Festival Frolics: Sonisphere 2011.

For those that revel in getting their crusted, mudded socks off to what Lemmy this weekend persistently and insistently branded "rock'n'roll", in a waterlogged field on the outskirts of a mildly relevant town or city, options are relatively limited. Whilst myriad lightweight indie festivals come and go annually, line ups tumefied by rawk, metal, nu metal, grunge, hardcore etc. come at a premium, and premium is precisely what the 2011 edition of Sonisphere Festival proved to be. Clocking in at a mere, infantile three years old, the festival now sprawls across much of Europe, from Scandinavia to the outer reaches of Turkey and beyond, beyond now being Bangalore, India, where Metallica are alleged to be taking their pastiche hair metal wares come October. However, returning to the recent past, with ears still ringing and the crescendoing build-up of lactic acid preventing much motion, here's how we perceived the midsummer metal marathon...

Stevenage-bound come Saturday afternoon, all chatterings revolve around an already-revered evening past, with the legacy of when The Big 4 became The Big 7 all but canonised by those in the stately grounds of Knebworth House. Distinctly less laudable however are rabid Canadian punks Sum 41, who channel the spirit of '99, or at least 2001, to a sizeable melée that's quite bemusingly enchanted by perpetually coarse language and dingy punk tedium in the form of Fat Lip, In Too Deep, Over My Head (Better Off Dead) etc. Proceedings cascade further into a mire of ridicule as the plug is pulled midway through a distinctly abortive Still Waiting, Deryck Whibley et al. unwittingly plodding on regardless, ears wired up to the PA. Channeling a little more fervour and significantly more destruction are reckless Leodensian outfit Pulled Apart By Horses. Vortexes of circle pit engulf the front few rows as wiry Telecaster lines capable of poking ears out protrude the unabashed raucousness frontman Tom Hudson effortlessly exudes, before he later pukes up half a stomach's worth and presumably an entire bar's worth of Tuborg on the fringes of the Bohemia Stage. The acerbic vitriol of The Crapsons is particularly invigorating, whilst the ADHD-ish Fender recoils of High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive are foreseeably cataclysmic, although their set is perhaps hindered somewhat by time (too early) and place (far from within spitting/sock-thieving distance).
Over on the positively colossal Apollo Stage, cult melody makers Weezer ooze the day's most refined songsmithery with a setlist that thankfully draws copiously from seminal '94 LP, The Blue Album, whilst simultaneously turning a deaf ear to almost everything this side of The Red Album, a thunderous Pork and Beans and slipshod (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To aside. Say It Ain't So, Island In The Sun, Beverly Hills all sound akin to an apt soundtrack to rolling around deserted, desert-ridden America with some ad-infested FM radio blaring from wound down Cadillac windows, although all seem to also work with today's sparse Hertfordshire congregation. Highlights are however reserved for the relentless chug of Hash Pipe and the anthemic cooing of Buddy Holly, as Rivers Cuomo flies from one end to the other of the stage's gargantuan wingspan.
However, two bewildering covers feature in their nostalgia-drenched hour, the first coming in the form of Wheatus' Teenage Dirtbag during which Rivers bounds down the centre of the barrier-parted crowd as if he were some sort of modern-day Moses in army paraphernalia and navy slacks. Yet their barely personalised rendition is worryingly reminiscent of much of their own more recent material, assimilating the Californian quartet with the aforementioned Northport one hit wonders. The second, meanwhile, is a take on Radiohead's Paranoid Android that proves mystifyingly superfluous, every altered time signature and key change replicated with precision. That said, it's ultimately refreshing to be in amongst the uninitiated, away from the maddening veneration the Oxford troupe universally induce at nigh on every other festival the world over as it's largely unnoticed, or unknown.

