on football and horses. It is the exact feeling I get when I see people lose big at the casino – a mixture of feeling bad for them and feeling good that it wasn’t me that lost big. Will the black cloud of betting strike again? I tweeted this earlier, but I apologise in advance if I have screwed teams over by backing them.
• I was doing some shopping in Sainsbury the other day and noticed they have Christmas stuff out. Words cannot describe how much I hate the fact shops start promoting Christmas in September. Still better than Selfridges and opening their xmas goods shop in August last year (didn’t read if they were doing that again, so I presume they did).
• It is exactly one week until I make the journey up to London again to see Bill Bailey in Leicester Square Theatre. I seriously cannot wait for this; it is going to be a good one! I’m pretty sure I will have seen most of the jokes when I saw him earlier this year, but I’m not complaining, the man is a genius.
I tweeted about watching 102 Minutes That Changed America. I watched it twice. For those who haven’t seen it and have no idea what it is, it is handcam footage of 9/11. The documentary starts just after the first tower has been hit, and tracks the 102 minutes that follow in real time. It is one of those shows that you know is horrible (you see footage of people jumping from the towers, the 2nd tower being hit and both of them falling) but you cannot stop watching. When watching it for the 2nd time I expressed relief for never having gone through anything even half as bad as that. I simply cannot imagine what these people were going through – watching 102 Minutes helps you to understand as best as you can without being there I guess.
Of course, 9/11 is a significant event in history. Just like some significant events (and some insignificant events) – people consider that 9/11 has a conspiracy theory attached to it. Already this morning I’ve seen someone post that the US government should be ashamed of itself. Now, if that was in the context of suggesting it has been 9 years since these attacks at the world is still as volatile as ever, I would agree the US government has failed. However this is of course suggesting that the US government is to blame for the attacks (Al-Qaeda would probably say they are at fault for 9/11 with their middle east policy – that is not the context I am inferring, more that the government allowed people to attack the towers and kill thousands). I’m not out to call all people who believe conspiracy theories stupid – but to believe them without any real basis is questionable. On YouTube there are quite a few videos “proving inconclusively” that the attacks were caused by the US government – I’d imagine that is why its tucked away on YouTube and not being debated in the corridors of power (oh right, its being suppressed – I’m with you.....) I’m not saying it is not possible that there was more to these attacks than some pissed off extreme Muslims (if indeed, you can even call members of Al-Qaeda Muslims), I’m just saying it’s unlikely – and to suggest you have complete utter solid conclusive proof that it was the US govt or Israel or aliens (could have been right?) on YouTube completely defeats your argument anyway. If you believe in conspiracy theories, today is not the day for them. Today is a day to remember the people who lost their lives in this tragedy.
Some other thoughts
• During the World Cup, I gambled a little bit and aside from one good win, it was a story of lost money. It was then I thought “maybe this isn’t for me” as the win/lose ratio was very poor. However the new football season has started and we’re well into the football league and I started gambling here and there again. For me, betting on football is better than playing the lottery. Granted, if you win the lottery you tend to win fairly big (jackpot wise) and as a rule this isn’t the case when you are betting 50ps or £1s on football – it is more likely that a win will occur. I appear this season however to be a black cloud on betting. I bet in accumulators usually. It is better returns if you can get games come in though so it is good. The story of the beginning of the season was just getting nowhere near the good results. I tend to do 6-7 games and the standard return would be 3 or 4 coming good but not enough for the win. The latest strings of bets have ended missing 1 or 2 games. I’ve decided that I need to bet on different games if doing more than one accumulator and to keep it to a max of 5. Granted, I have a 9 game one on this weekend but I also have a 4 game and a 5 game one on. This sounds quite bad on the face of things but I am quite sensible about it. I still feel shivers when I go into a Ladbrokes branch (my bookie of choice) and see people drop 100s of pounds on football and horses. It is the exact feeling I get when I see people lose big at the casino – a mixture of feeling bad for them and feeling good that it wasn’t me that lost big. Will the black cloud of betting strike again? I tweeted this earlier, but I apologise in advance if I have screwed teams over by backing them.
• I was doing some shopping in Sainsbury the other day and noticed they have Christmas stuff out. Words cannot describe how much I hate the fact shops start promoting Christmas in September. Still better than Selfridges and opening their xmas goods shop in August last year (didn’t read if they were doing that again, so I presume they did).
• It is exactly one week until I make the journey up to London again to see Bill Bailey in Leicester Square Theatre. I seriously cannot wait for this; it is going to be a good one! I’m pretty sure I will have seen most of the jokes when I saw him earlier this year, but I’m not complaining, the man is a genius.
Monday, 30 August 2010
Pompey Got 99 Problems...
You know when you have one of those days where the only sensible remedy is to write about it on the internet? Oh, that’s not a thing in 2010? Never mind. I’ll write some stuff anyway. At least it is not a poem or a twilight related sack of shit
Pompey have played at home 3 times so far this season and in an uncharacteristic move, I’ve been to all 3! I never went to Fratton Park often when Pompey were in the Premier League. I do regret that but at the same time, I don’t. Some people will argue until they are blue in the face that real fans go to as many games as possible – I disagree. Some people, me included, couldn’t and still can’t afford £38 a game or £600-700 for a season ticket. I went to cup games when I could because the club used to reduce the ticket prices just to get people through the door. Anyway, the tickets are cheaper on a game by game basis so I can afford to go to a lot more games. I can’t afford a season ticket again but I can afford to go to the odd game. Don’t know if you can count 3 in a row as “the odd game” but oh well. The performance against Reading has a lot of positives about it and the draw was a cruel result. Seeing Ciftci score was good as well as he’s young and looks full of promise. One thing which was annoying though was the team just seemed to switch off about 75mins in. That is not good! The game against Crystal Palace flipped between cool and dire. Still, was cool to see Pompey win on penalties. Was also cool to see Edgar Davids play live. The latest offering was against Cardiff which to be honest was alright (nothing special) up until they scored their first goal (I say they scored – we scored for them as we felt sorry or something). Their second goal was just hideous and the least said about it the better.
The overall comment I have to make is that if major changes are not made soon, Pompey will suffer consecutive relegations. The team is just not very good at the moment and it pains me to say that! The team can play well together but they just haven’t done that much this season. In a nutshell, what Pompey need to do is this:
• Complete the Wilson deal. He was at fault for the first Cardiff goal (despite it being an own goal). He doesn’t want to be here anymore, so sell him to Stoke and bring in Lawrence and Kitson (I don’t like the fact we would have 4 former stoke players in our first team, but needs must!)
• Sell any other player that doesn’t want to be at the club! Pure and simple
• Use Kanu properly!
• If we get Lawrence, organise the midfield so he can play properly
• Shoot Sonko.
