\m/ For Those About To Rock \m/ (Sonisphere Festival)

Member Name: chugglebunny

Product:	Sonisphere Festival
Date:	24/08/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantastic Experience, Amazing Bands, Very Well Organised

Disadvantages: Expensive For Some....Not Worth It If You Don't Like The Music

Myself, my other half and a lot of my friends have been frequenting the annual "Download" music festival for about 5 years now and this year was no different.

In June we trotted off up the M1 for the long weekend. However, this year we also attended the new Sonisphere festival that is in England for the first time since its creation. This is the first "rock" festival besides Download that I have attended. I must say, this has inspired me to branch out my festival wings more often as this is now most certainly my favourite summer music festival.

A Little History
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Sonisphere has been around for a number of years since it was founded by Stuart Galbraith. Stuart started "Kilimanjaro Live" after working on the Download festival and wanting to branch out on his own.

The 2 day festival currently tours throughout the summer, starting in June and stops in:

Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland and now England.

The festival brings together a lot of the sub genres of "Rock" and is what I would consider a "heavy rock" festival. The line up did differ slightly from each show to accommodate all the different bands who were unable to play each and every show etc.

How it works / Set up
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For anyone who hasn't been to a festival before, or indeed just for those who did not attend Sonisphere I'll briefly explain the layout etc.

Upon arrival if you are going by car, you will be directed to a parking space by staff. The layout for parking at most festivals is pretty good and Sonisphere were no exception. It was easy and simple to get parked up and only a short walk to the main entrance.

Here at the entrance you are expected to hand over your ticket which will be checked and you will be given a wristband, depending on if you are a day ticket holder, weekend or family camping, the colour of your wristband will be different. This year, for the weekend with camping ticket holders we got a sexy black and red wristband.

From here, all bags are checked and you can make your way to the campsites. Sonisphere is different to festivals that I have been to previously as there were no individual camp sites. Usually the fields will be split into colour codes or numbered, but Sonisphere did not seem to have any divide between fields, it was just a simple case of find a space and pitch, which we did.

Over the space of the 2 days bands will play on one of the 4 stages. The 2 main stages are the largest and as such tend to have the bigger named bands on. The tent stage and the smaller 4th stage are for the more intimate live experience.

Based in beautiful countryside amongst various fields, the stages are spaced out in the main arena among all of the merchandise stalls and plenty of food stalls.

Basically, the lay out for the weekend will involve, picking who you would like to see, checking what time they are on and making your way to that stage for that time to watch them. There is no set routine and anyone visiting the festival can see whoever, whenever they want, or if you prefer, spend the entire time at one of the various bar tents and pass out at your tent all weekend!

The Line Up
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2009's first Sonisphere held a very strong line up to establish itself here in the UK.

Linkin Park headlined the main stage on Saturday, supported by Heaven and Hell while Bullet for My Valentine headlined the second stage supported by Airborne.

The Sunday had rock legends Metallica on the main stage supported by Nine Inch Nails and the second stage was graced with Avenged sevenfold above Alice In Chains.

Also playing amongst many others were:

Alien Ant Farm
Limp Bizkit
Machine Head
Feeder
The Used
Anthrax
Lamb of God
Mastodon
Killing Joke

My Experience
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I heard about Sonisphere after a few people mentioned it on the official download festival forum, which I have been a member of for years. A quick Google search took me to Sonisphere's website and I learnt about what the event was and also who was billed to be playing.

The line up looked impressive and being one for a good festival, I booked myself and my other half 2 tickets.

In my opinion there are a few key things that make up a great festival, being away from home for a number of days and sleeping in a tent, being at the mercy of nature and the weather is made a lot more bearable by a lot of things, the most important, that covers a lot of things really is the organisation. If a festival is badly organised it's going to cause a lot of things that can disrupt your experience to occur.

From the second we arrived I was impressed, the car park and entrance were clearly signposted and getting through the entrance was simple and extremely quick. After pitching our tent we had a wonder around to find our bearings, the toilets were clearly signposted and there were a lot of sets dotted around so you were never too far from one. Toilets are one of the things most people dread when visiting a festival, of course they do get a little bit mucky and it is always advisable to bring your own toilet roll but the organisation was brilliant here and I was thoroughly impressed. They had stewards based at each set of toilets who had a small mountain of toilet paper behind them for when cubicles ran out and helped direct people to open toilets so the queues moved at a rate I didn't know was possible at a festival. I also saw many cleaners constantly checking them and tidying the worse ones immediately. This generally made one of the less pleasant things about festival going tremendously better and really helped the weekend not be a chore.

