Category Gig/Festival Reviews

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If day 1 came with some rain, and day 2 kept everyone in suspense, with big, black clouds constantly hanging above the city, the last day of Sonisphere was as bright and shiny as they come. The line-up was a more eclectic combination of bands than in the previous day – Anathema, Stone Sour, Alice in Chains and Rammstein, so the crowd wasn’t as large at first. Also, there were a few sound issues, something which had not occurred in the previous day (although people had complained about it after the Paradise Lost performance, on day 1).

Anathema

Anathema, who was first on stage, is a band that has performed in Romania many, many times before...

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Although in the last three or four years Bucharest has started showing up on the tour map of many notable artists, it’s not every day that you get to see all “big fours” (Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer and Metallica) on the same stage, on the same day. Historical events have happened before on a festival stage in Romania’s capital city – the first one that pops into my head is the Marilyn Manson/Alice Cooper double duet from 2007’s last day of B’estival – but a full day of good old school speed/thrash metal attracted an even larger crowd at the venue, one of the biggest I’ve seen at a Romanian festival so far.

Anthrax

They had a very short performance (about 45 minutes), but they were one of the most energetic bands from the festival’s line-up...

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Day 3 – Sunday

Saxon
Due to morning laziness, I only got to see the last 3 songs of their set. It would have been cool to see it all, since they played the entire Wheels of Steel to commemorate their 30th anniversary and 30 years of rock at Donington. Plus, Saxon performed at the first festival there, so it was quite special. They dedicated one of the songs to Dio and I was really happy to see Wheels of Steel live. Not many people were awake at that early hour, so the crowd was not quite up for such a show, in my oppinion.

Ricky Warwick
I tagged along with my friends to the acoustic stage to see the performance of Ricky Warwick, the next Thin Lizzy vocalist...

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Day 2 – Saturday

Sybreed
I was told by a friend to go and see them, so I took my only trip to the Pepsi tent. They excused themselves for their accent caused by their Swiss-French origin. The industrial rock that they played reminded me at times of Meshuggah maybe, with a lot of mixtures of black and death metal, but with a lot of electro/synth stuff that were a turn off for me and made me leave before the end of their show. I still remember the massiveness of their bassist whose last name is, ironically, Grand, and who made me think of a character from some SF series, and was doing some really cool bass tapping.

Flyleaf
I wanted to see Atreyu on the main stage, but they switched places with the Americans from Flyleaf. They are a female fronted band, with a mean looking bassist...

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DAY 1 — Friday

Anathema
The first concert I got to see (and I wanted to see) on Friday after I collected my wristband (by the way, it was a really huge queue for the weekend tickets) was Anathema, on the second stage. I always managed to miss them live and each time I heard they were so good, so I finally got to experience the quality of their music live. And, even if the show only lasted 30 minutes, I was delighted by it as they only got to play their biggest hits and got the crowd to clap most of the time. The female voice was astonishing and they dedicated their “A natural disaster” to Dio.

36 Crazyfists
I watched them from rather far away, as my main concern was to get acquainted with the area...

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A bit about the festival

Held usually during the 2nd week of June at the Donington Park motor circuit, close to Nottingam and Derby, UK’s Download Festival is a continuation of the Monsters of Rock festivals organised in the same place until 1996. It started as a two day event and expanded to 3 in 2005. The name comes from the idea of rock music being a rebellious genre, thus being against the music industry pressure who claimed the festival would destroy the industry. Along the years, the festival managed to always offer quite an impressive line-up, with big names split all over the stages, sometimes leaving one no chance of breathing between two concerts. The festival’s history can be read here.

The 2010 edition celebrated 30 years of rock festivals at Donington park; apart from this, th...