This wasn’t actually intended to be a Pompey blog, but I’m talking Pompey with a friend on MSN and it just happened. Anyway, I mentioned at the top that my Sunday has been fucking terrible. Here’s why:
1. I had bets on today’s games which died early.
2. I had an 11 game accumulator, and 9 of them came in *shakes fist*
3. My Xbox red ringed!
All of a sudden, I’ve forgotten what else I was going to say. I’ll leave it there for now
Pompey have played at home 3 times so far this season and in an uncharacteristic move, I’ve been to all 3! I never went to Fratton Park often when Pompey were in the Premier League. I do regret that but at the same time, I don’t. Some people will argue until they are blue in the face that real fans go to as many games as possible – I disagree. Some people, me included, couldn’t and still can’t afford £38 a game or £600-700 for a season ticket. I went to cup games when I could because the club used to reduce the ticket prices just to get people through the door. Anyway, the tickets are cheaper on a game by game basis so I can afford to go to a lot more games. I can’t afford a season ticket again but I can afford to go to the odd game. Don’t know if you can count 3 in a row as “the odd game” but oh well. The performance against Reading has a lot of positives about it and the draw was a cruel result. Seeing Ciftci score was good as well as he’s young and looks full of promise. One thing which was annoying though was the team just seemed to switch off about 75mins in. That is not good! The game against Crystal Palace flipped between cool and dire. Still, was cool to see Pompey win on penalties. Was also cool to see Edgar Davids play live. The latest offering was against Cardiff which to be honest was alright (nothing special) up until they scored their first goal (I say they scored – we scored for them as we felt sorry or something). Their second goal was just hideous and the least said about it the better.
The overall comment I have to make is that if major changes are not made soon, Pompey will suffer consecutive relegations. The team is just not very good at the moment and it pains me to say that! The team can play well together but they just haven’t done that much this season. In a nutshell, what Pompey need to do is this:
• Complete the Wilson deal. He was at fault for the first Cardiff goal (despite it being an own goal). He doesn’t want to be here anymore, so sell him to Stoke and bring in Lawrence and Kitson (I don’t like the fact we would have 4 former stoke players in our first team, but needs must!)
• Sell any other player that doesn’t want to be at the club! Pure and simple
• Use Kanu properly!
• If we get Lawrence, organise the midfield so he can play properly
• Shoot Sonko.
This wasn’t actually intended to be a Pompey blog, but I’m talking Pompey with a friend on MSN and it just happened. Anyway, I mentioned at the top that my Sunday has been fucking terrible. Here’s why:
1. I had bets on today’s games which died early.
2. I had an 11 game accumulator, and 9 of them came in *shakes fist*
3. My Xbox red ringed!
All of a sudden, I’ve forgotten what else I was going to say. I’ll leave it there for now
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Foreign Festivals. A Justification
Nearly a week has gone by since being at Sonisphere and I miss that festival feeling. I know I’m not alone with this mindset but a festival to me is a great holiday. Literally the only aspect I don’t like 100% is camping (I should state that I’m not the sort of person who doesn’t like getting dirty, I just don’t like having a sore back). I don’t remember the comedian, but a fairly famous comedian has a joke about holidays being too long. Your standard festival is Fri/Sat/Sun of music, maybe a day or 2 before, and maybe a day or 2 after to recover. Basically, a week is needed for a festival (I find anyway). Sonisphere served as a great holiday for me this year and I had a great time there. But I now have my mind wandering again. Last time this occurred with relation to festivals, I ended up spending 2 separate weeks in Germany...
I’m not someone who chooses a festival based purely on its atmosphere or reputation. This is one of the reasons I’ve never been to Glastonbury. I’m sure I’d have a great time when there but there is never usually enough announced beforehand to make me think “YES! This is the festival for me” (I should point out at this stage; I have used a festivals reputation to discard a full weekend at a festival. I speak of course, of the Reading/Leeds festivals. I have friends that like it, but it is not for me). A festival is chosen by me based not on campsite atmosphere but who is playing at the festival primarily! Campsite atmosphere is a factor but there is a certain degree of making your own atmosphere and it fitting in with your surroundings. One of the reasons Sonisphere was so good for me is the campsite we had was pretty damn good (and I did have reservations, they were all pretty much quashed).
My experiences of UK festivals have generally been positive. The reason for this is that I’ve never been a victim of anything bad at one. Granted there have been a few attempts (including one I believe at Soni) but nothing has ever happened to spoil my festival experience. I have read horror stories (and indeed witnessed horror stories) of theft at festivals. That tends to be as bad as it gets at the type of festival I go to (I’ve heard of assaults and rape happen at others). But on a much smaller scale, festivals of all kind in this country can have an aura of relaxation, of free spirits. But it can also be one that is quite threatening (especially on the last night as once again, people prove themselves to be complete cunts). The thing which amazes me about this is that the people that partake in the cunt activities are the same ones that moan the loudest when the festival has to bump up ticket prices to afford the extra security they require to try and prevent incidents like the one they helped to cause!
I’ve been to two festivals in Germany. Rock AM Ring and Wacken. Both of these festivals had their pros and cons, much like the festivals here. However on honest reflection, I feel they are still both my favourite festival experiences. Granted, there was an awful lot about RaR which wasn’t all that fun. The epic walk to the arena and back each day is probably the main one. People at Download moan they had to walk a mile or so and at Sonisphere, it was a moan about it being uphill. Rock AM Ring had hills, bridges and autobahns (!) but more importantly, 4.5miles from where we camped to the arena. The lack of signposting probably another and the absolute randomness of the wristband collections. Of course with certain people, there was also a language barrier (a fair whack of people spoke fluent English though). However, as a rule, it was a much better experience (at both – I haven’t moaned about Wacken because I don’t feel I need to). Sonisphere was my best UK festival yet but it is not the best I’ve been to.
Foreign festivals better than UK:
• Price – Download costs near £200 for weekend/camping. Sonisphere cost £162 + £10 for Weekend/camping/early entry. Wacken cost me £100 for that. Rock Am Ring cost £130.
• Travel – Granted, festivals abroad do require (for the most part) a flight. However, factoring in the fact it costs less to buy a ticket, this isn’t so bad. Lufthansa is charging £90 for flights. Festival travel here can cost £20 if you know someone driving.
• Band times – Some people argue that festivals should be able to run later than they do. Indeed, in Download’s case, there is no reason as far as I can see why the festival cannot run later than 11.30pm. Abroad, bands play on open air stages until 3/4am, in areas that aren’t that far from where people live.
• Campsite atmosphere – Both German trips have involved helping neighbours setup, talking to neighbours about nothing. The only UK festival where that happened really has been DL07 – where we talked to a neighbour about being sent to the festival by his daughter who couldn’t go. He missed Motley Crue and had to watch My Chemical Romance.
• Incident free? – Granted, this could just be because I’ve had nothing happen to me, but at the two festivals I was at in Germany, nothing bad was reported. No assault, no theft. It was a much nicer and more relaxed place to be.