My best praise for the weekend is for the genius idea and organisation that went in to timing the two main stages. The stage times were staggered and the actual stages set apart, one on top of the large main arena field, and one at the bottom. Staggered times meant that the two stages took turns, when one band are finished playing on the main stage, 5 minutes later the second stages next band would come on and once finished 5 minutes later the main stage had the next band on. A simple but extremely clever idea that means by turning around you could see the entire set of every band playing on the main stage and the second stage. I always hate having to weigh my options and choose between bands and ultimately missing some or all of a certain bands set, just because they clash with another of my favourites. It can be a pain and ruin the weekend, especially if the stages are far apart and you have to trek from one side of the arena to another to catch them. Sonisphere eliminated all of these annoyances with the simplest idea and it really did help.

The other good thing about this way of timing the bands meant that, since the 2 stages were so close and you knew there was 5 minutes between each band, the vast majority of people moved to each stage in turn, this meaning for those hardcore fans who want to get a good spot for a certain band, they can get in position while everyone else is at the other stage. I saw a lot of people who were able to get right to the front for certain bands and further back for others without having to push and shove. It allows a lot more freedom for the fans to really have the experience the way they want it.

My Favourite Part of the Experience
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To be honest it is very hard not to love everything about Sonisphere as long as you're a fan of festivals in the first place. It had everything a festival should have plus the added bonus of being extremely well organised and not missing any of the main stage bands.

The food choice was great, as festivals always are, the toilets were brilliant as far as festival toilets go and the choice of line up was great to really establish as one of the main summer festivals.

The people are always a great aspect of festival life. Meeting so many like minded people who are all there for the love of the music definitely raises the good feelings and atmosphere, meeting your neighbours for the weekend, sharing a drink and a chat outside the tents after a day of excellent live music. Great fun!

Its quite difficult to explain to those who aren't so much into live music, just how it feels having one of your favourite bands performing your favourite song with the electric atmosphere surrounding you, that gets created by 45 thousand odd people all loving it just as much as you. While standing in a field on a beautiful warm evening with all your closest friends, taking in the atmosphere and singing on the top of your lungs, totally letting go for that short period of time, the waves of emotion that can come off a crowd that big (or even bigger as festivals like Download will have) really is priceless. Its one of those feelings you'd have to experience first hand to really appreciate. Ultimately it's the community feeling and shared appreciation that the music creates that keeps me going back.

If I had to pick one exact moment to be my "favourite" besides the whole weekend, it would be seeing Corey Taylor (lead singer of Slipknot and Stone Sour) in the smaller 3rd stage tent. I managed to get right up to the barrier with my close friend who likes him just as much as I do and hearing his amazing voice which I have loved for years, doing an intimate acoustic set. Simply breathtaking! (The fact I find him stupidly attractive probably helped slightly) I'll sadly admit to shedding a tear when he sung "bother" which is one of my favourite Stone Sour songs anyway, he has a quality to his voice I have always found completely endearing. It was most certainly my highlight to the weekend.

Singing happy birthday to James Hetfield (lead singer of Metallica) when they finished their set on the main stage on Sunday evening was a close second. It was a good giggle watching the boys throw custard pie each other on stage and thank the crowd for making James birthday a good one.

Conclusion
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A final word on the subject will simply be to anyone who has never been to a music festival, you're missing out on a great experience, and anyone who has been and likes rock music, then Sonisphere is my recommendation. It's new to the UK and it totally rocks! Yes festivals can be a little expensive with a price tag for this one at £135 for weekend with camping, plus food, merchandise and drink. It does add up to a small fortune, but for the amount of bands I get to see that individually you'd pay £40 at least for and on top of an amazing amount of and fun with a great atmosphere, I am more than happy to pay it. It's worth it for my memories.

Thank you for reading :)

Summary: My New Favourite Festival...