With a guarantee of 'no clashes between Apollo and Saturn Stage artists', the Knebworth site becomes something of an enlarged Pong field for the majority of the weekend, the blobs of chalky pixel exchanged for human flesh. Yet few flock to a rare UK festival appearance from El Paso progsters The Mars Volta, and their experimental show lamentably feels almost as unwanted as it is unwonted. For bordering on an hour, they rest haphazardly on their laurels, inviting those in attendance into what Cedric Bixler himself refers to as "a rehearsal" of sorts as they road test new cuts that flitter between jazz fusion, funk, anthemia and confusion as Bixler yowls behind a hijacked security fence, hops aboard the wheeled camera that futilely attempts to document his every sporadic, equally erratic movement, and finally tears away at some stage hoarding. Yelping agitatedly to The Whip Hands and tapdancing furiously to the tango-indebted Dyslexicon, the urgent synth resonance of Son et Lumiere rescues the wig out from the brink before Inertiatic ESP and The Widow follow, as The Mars Volta, on the Saturn Stage, sublimely demonstrate their deft, extraterrestrial excellence.
Sonisphere CEO Stuart Galbraith, along with the festival's bookers, took something of a leap of faith in roping in chart-bothering East Ayrshire alt. icons Biffy Clyro for their inaugural major festival headline show, particularly in the harsh light of their progressively less prog, continually more pop-orientated development. However any rumours of cast aspersions are almost instantaneously quelled as the pilous trio launch wholeheartedly into the marauding The Captain, marking the inception of a 23-song setlist that takes in beefed-up takes on much of latest LP Only Revolutions, Bubbles crackling with enough splintered crunch to have snaggled teeth wrenched from gums. Stress On The Sky, There's No Such Thing As A Jaggy Snake and 57 ensure purists decked in monochrome garb are contented, whilst the whirring fury of the evening's sole newbie The Joke's On Us suggests a departure from the mainstream-molesting chord progressions of much contemporary work.
And yet regardless of pyrotechny synchronised with every clattering cymbal, balloons that bubble from speaker stacks, drizzling fireworks and a cage of glowing lightbulbs descending over Simon Neil during a stereotypically heartfelt Machines, besides an elaborate, Tim Burton-esque stage design that looks as though it's been confiscated from Paloma Faith, we can all "Mon the Biffy" to our elated hearts' content, although they're not quite a headline act. Yet.
Incessant badinage of passing wind, "the dutchie on the lefthand side", and Download, by Sunday, becomes relatively wearying. Fortunately Brooklyn hip hop behemoths House of Pain are at hand to alleviate the growing sense of resolute parochialism that can be known to brood following excessive exposure to the heavier end of the musical spectrum, and their lackadaisical lyrics of "corn beef and cabbage" serve as an adequate substitute to the Sunday sit-down meal. Everlast stands immobile, twinkling away on a Telecaster, whilst Danny Boy plods about to the double bass slump of Who's The Man? and an entrancing take on Dr. Dre's The Next Episode. Put On Your Shit Kickers is equivalently '90s to a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air omnibus, before the synthetic horns of Jump Around round off proceedings in palpably zestful fashion, the thriving multitude then duly dispersing.
Two years previous, Atlanta's best, spectacularly bewhiskered prog metallers, Mastodon, treated the then-comparatively minuscule Saturn Stage to a rip-roaring triumph. Centred around Crack The Skye material that proved equal parts psychedelic and psychotic, the Georgian quartet tore Knebworth a proverbial new one yet this time out, engulfed by the scale of the Apollo Stage, the Flying V histrionics and Les Paul pinched harmonics of the likes of Iron Tusk, March Of The Fire Ants and Where Strides The Behemoth are largely lost on the blustering winds that persistently flutter this year's omnipresent orange flags. Similarly Motörhead, for a band renowned above all for an outspoken, unfortunately warted bassist, reel off a set indebted to late guitarist Michael 'Würzel' Burston that entirely lacks any bass oomph. Extended intros and a tiresome drum solo concluding In The Name Of Tragedy unhinge the clamorous ecstasy induced by Metropolis, Going To Brazil, Ace Of Spades etc. Another mob back for round two after a fallow year are Fred Durst's Limp Bizkit, who shudder through every last nu metal 'hit' as if it were Y2K all over again. Durst is as petulant as ever, swaggering from stage-left to stage-right in preposterously oversized basketball shorts and that bloody red cap. Opener Hot Dog highlights precisely how many aeons ahead of its menacing dirge Trent Reznor is these days, whilst My Generation is similarly vulgar, bulging with prepubescent faux-rage and yet more obscenity-strewn slurry. They protest to playing their hour-long show by ear, taking requests from the hordes gathered before their gaudy flashing moniker backdrop, despite a freakishly blacked-up Wes Borland chopping and changing guitars and DJ Lethal prepping tracks before Durst can grasp the opportunity to interact with the crowd. Every inanity that he spurts suggests that his brain was probably at its optimum capacity when he was brought into the world, and has been on a fairly steady decline ever since. Although as he requests to see forever more "boobies" and "titties" as the show wears on (and how it wears on) it appears that it's a rather different bodily organ with which he thinks, reacts and acts, before later musing on how "George Michaels" may take to their scrappy envisaging of Faith. Limp in the extreme.