Will my next festival be in the UK? Honestly I’m not sure. As I said earlier, it really depends what the festivals here have to offer. This was written because as I type, the final day of Wacken is coming to an end, and despite the awesomeness of Sonisphere, it was not a patch on the festivals I went to in Germany. Would it be Germany next time? I quite fancy doing some other European festivals. Such as Hellfest, Graspop Metal Meeting, Novarock (though actually, its 2009 lineup was vastly superior to its 2010) and Metalcamp. I discovered other festivals as well this year which seem interesting. Main Square Festival in France and Bilbao BBK seem very good. Both of which I wouldn’t be opposed to going to if the lineup is right.
There’s no real point to this, I just felt like justifying my case for going abroad for a festival next year
I’m not someone who chooses a festival based purely on its atmosphere or reputation. This is one of the reasons I’ve never been to Glastonbury. I’m sure I’d have a great time when there but there is never usually enough announced beforehand to make me think “YES! This is the festival for me” (I should point out at this stage; I have used a festivals reputation to discard a full weekend at a festival. I speak of course, of the Reading/Leeds festivals. I have friends that like it, but it is not for me). A festival is chosen by me based not on campsite atmosphere but who is playing at the festival primarily! Campsite atmosphere is a factor but there is a certain degree of making your own atmosphere and it fitting in with your surroundings. One of the reasons Sonisphere was so good for me is the campsite we had was pretty damn good (and I did have reservations, they were all pretty much quashed).
My experiences of UK festivals have generally been positive. The reason for this is that I’ve never been a victim of anything bad at one. Granted there have been a few attempts (including one I believe at Soni) but nothing has ever happened to spoil my festival experience. I have read horror stories (and indeed witnessed horror stories) of theft at festivals. That tends to be as bad as it gets at the type of festival I go to (I’ve heard of assaults and rape happen at others). But on a much smaller scale, festivals of all kind in this country can have an aura of relaxation, of free spirits. But it can also be one that is quite threatening (especially on the last night as once again, people prove themselves to be complete cunts). The thing which amazes me about this is that the people that partake in the cunt activities are the same ones that moan the loudest when the festival has to bump up ticket prices to afford the extra security they require to try and prevent incidents like the one they helped to cause!
I’ve been to two festivals in Germany. Rock AM Ring and Wacken. Both of these festivals had their pros and cons, much like the festivals here. However on honest reflection, I feel they are still both my favourite festival experiences. Granted, there was an awful lot about RaR which wasn’t all that fun. The epic walk to the arena and back each day is probably the main one. People at Download moan they had to walk a mile or so and at Sonisphere, it was a moan about it being uphill. Rock AM Ring had hills, bridges and autobahns (!) but more importantly, 4.5miles from where we camped to the arena. The lack of signposting probably another and the absolute randomness of the wristband collections. Of course with certain people, there was also a language barrier (a fair whack of people spoke fluent English though). However, as a rule, it was a much better experience (at both – I haven’t moaned about Wacken because I don’t feel I need to). Sonisphere was my best UK festival yet but it is not the best I’ve been to.
Foreign festivals better than UK:
• Price – Download costs near £200 for weekend/camping. Sonisphere cost £162 + £10 for Weekend/camping/early entry. Wacken cost me £100 for that. Rock Am Ring cost £130.
• Travel – Granted, festivals abroad do require (for the most part) a flight. However, factoring in the fact it costs less to buy a ticket, this isn’t so bad. Lufthansa is charging £90 for flights. Festival travel here can cost £20 if you know someone driving.
• Band times – Some people argue that festivals should be able to run later than they do. Indeed, in Download’s case, there is no reason as far as I can see why the festival cannot run later than 11.30pm. Abroad, bands play on open air stages until 3/4am, in areas that aren’t that far from where people live.
• Campsite atmosphere – Both German trips have involved helping neighbours setup, talking to neighbours about nothing. The only UK festival where that happened really has been DL07 – where we talked to a neighbour about being sent to the festival by his daughter who couldn’t go. He missed Motley Crue and had to watch My Chemical Romance.
• Incident free? – Granted, this could just be because I’ve had nothing happen to me, but at the two festivals I was at in Germany, nothing bad was reported. No assault, no theft. It was a much nicer and more relaxed place to be.
Will my next festival be in the UK? Honestly I’m not sure. As I said earlier, it really depends what the festivals here have to offer. This was written because as I type, the final day of Wacken is coming to an end, and despite the awesomeness of Sonisphere, it was not a patch on the festivals I went to in Germany. Would it be Germany next time? I quite fancy doing some other European festivals. Such as Hellfest, Graspop Metal Meeting, Novarock (though actually, its 2009 lineup was vastly superior to its 2010) and Metalcamp. I discovered other festivals as well this year which seem interesting. Main Square Festival in France and Bilbao BBK seem very good. Both of which I wouldn’t be opposed to going to if the lineup is right.
There’s no real point to this, I just felt like justifying my case for going abroad for a festival next year
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
Sonisphere 2010 – A Review
Thursday – Journey up to Knebworth was fairly painless. Before setting off we had decided making two trips from the car would make more sense as we had a fair amount of stuff between us all. The queue was a bit nuts but I guess that is to be expected, first day of a festival and all. The first trip was fairly uneventful, as was the setup of the campsite. Had a decent spot which wasn’t that far from the arena so that is always handy (granted it will take something special for a festival to be able to top the distance I was away from the RaR festival arena entrance – and people were further away!) The second walk however wasn’t a great deal of fun. It emerged that despite having wristbands, we’d need to queue again with people who had just arrived – there was no wristband entrance. This seemed to be a bit shit. Considering the amount of time they’ve had to plan this festival, something simple like that being overlooked wasn’t great. This second journey as well was coupled with carrying odds and sods, which meant dragging a trolley which couldn’t be balanced properly across bumpy ground led to an interesting journey. However, the day improved vastly when this was all dropped back at the campsite because it just meant we could sit back and relax. Went on a brief explore during this time to a burger van we passed on the way in. Considering the reputation festival food has, it wasn’t bad at all.
Friday – Ah, the first time waking up at Sonisphere, at 6am no less. My body clock and I had some disagreements over the course of the weekend. We had discussed the idea of a jaunt into Stevenage to grab a decent breakfast. This is what we did by stopping into the local Wetherspoons – The Standard Bearer (continuing the stereotype that if not all then most Wetherspoons have their toilets upstairs). Rock solid eggs aside, it was a good breakfast. Mosied around Stevenage for a short while before heading into Tesco to grab the last few bits required for the campsite. Things had improved when we returned to the festival in that they had a fast pass queue for wristband wearers. The next 4 or so hours were a continuation of the night before – sitting down enjoying the weather with beer. It was during this stage that a man, covered in red paint ran through our campsite with great pace, but connected with Paul’s knee and ended up on the floor. All credit to him, he got straight back up and carried running like crazy. Actually missed a bit of the first band I wanted to see as I was still at the campsite, but oh well. The walk to the arena, despite being hilly, was a decent walk away so that was good. I’d resolved (not knowing the time) that I would miss the first band I wanted to see, and therefore would just wait for Little London to come on stage. However, having decided a drink was in order, I walked from Jager stage and saw the first band I wanted to see on stage.
