Sonisphere Festival: Saturday Line-Up

Earlier this week I wrote about the start of Sonisphere Festival, and now I'm back to talk about the Saturday line-up. And the weather...

Saturday

Morning

Saturday announced its presence with the onset of some heavy rain battering our tent first thing in the morning. It took us a few minutes to find enough inspiration to get out of the tent in order to get some breakfast. This meant pulling on wellies and raincoats, although Mr. B left his boots in the car so we decided to make the trek back to the car park for the benefit of his feet.

On the way we decided to grab a couple of bacon rolls and coffees, an inspired choice to get us a little bit more enthused about the day and the miserable weather. After we picked up the wellies, we headed back to the tent to get changed.

Afternoon

The rain continued past noon, although there were soon breaks between the showers that actually brought us a bit of sunshine. We decided to brave the conditions and went into the arena to watch some of the bands, and arrived during Babymetal - probably the most bizarre thing I have ever heard. In short, there was one lead singer and two backing singers/dancers; all were young Japanese females wearing matching tutus, singing pop tunes to heavier instrumentals.

We then moved to the other stage to watch Chas & Dave (oh dear!) and got caught in an almighty rain shower that soaked my shorts through, despite wearing waterproofs. Luckily it brightened up for Ghost, which was worthwhile watching, again due to the slightly quirky approach to music. And outfits.

After all of the excitement, we decided to buy some lunch from one of the many food stalls, and settled on some chicken chow mein, which was also ideal to warm us up a bit. Lunch over, Anthrax made their way onto the main stage. We watched a bit before I decided that I really needed to change my wet shorts before the evening, so we snuck back to the campsite for a bit. Whilst there, we had a cheeky drink.

Evening

Back in the arena, we watched the whole of Frank Turner's performance, which went down really well despite being a less heavy choice for Sonisphere. Frank manages to gauge the audience and the general vibe, and his song choices and associating anecdotes were proof of that. Having seen Frank at a couple of other venues, I can safely say that he didn't underperform at the festival.

Hundred Reasons were playing the entirety of their album Ideas Above Our Station on the Saturn stage, which went down well with those who were familiar with their songs. Of course, bands like this will never appeal to all of the people who attend the festival due to the genre, but I suppose that is what the other tents and stages are for - there is something to cater to many different tastes.

Deftones were up next, and Mr. B enjoyed them. I have now seen Deftones twice, and I still just can't get on board with them, despite giving it a good chance. There is just something really depressing about Chino Moreno's voice, and I much prefer it when he is screaming during a song. Other than the singing, I do actually like the music being played. It was a good performance, but nothing that excited me the way other bands do.

Whilst Slayer were on the Saturn stage, we took the chance to get some dinner from Gourmet Burger Kitchen who had a couple of vans at the festival. Despite mixing up our order, we chomped our way through our burgers whilst sitting in the pit of the main stage ahead of Iron Maiden's appearance.

Their set was typically flamboyant, with plenty of flag waving and outfit changing. They played their way through many of their well known tunes, which had the audience singing along with gusto. Bruce Dickinson had already got the crowd on side as he had earlier taken to the skies in a WW1 plane for a re-creation dog fight; a very cool addition to the evening.

After a worthy headliner act, it was time to join the masses heading back to the campsite - this time through some muddy puddles!

There's still one day left for me to write about, so remember to check back here to read about Sunday's line up and headliners!