Following the tragic passing of Slipknot founding member and bassist Paul Gray last summer, their return to UK shores always promised to be exceedingly emotional, although their strident Sunday night stint was rooted in a resolute positivity, a night of "celebration", both of Gray's life itself and of their revered back catalogue into which they dive headlong amidst hellish fire, wrath and fury. In the wake of the endless barrage of urban myths that've surfaced from their live show, the expectations of the neophyte are based upon blood, guts, relentless vigour and violence, and the air of precariousness that comes hand in hand with drink driving. Yet everything from the ritualistic, blazing torch stage-centre to the unremitting flames that are thrown overhead, from Gray's hanging jumpsuit, to the hydraulic platforms from which Sid Wilson, Chris Fehn and Shawn Crahan (or numbers 0, 3 and 6 respectively) gallantly hurl their torsos from throughout is formulated, carefully calculated to acute exactitude. Performing much of the set before the slogan: 'All Hope Is Gone', if tears were promised and the mood is initially sombre as the troupe saunter onstage to Iowa, Corey Taylor's emotionless mask looks suitably despondent, redolent of a corroded infantile innocence, as he digests the potent concoction of adoration and vehemence gushing forth from the mucky rows before him.

And then the optimism kicks in with the guttural chug of (sic) and the steadfast dissonance of Wait and Bleed as their omnipotence in their field, and indeed this field, becomes discernibly patent. For Slipknot are all but unloathable: they are to metal and its innumerable sub-genres what the Foo Fighters are to drivetime rock, what Jay-Z is to hip hop, what the Arctic Monkeys are to indie. Overtly accessible, and all the better for it: lurking within the safeguard of scratches, artillery-like kick drum ravaging and primordial, fist-thumping chanting, Before I Forget is a palpably titanic anthem. Similarly, the chorus to Left Behind is earth-shattering enough to send tremors hurtling towards the core of Dante's Inferno, despite the sound at times barely pervading the horizontal lashings that befittingly descend during Psychosocial. Towards the rollocking denouement to The Heretic Anthem, Wilson bolts for the sound desk, importunately demanding to crowdsurf a wave of mutilation, before hurling himself tenaciously from a 15-foot platform to the opening open-string mayhem engendered by Duality. The only moment of brutality witnessed then ensues, as upon gauging the course of the ebbing tide of seething, angst-ridden enthusiasts he rides, one grapples his poker-faced mask and is met with a ferocious thump or two. Spit It Out is greeted by more grunting than a decade within Tolkien's legendarium, a vast number 2 plastered behind Taylor et al. Humanity can of course be called into question when you're standing in a sodden field, mudded gunk underfoot, bellowing People = Shit with 60,000-odd fellow beings, particularly in light of the ceremonial poignancy that is to follow as the ensemble, touring bassist Donnie Steele included, assemble around Gray's vacant jumpsuit for commemorative photos to the poignant soundtrack of 'Til We Die. A set worthy of commemoration and indeed one that'll linger in the memory of all in attendance for the foreseeable future, the Iowan pioneers conjure an atmosphere apt of the end of the universe and of all existence (particularly beneath Biblical downpour), let alone another indubitably successful edition of the Sonisphere Festival...