DELAIN – 7. Didn’t see much of their set unfortunately, but what I did see was really very good. Hopefully this band will do a full UK tour at some point.
LITTLE LONDON – 6. I didn’t hang around for the entire set as they were clashing with Turisas. However what I did see was good. It’s been a while since I’ve seen LL and I like what they’ve done with the song Love Reaction.
TURISAS – 7. Turisas are always good fun live. Better in a smaller environment I’d say but they do have the stage presence to justify them being on the Saturn stage. Interestingly they gave facts about Rasputin while the accordion player played the opening riff and then declared that Rasputin is dead. Is this the end of them playing it live? Perhaps. I wouldn’t be heartbroken if that happened – though it could end up them shooting themselves in the foot as a fair few people nearby after the set seemed confused they didn’t play it. However, a Black Sabbath cover was a welcome addition to the set.
EUROPE – 10. Stunning. I did not expect to enjoy them half as much as I did but they were fantastic. Obviously the best parts of the set included Rock the Night and, of course, The Final Countdown. There are not many bands that I’ve seen play a festival that received as good of a reaction to a song than that. Literally it looked like from the front row to the very back of the crowd people raised their arms, singing, dancing etc. One of the moments of the festival for me. Rock The Night also included a jam of Heaven and Hell in tribute to Dio, which was awesome. Joey Tempest still has it.
GARY NUMAN – 9. Fantastic performance from Gary Numan. He proved he still had it at the o2 arena when he guested with NIN. Since then I’ve always wanted to see his own show. This was probably the closest I’ll get to see it. It was a great show with a really good setlist. Cars and Are Friends Electric being the highlights. Would have liked him to do “Metal” but other than that omission, it was really very good.
ALICE COOPER – 10. Superb. The Theatre of Death stage show is one which needs to be seen to be believed. Alice Cooper has still got it and can offer a very valuable lesson to other bands in how to do a show. 24 song setlist with Schools Out being played twice (but whatever, it’s awesome). The set on the whole was awesome and I can’t think of one of his songs that I wanted to see that he didn’t play. I’m really tempted to go see his Halloween show in London on the back of this performance. If you didn’t see Alice Cooper, you missed out.
Despite the awesomeness of Alice Cooper, the Friday night campsite activities were limited due to tiredness having won over, and me needing to get some sleep. Great opening day to a festival.
Best Band of the Day: Alice Cooper
Moment of the Day: Europe - The Final Countdown
Worst Band of the Day: I didn’t see a band that could be considered for this.
Disappointing moment of the day: Turisas not playing Rasputin
Saturday
Rain at a festival is never fun, especially when it wakes you up before 6am. We decided that going into town would be a good idea again so this was the plan. Trundled down to the shuttle bus stop. We were the only ones there which is never a good sign. We waited for over an hour before a bus showed up. 2 of the people we were with had decided it wasn’t worth the wait which in retrospect, it probably wasn’t. Anyway, the pilgrimage to Stevenage this time was a lot shorter, and involved a trip to The Standard Bearer and Tesco. Couldn’t spend too long in the town as the bands started a lot earlier. Ended up getting a taxi back to the festival (£10 split between 4 isn’t bad). A brief stop at the campsite happened and then I set off for the arena.
EVILE – 7. The subject of the worst clash of the weekend for me. Lacuna Coil on the main stage or Evile in the Bohemia tent. I went for Evile and they were really good. 3rd time seeing them and they don’t disappoint live. Quite liked their setlist (decent balance of 1st/2nd album). Only gripe is that I’ve seen them 3 times now, and still not seen Armoured Assault live!
SOULFLY – 8. Much the same as Evile really, they never disappoint live. Really quite liked the setlist as well. Again the slight disappointment for me with regards to their setlist was the lack of Probot’s song, Red War. I guess I was spoiled at the Pyramids when they played that. Still, they had a 30min set and they were great.
ANTHRAX – 10. Superb. From the start of their set right through to the end of it they were on. I never saw Anthrax with Jon Bush so it is hard to make comparisons between the two versions of Anthrax. Joey Belladonna was on form though for this set and that made it for me. Only played 7 songs but one of those I was dying to hear live (their cover of Antisocial) and they also worked in a bit of Heaven and Hell into their song Indians, which was awesome.
FEAR FACTORY – 6. I liked this band and their set, but there did seem to be something missing which I can’t really put my finger on. I would have liked to have heard Linchpin live, but I already have so that not the end of the world. Good set, but something missing.
PAPA ROACH – 4. Slightly unfair me rating these really as I was listening to them sitting by the Saturn stage. However, Last Resort and Between Angels and Insects were good, as was Hollywood Whore. Those songs being good pushed the rating up to a 4 because the rest sounded like a bag of wank
I was sat by the Saturn stage, thinking I could legitimately have time to watch some Apocalyptica and then head over to the Bohemia stage calmly and watch Tim Minchin. However the crowd heading into the tent looked quite large so I decided reluctantly to move on to the tent. In doing so, I caught all the preceding comedy.
JARRED CHRISTMAS – 5. Jarred Christmas was very funny, but this opening set was word for word his set from Mock the Week, which was a touch disappointing.
ANDREW O’NEIL – 8. The Heavy Metal Comic! He was really good. Some of his material was quite good, and he stage dived at the end of his set. That was cool. He recommended staying about and seeing the band which followed the comedy, which was sound advice (I’m not sure if that counts as a pun or not....not intended either way)
TIM MINCHIN – 10. Simply put, hilarious. As expected the tent was crammed for this set. My memory is a complete let down for this set. I recall him singing a song about clashing with Good Charlotte (seems odd there wouldn’t be a band on clashing with him....oh), Only a Ginger & Rock and Roll Nerd. I know there was more, but I don’t remember it. Regardless, he was very funny and for those going to his tour, just know I am jealous!
SICK OF IT ALL – 9. I wanted to see this band off the back of hearing the song “Scratch the Surface”. This set was awesome. Packed from start to finish with awesome songs and closing with the aforementioned “Scratch the Surface”. Had to listen to that song outside though due to needing to leave the tent so when they finished, I could head to the Jagermeister stage. SOIA gained a new fan in me because of this set.
MALEFICE – 9. This band seemingly can’t go wrong live. Seen them twice at the Wedge, once in London and now at Sonisphere and each time they have been great. Tight, aggressive live band with seemingly limitless abilities to master a stage. Hatred Justified from the new album a particular highlight. The band seemed genuinely shocked at the size crowd they received, and got us all to give the main stage the finger as Placebo were on there. Quite entertaining, and actually just, considering.
PLACEBO – 4. Malefice finished before Placebo, therefore I decided to sit by Saturn, much like I did for Papa Roach, and listen to Placebo. The middle finger earlier given was justified. They did one song I liked, and the rest of the set was just whiney and poor. Excellent call by me I feel by not actually heading over to that stage.
MOTLEY CRUE – 6. This band was the 2nd best band of Download 2007, kept from the top spot by Iron Maiden. I was excited to see them again, but did not have high hopes for a number of reasons. Firstly, they were to be followed by Rammstein and that for me was a distraction. Secondly, I didn’t feel them playing open air would be as special as them playing in a tent. This transpired to be true. I think the vocals were disappointing to say the very least. Vince Neil did not seem to be on form at times. There were also a bundle of technical difficulties (at parts, Mick Mars looked like a dear in the headlights). However, when things were good, they were really good. They did not play Saints of Los Angeles – bastards
RAMMSTEIN – 10. Everything about this band live is fantastic. The stage show is one which can’t be topped (even when it’s on a slightly smaller scale – they were able to replicate 99% of it at Sonisphere, but there were some slight differences. One which comes to mind involves exploding babies).The setlist was slightly shorter than their earlier arena tour, but it was still awesome. There was a different song in the set replacing a new album track. Du Riechst So Gut was very much a welcome addition to the setlist. Of course I’d like to see them play Buck Dich, Mutter, Mein Herz Brennt and others, but that doesn’t take away from their awesomeness. Musically and artistically awesome. Rammstein owned that main stage in a way in which no other band managed to over the course of the whole weekend.
The intent was to go and see Therapy? perform Troublegum and then catch Renegades as well. However as we left the main arena, the tent appeared to be packed for Therapy? Therefore, we decided to give it a miss and head back to the campsite. This lead to another visit to that burger van from Thursday, and a word association game which ended up with a fair amount of alcohol being consumed. Probably the most fun I had at the campsite over the course of the weekend (and no I’m not saying that purely for the hilarity of seeing someone fall into their tent). An excellent day was had.
Best Band of the Day: Rammstein
Comedian of the Day: Tim Minchin
Moment of the Day: 4-5k people singing the chorus to Rock And Roll Nerd while Ol Drake from Evile came on stage to help with the song.
Worst Band of the Day: Either Placebo or Papa Roach. May not have seen the whole thing but that doesn’t change the fact they sounded like bags of wank.
Disappointing moment of the day: Motley Crue. Technical difficulties and vocal difficulties it seems meant they could not recreate the awesomeness of their Download 2007 set.
Sunday – A wondrous lie in was had, what all Sunday mornings should contain. I say lie in, it was 7am when I woke up, but that was a vast improvement on the 6am wakes of the two days previous. No visit to Stevenage today as I wanted to be in the arena early to make sure I was in a decent spot for the first act. Left the campsite really too early though as I was able to get in the arena but not the Bohemia tent. It was shut until 10.45am. Very strange.
HENRY ROLLINS – 10. This man combines perfectly comedy with serious thought to make his spoken word set genius. Discussing meeting and “flipping off” Than Shwe, the American reaction to Obama and how he differs from Bush and spreading the music of The Stooges and others to middle Sri Lanka, Rollins made me laugh but also made me believe I could help inspire change. I won’t lie, that feeling did slightly disappear when I left the tent, but it was great at the time! He is well worth seeing, and I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending his spoken word show to anyone.
CKY – 6. Missed the beginning of this set which sucked as they played Rio Bravo early. I saw them do 3 or 4 songs (I don’t recall) and they were good. Nothing spectacular though, I think they might have been better served having a higher spot on one of the smaller stages. Headlining Bohemia or something. They did attract a decent size crowd though, so perhaps I’m wrong.
THE DEFILED – 7. Didn’t catch an awful lot of them (a friend was using the cash point and they were by the Bohemia stage so I had a listen. I predict that had I gone in the tent and watched the whole set, the rating would be much higher. They sounded tight with a lot of energy (and the music wasn’t bad either)
THE FAB BEATLES – 5. The novelty band was just that, a novelty. They were a pretty decent Beatles cover band (not entirely sure I was enamoured with the idea of them calling each other “Paul” or “John” – I know they are a tribute band but that just came across as a bit douchey). The music they played was fine but I’m pretty sure there are better Beatles tribute bands out there. I missed them playing Run to the Hills, which might have increased the review score, but neither the less, they were ok.
SKINDRED – 10. For me, this was one of the bands I was looking forward to the most. I loved headline set at the Wedge and couldn’t wait to see them at Sonisphere. They didn’t let me down. Seeing them, especially down the front, was just one big party. They pretty much did a best of the 3 albums, so that was good as well. Definitely a dominating live act that destroyed the Apollo Stage.
SLAYER – 9. Very impressed with how good Slayer were. Download 2007 they were boring and I watched them with Jon who, if memory serves, said that they weren’t all that special at Reading 2006. However they were great. Sounded really good live and played a damn good setlist (Angel of Death being a plus for me as they didn’t play it at DL07). Would have liked to hear New Faith & Disciple but that doesn’t take away from how good they were.
JARRED CHRISTMAS – 7. Served as a great MC this time. I’ve read that he actually did a full set but I wasn’t there for that. He used material I hadn’t heard before which was quite good. Seems to be very good at crowd work as well. Very good.
BRIAN POSEHN – 7. His material seemed to be based on him looking scary, and how he’d scare off an intruder with a samurai sword while naked. I’ve reviewed that in a very simplistic manner, but it was funny. I reckon he’d be great having had a longer set.
SEAN HUGHES – 9. Fantastic 30mins by this guy. Everything he talked about was hilarious, covering religion and being Irish. The joke about drug takers and U2 was really very good (and actually worked on someone, which made it funnier). The crowd cheered every time he said “cunt” which was really entertaining to everyone, Sean included by the looks.
JIM JEFFERIES – 9. Didn’t see the whole set but what I saw was hysterical. His humour is very blunt which is great. Jokes about relationships, the virtues of being gay and lesbians which really didn’t appeal to the lesbian security guard at the front. An awkward situation dealt excellently by Jefferies. Well worth a watch if you have the chance.
THE CULT – 7. Was looking forward to seeing The Cult. They were very good and had a decent set from what I saw. I missed their bigger hits though as I was heading towards the Apollo Stage to get a good position for Pendulum/Iron Maiden. Enjoyable, but not enough to keep me glued to the stage while they were on.
PENDULUM – 10. Their set at Rock Am Ring in 2008 was the only time I’ve seen them before this festival. That set was in a small tent with a fantastic light show with the only hiccup being the PA blowing up. I was looking forward to their set for two reasons. The first being to see whether they could replicate this amazing RaR set on a bigger, open air stage. The second being since 2008, they’ve continued to release good music. Their show was phenomenal at Sonisphere. Literally the energy, performance and atmosphere created were perfect. The guest appearance from the In Flames singer worked really well also. A fantastic live act, proving the doubters that not only can they sub-headline to Iron Maiden at a Rock/Metal festival, but that they should be in that position. Download and Sonisphere have now both booked Pendulum in previous years. Download have also booked The Prodigy as well. Could The Prodigy headline one of these festivals one day with Pendulum sub headlining again? Easily. With the Sonisphere model, it could work very well on the Friday.
IRON MAIDEN – 10. What can I say about Iron Maiden’s performance which hasn’t already been said by other forms of media? The performance was fantastic and coupled with a fantastic setlist. On the internet there are always people that will literally find anything to bitch about. Of course, the Maiden setlist was always going to attract interest from those people who want Maiden to turn into a cabaret Vegas act playing their best of and nothing else. I actually saw someone write “Can you imagine Iron Maiden playing a best of setlist...I can’t even imagine how great that would be...” You don’t have to; it’s called the Somewhere Back in Time tour! The performance and setlist were both great and it was awesome to hear Bruce Dickinson pay tribute to Dio. Granted, I did prefer their SBIT tour setlist, but this performance was one of the best I’ve seen them do.
The final day at Sonisphere concluded with more beer drinking at the tent and discussions of the inevitable – leaving the next day. Having drunk most of 5 tins of beer (deciding the sensible action would be when reaching nearly the end of the can would be to crush it and toss it over my shoulder. The final day concluded with a large fire, people stampeding through the campsite, stopping police and the fire service getting through and toppling over the fence stopping people accessing the Knebworth House stream. However, I don’t have complete details of this event as I was asleep throughout the whole thing. Pure class
Best Band of the Day: Iron Maiden
Comedian of the Day: Sean Hughes
Moment of the Day: Entire crowd sing-along to Fear of the Dark. It might be the 5th time I’ve done it, but it’s awesome every time!
Worst Band of the Day: The Fab Beatles. They weren’t awful; they just weren’t all that good either
Disappointing moment of the day: Realising the bands were over, and the next day meant going home
Monday – Waking up to see that the fence had pushed over (and one urinal for that matter) was certainly an interesting wake-up call. The morning simply consisted of waking up, packing up the campsite and leaving Knebworth. The saddest of all festival days. Journey home was fairly smooth but also fairly dull as we were all pretty tired.
Overall Thoughts – Sonisphere @ Knebworth is a fantastic festival. I love the layout of the festival (with the only thing I’d change if it could be done would be placing the Saturn stage next to the Apollo stage). If that couldn’t logistically be done then put the band that is on the other stage on the screens and speakers of the one not being used. If that could be done, it would be a fantastic festival all round. Spent some of the festival with a group of pretty awesome people helps matters as well. For the most part, good times all round. Soni is definitely a festival I’d recommend and intend on going back to again someday (maybe in just over 350 days, who knows!)
Bands/Acts seen over the Weekend: 32
Best Band of the Weekend: Rammstein
Honourable Mentions: Iron Maiden, Skindred, Pendulum, Europe, Alice Cooper
Worst Band of the Weekend: Papa Roach
Moment of the Weekend: Probably a tie between Europe – The Final Countdown; Iron Maiden – Fear of the Dark and of course, Paul falling into his tent on the Saturday. Superb moments in their own way.
Friday – Ah, the first time waking up at Sonisphere, at 6am no less. My body clock and I had some disagreements over the course of the weekend. We had discussed the idea of a jaunt into Stevenage to grab a decent breakfast. This is what we did by stopping into the local Wetherspoons – The Standard Bearer (continuing the stereotype that if not all then most Wetherspoons have their toilets upstairs). Rock solid eggs aside, it was a good breakfast. Mosied around Stevenage for a short while before heading into Tesco to grab the last few bits required for the campsite. Things had improved when we returned to the festival in that they had a fast pass queue for wristband wearers. The next 4 or so hours were a continuation of the night before – sitting down enjoying the weather with beer. It was during this stage that a man, covered in red paint ran through our campsite with great pace, but connected with Paul’s knee and ended up on the floor. All credit to him, he got straight back up and carried running like crazy. Actually missed a bit of the first band I wanted to see as I was still at the campsite, but oh well. The walk to the arena, despite being hilly, was a decent walk away so that was good. I’d resolved (not knowing the time) that I would miss the first band I wanted to see, and therefore would just wait for Little London to come on stage. However, having decided a drink was in order, I walked from Jager stage and saw the first band I wanted to see on stage.
DELAIN – 7. Didn’t see much of their set unfortunately, but what I did see was really very good. Hopefully this band will do a full UK tour at some point.
LITTLE LONDON – 6. I didn’t hang around for the entire set as they were clashing with Turisas. However what I did see was good. It’s been a while since I’ve seen LL and I like what they’ve done with the song Love Reaction.
TURISAS – 7. Turisas are always good fun live. Better in a smaller environment I’d say but they do have the stage presence to justify them being on the Saturn stage. Interestingly they gave facts about Rasputin while the accordion player played the opening riff and then declared that Rasputin is dead. Is this the end of them playing it live? Perhaps. I wouldn’t be heartbroken if that happened – though it could end up them shooting themselves in the foot as a fair few people nearby after the set seemed confused they didn’t play it. However, a Black Sabbath cover was a welcome addition to the set.
EUROPE – 10. Stunning. I did not expect to enjoy them half as much as I did but they were fantastic. Obviously the best parts of the set included Rock the Night and, of course, The Final Countdown. There are not many bands that I’ve seen play a festival that received as good of a reaction to a song than that. Literally it looked like from the front row to the very back of the crowd people raised their arms, singing, dancing etc. One of the moments of the festival for me. Rock The Night also included a jam of Heaven and Hell in tribute to Dio, which was awesome. Joey Tempest still has it.
GARY NUMAN – 9. Fantastic performance from Gary Numan. He proved he still had it at the o2 arena when he guested with NIN. Since then I’ve always wanted to see his own show. This was probably the closest I’ll get to see it. It was a great show with a really good setlist. Cars and Are Friends Electric being the highlights. Would have liked him to do “Metal” but other than that omission, it was really very good.
ALICE COOPER – 10. Superb. The Theatre of Death stage show is one which needs to be seen to be believed. Alice Cooper has still got it and can offer a very valuable lesson to other bands in how to do a show. 24 song setlist with Schools Out being played twice (but whatever, it’s awesome). The set on the whole was awesome and I can’t think of one of his songs that I wanted to see that he didn’t play. I’m really tempted to go see his Halloween show in London on the back of this performance. If you didn’t see Alice Cooper, you missed out.
Despite the awesomeness of Alice Cooper, the Friday night campsite activities were limited due to tiredness having won over, and me needing to get some sleep. Great opening day to a festival.
Best Band of the Day: Alice Cooper
Moment of the Day: Europe - The Final Countdown
Worst Band of the Day: I didn’t see a band that could be considered for this.
Disappointing moment of the day: Turisas not playing Rasputin
Saturday
Rain at a festival is never fun, especially when it wakes you up before 6am. We decided that going into town would be a good idea again so this was the plan. Trundled down to the shuttle bus stop. We were the only ones there which is never a good sign. We waited for over an hour before a bus showed up. 2 of the people we were with had decided it wasn’t worth the wait which in retrospect, it probably wasn’t. Anyway, the pilgrimage to Stevenage this time was a lot shorter, and involved a trip to The Standard Bearer and Tesco. Couldn’t spend too long in the town as the bands started a lot earlier. Ended up getting a taxi back to the festival (£10 split between 4 isn’t bad). A brief stop at the campsite happened and then I set off for the arena.
EVILE – 7. The subject of the worst clash of the weekend for me. Lacuna Coil on the main stage or Evile in the Bohemia tent. I went for Evile and they were really good. 3rd time seeing them and they don’t disappoint live. Quite liked their setlist (decent balance of 1st/2nd album). Only gripe is that I’ve seen them 3 times now, and still not seen Armoured Assault live!
SOULFLY – 8. Much the same as Evile really, they never disappoint live. Really quite liked the setlist as well. Again the slight disappointment for me with regards to their setlist was the lack of Probot’s song, Red War. I guess I was spoiled at the Pyramids when they played that. Still, they had a 30min set and they were great.
ANTHRAX – 10. Superb. From the start of their set right through to the end of it they were on. I never saw Anthrax with Jon Bush so it is hard to make comparisons between the two versions of Anthrax. Joey Belladonna was on form though for this set and that made it for me. Only played 7 songs but one of those I was dying to hear live (their cover of Antisocial) and they also worked in a bit of Heaven and Hell into their song Indians, which was awesome.
FEAR FACTORY – 6. I liked this band and their set, but there did seem to be something missing which I can’t really put my finger on. I would have liked to have heard Linchpin live, but I already have so that not the end of the world. Good set, but something missing.
PAPA ROACH – 4. Slightly unfair me rating these really as I was listening to them sitting by the Saturn stage. However, Last Resort and Between Angels and Insects were good, as was Hollywood Whore. Those songs being good pushed the rating up to a 4 because the rest sounded like a bag of wank
I was sat by the Saturn stage, thinking I could legitimately have time to watch some Apocalyptica and then head over to the Bohemia stage calmly and watch Tim Minchin. However the crowd heading into the tent looked quite large so I decided reluctantly to move on to the tent. In doing so, I caught all the preceding comedy.
JARRED CHRISTMAS – 5. Jarred Christmas was very funny, but this opening set was word for word his set from Mock the Week, which was a touch disappointing.
ANDREW O’NEIL – 8. The Heavy Metal Comic! He was really good. Some of his material was quite good, and he stage dived at the end of his set. That was cool. He recommended staying about and seeing the band which followed the comedy, which was sound advice (I’m not sure if that counts as a pun or not....not intended either way)
TIM MINCHIN – 10. Simply put, hilarious. As expected the tent was crammed for this set. My memory is a complete let down for this set. I recall him singing a song about clashing with Good Charlotte (seems odd there wouldn’t be a band on clashing with him....oh), Only a Ginger & Rock and Roll Nerd. I know there was more, but I don’t remember it. Regardless, he was very funny and for those going to his tour, just know I am jealous!
SICK OF IT ALL – 9. I wanted to see this band off the back of hearing the song “Scratch the Surface”. This set was awesome. Packed from start to finish with awesome songs and closing with the aforementioned “Scratch the Surface”. Had to listen to that song outside though due to needing to leave the tent so when they finished, I could head to the Jagermeister stage. SOIA gained a new fan in me because of this set.
MALEFICE – 9. This band seemingly can’t go wrong live. Seen them twice at the Wedge, once in London and now at Sonisphere and each time they have been great. Tight, aggressive live band with seemingly limitless abilities to master a stage. Hatred Justified from the new album a particular highlight. The band seemed genuinely shocked at the size crowd they received, and got us all to give the main stage the finger as Placebo were on there. Quite entertaining, and actually just, considering.
PLACEBO – 4. Malefice finished before Placebo, therefore I decided to sit by Saturn, much like I did for Papa Roach, and listen to Placebo. The middle finger earlier given was justified. They did one song I liked, and the rest of the set was just whiney and poor. Excellent call by me I feel by not actually heading over to that stage.
MOTLEY CRUE – 6. This band was the 2nd best band of Download 2007, kept from the top spot by Iron Maiden. I was excited to see them again, but did not have high hopes for a number of reasons. Firstly, they were to be followed by Rammstein and that for me was a distraction. Secondly, I didn’t feel them playing open air would be as special as them playing in a tent. This transpired to be true. I think the vocals were disappointing to say the very least. Vince Neil did not seem to be on form at times. There were also a bundle of technical difficulties (at parts, Mick Mars looked like a dear in the headlights). However, when things were good, they were really good. They did not play Saints of Los Angeles – bastards
RAMMSTEIN – 10. Everything about this band live is fantastic. The stage show is one which can’t be topped (even when it’s on a slightly smaller scale – they were able to replicate 99% of it at Sonisphere, but there were some slight differences. One which comes to mind involves exploding babies).The setlist was slightly shorter than their earlier arena tour, but it was still awesome. There was a different song in the set replacing a new album track. Du Riechst So Gut was very much a welcome addition to the setlist. Of course I’d like to see them play Buck Dich, Mutter, Mein Herz Brennt and others, but that doesn’t take away from their awesomeness. Musically and artistically awesome. Rammstein owned that main stage in a way in which no other band managed to over the course of the whole weekend.
The intent was to go and see Therapy? perform Troublegum and then catch Renegades as well. However as we left the main arena, the tent appeared to be packed for Therapy? Therefore, we decided to give it a miss and head back to the campsite. This lead to another visit to that burger van from Thursday, and a word association game which ended up with a fair amount of alcohol being consumed. Probably the most fun I had at the campsite over the course of the weekend (and no I’m not saying that purely for the hilarity of seeing someone fall into their tent). An excellent day was had.
Best Band of the Day: Rammstein
Comedian of the Day: Tim Minchin
Moment of the Day: 4-5k people singing the chorus to Rock And Roll Nerd while Ol Drake from Evile came on stage to help with the song.
Worst Band of the Day: Either Placebo or Papa Roach. May not have seen the whole thing but that doesn’t change the fact they sounded like bags of wank.
Disappointing moment of the day: Motley Crue. Technical difficulties and vocal difficulties it seems meant they could not recreate the awesomeness of their Download 2007 set.
Sunday – A wondrous lie in was had, what all Sunday mornings should contain. I say lie in, it was 7am when I woke up, but that was a vast improvement on the 6am wakes of the two days previous. No visit to Stevenage today as I wanted to be in the arena early to make sure I was in a decent spot for the first act. Left the campsite really too early though as I was able to get in the arena but not the Bohemia tent. It was shut until 10.45am. Very strange.
HENRY ROLLINS – 10. This man combines perfectly comedy with serious thought to make his spoken word set genius. Discussing meeting and “flipping off” Than Shwe, the American reaction to Obama and how he differs from Bush and spreading the music of The Stooges and others to middle Sri Lanka, Rollins made me laugh but also made me believe I could help inspire change. I won’t lie, that feeling did slightly disappear when I left the tent, but it was great at the time! He is well worth seeing, and I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending his spoken word show to anyone.
CKY – 6. Missed the beginning of this set which sucked as they played Rio Bravo early. I saw them do 3 or 4 songs (I don’t recall) and they were good. Nothing spectacular though, I think they might have been better served having a higher spot on one of the smaller stages. Headlining Bohemia or something. They did attract a decent size crowd though, so perhaps I’m wrong.
THE DEFILED – 7. Didn’t catch an awful lot of them (a friend was using the cash point and they were by the Bohemia stage so I had a listen. I predict that had I gone in the tent and watched the whole set, the rating would be much higher. They sounded tight with a lot of energy (and the music wasn’t bad either)
THE FAB BEATLES – 5. The novelty band was just that, a novelty. They were a pretty decent Beatles cover band (not entirely sure I was enamoured with the idea of them calling each other “Paul” or “John” – I know they are a tribute band but that just came across as a bit douchey). The music they played was fine but I’m pretty sure there are better Beatles tribute bands out there. I missed them playing Run to the Hills, which might have increased the review score, but neither the less, they were ok.
SKINDRED – 10. For me, this was one of the bands I was looking forward to the most. I loved headline set at the Wedge and couldn’t wait to see them at Sonisphere. They didn’t let me down. Seeing them, especially down the front, was just one big party. They pretty much did a best of the 3 albums, so that was good as well. Definitely a dominating live act that destroyed the Apollo Stage.
SLAYER – 9. Very impressed with how good Slayer were. Download 2007 they were boring and I watched them with Jon who, if memory serves, said that they weren’t all that special at Reading 2006. However they were great. Sounded really good live and played a damn good setlist (Angel of Death being a plus for me as they didn’t play it at DL07). Would have liked to hear New Faith & Disciple but that doesn’t take away from how good they were.
JARRED CHRISTMAS – 7. Served as a great MC this time. I’ve read that he actually did a full set but I wasn’t there for that. He used material I hadn’t heard before which was quite good. Seems to be very good at crowd work as well. Very good.
BRIAN POSEHN – 7. His material seemed to be based on him looking scary, and how he’d scare off an intruder with a samurai sword while naked. I’ve reviewed that in a very simplistic manner, but it was funny. I reckon he’d be great having had a longer set.
SEAN HUGHES – 9. Fantastic 30mins by this guy. Everything he talked about was hilarious, covering religion and being Irish. The joke about drug takers and U2 was really very good (and actually worked on someone, which made it funnier). The crowd cheered every time he said “cunt” which was really entertaining to everyone, Sean included by the looks.
JIM JEFFERIES – 9. Didn’t see the whole set but what I saw was hysterical. His humour is very blunt which is great. Jokes about relationships, the virtues of being gay and lesbians which really didn’t appeal to the lesbian security guard at the front. An awkward situation dealt excellently by Jefferies. Well worth a watch if you have the chance.
THE CULT – 7. Was looking forward to seeing The Cult. They were very good and had a decent set from what I saw. I missed their bigger hits though as I was heading towards the Apollo Stage to get a good position for Pendulum/Iron Maiden. Enjoyable, but not enough to keep me glued to the stage while they were on.
PENDULUM – 10. Their set at Rock Am Ring in 2008 was the only time I’ve seen them before this festival. That set was in a small tent with a fantastic light show with the only hiccup being the PA blowing up. I was looking forward to their set for two reasons. The first being to see whether they could replicate this amazing RaR set on a bigger, open air stage. The second being since 2008, they’ve continued to release good music. Their show was phenomenal at Sonisphere. Literally the energy, performance and atmosphere created were perfect. The guest appearance from the In Flames singer worked really well also. A fantastic live act, proving the doubters that not only can they sub-headline to Iron Maiden at a Rock/Metal festival, but that they should be in that position. Download and Sonisphere have now both booked Pendulum in previous years. Download have also booked The Prodigy as well. Could The Prodigy headline one of these festivals one day with Pendulum sub headlining again? Easily. With the Sonisphere model, it could work very well on the Friday.
IRON MAIDEN – 10. What can I say about Iron Maiden’s performance which hasn’t already been said by other forms of media? The performance was fantastic and coupled with a fantastic setlist. On the internet there are always people that will literally find anything to bitch about. Of course, the Maiden setlist was always going to attract interest from those people who want Maiden to turn into a cabaret Vegas act playing their best of and nothing else. I actually saw someone write “Can you imagine Iron Maiden playing a best of setlist...I can’t even imagine how great that would be...” You don’t have to; it’s called the Somewhere Back in Time tour! The performance and setlist were both great and it was awesome to hear Bruce Dickinson pay tribute to Dio. Granted, I did prefer their SBIT tour setlist, but this performance was one of the best I’ve seen them do.
The final day at Sonisphere concluded with more beer drinking at the tent and discussions of the inevitable – leaving the next day. Having drunk most of 5 tins of beer (deciding the sensible action would be when reaching nearly the end of the can would be to crush it and toss it over my shoulder. The final day concluded with a large fire, people stampeding through the campsite, stopping police and the fire service getting through and toppling over the fence stopping people accessing the Knebworth House stream. However, I don’t have complete details of this event as I was asleep throughout the whole thing. Pure class
Best Band of the Day: Iron Maiden
Comedian of the Day: Sean Hughes
Moment of the Day: Entire crowd sing-along to Fear of the Dark. It might be the 5th time I’ve done it, but it’s awesome every time!
Worst Band of the Day: The Fab Beatles. They weren’t awful; they just weren’t all that good either
Disappointing moment of the day: Realising the bands were over, and the next day meant going home
Monday – Waking up to see that the fence had pushed over (and one urinal for that matter) was certainly an interesting wake-up call. The morning simply consisted of waking up, packing up the campsite and leaving Knebworth. The saddest of all festival days. Journey home was fairly smooth but also fairly dull as we were all pretty tired.
Overall Thoughts – Sonisphere @ Knebworth is a fantastic festival. I love the layout of the festival (with the only thing I’d change if it could be done would be placing the Saturn stage next to the Apollo stage). If that couldn’t logistically be done then put the band that is on the other stage on the screens and speakers of the one not being used. If that could be done, it would be a fantastic festival all round. Spent some of the festival with a group of pretty awesome people helps matters as well. For the most part, good times all round. Soni is definitely a festival I’d recommend and intend on going back to again someday (maybe in just over 350 days, who knows!)
Bands/Acts seen over the Weekend: 32
Best Band of the Weekend: Rammstein
Honourable Mentions: Iron Maiden, Skindred, Pendulum, Europe, Alice Cooper
Worst Band of the Weekend: Papa Roach
Moment of the Weekend: Probably a tie between Europe – The Final Countdown; Iron Maiden – Fear of the Dark and of course, Paul falling into his tent on the Saturday. Superb moments in their own way.
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