11am on Friday 3rd Decemeber saw the announcement that Slipknot will be one of the headliners for next year's Sonisphere at Knebworth. I rediculously happy about this! Slipknot are one of the best bands you can ever see live. Their live performances are spectical to be held.

We're looking forward to spending our summer in Europe. This tour is about us and our fans. It’s about celebrating the life of our brother, Paul and his legacy. The door is neither open nor closed. This tour is about burning down that door. See you this summer.

Slipknot

The next announcements are due on Monday and following this announcement it's going to be amazing. More information can be found on the offical Sonisphere site. ...SLIPKNOT

A few weeks ago my friend, Rob Greaves, asked if I could get my uncle to answer a few questions about Sonisphere for a background feature he had to write for university. My uncle was happy to do so. Having read the article I thought it's really well written so asked Rob if I could publish for him. He went for it straight away so here it is.

About the Author: Rob Greaves studies Popular Music with Journalism at the University of Northampton.

Music festivals are nothing new, especially when it comes to hard rock and heavy metal; the first Glastonbury festival was held in 1970, and the first Monsters of Rock festival was in 1980. But a new festival has arrived, with intent to take over the world.

Sonisphere Festival may only be being run for its second year in 2010, but it has already achieved some spectacular things; foremost of which is being the first ever globally touring rock and heavy metal festival ever. Locations for Sonisphere include Greece, Sweden, the Czech Republic, the UK, Poland, Switzerland, Finland, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Spain. John Jackson is the Series Creator and Director of Sonisphere and has big expectations for this year's festival; "Our licence is for 50,000 (people) per day and we will sell out all 3 days". "In the UK we have expanded the festival to three days whilst keeping the same two day price as last year."

Heavy metal as a genre of music began over 30 years ago as a darker, more sinister branch of hard rock. Black Sabbath are widely regarded as the genres main pioneers, alongside bands like Led Zeppelin and Alice Cooper who also had major influences on the scene. As the years passed, heavy metal began becoming more popular with bands like Judas Priest giving a more melodic and energetic edge to the sound. During the 1980's heavy metal began to get faster, darker and more aggressive, as well as more diverse. Metal began to generate a definite split between its sub genres; this included Thrash metal, Doom, Death metal and Glam, amongst many others. Whilst Thrash and Glam became increasingly popular, a lot of the metal scene became too extreme for many people and sank into the depths of the underground. Heavy metal has been slowly disappearing from the mainstream music scene since the 1990's, but still has hundreds of thousands of followers worldwide who love nothing more than to get together and celebrate heavy metal together, as a community. To metal lovers, it is no longer just a genre of music; it is something to be lived and breathed, and that is what festivals are all about. These festivals are about a mass of like-minded people enjoying their music together, and Sonisphere Festival is taking this idea and escalating it worldwide.

There are already a number of rock and metal festivals held across the globe every year, including Wacken Open Air in Germany, Hellfest in France and Graspop in Belgium. The UK hosts many well renowned metal festivals too, including Bloodstock and the notorious Download festival. But not only is Sonisphere the first ever global festival, they have another claim to fame that will draw most metal fans to this monumental event. "At the new European Sonisphere festivals in June we have managed to put together the legendary Big Four thrash metal bands Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax for the first time in history on one stage," John explains, "something that I am particularly proud of. As we were unable to arrange this line-up for the UK we offered a special deal whereby early buyers of Knebworth tickets were given a ticket to see The Big Four at Poland Sonisphere for free. This has proved to be very successful and indeed Sonisphere Poland is on course to draw 100,000 (people) on its debut."

Although the idea of a worldwide, touring festival was originally John Jackson's idea, the Sonisphere festival is a joint venture with Twin Peaks Ltd, and ex-Live Nation managing director Stuart Galbraith's company, Kilimanjaro Live. Alongside local partners for each country the festival takes place in, primary funding is from the AEG (the Anschutz Entertainment Group). The cost of this years festival is in the tens of millions (USD).

Although the line up changes slightly depending on which leg of the festival you attend, the line-up remains mostly the same throughout the tour so the experience and atmosphere remains largely the same no matter where you are in the world and nobody has to miss out. The UK headliners this year are heavy metal pioneers Iron Maiden, and Alice Cooper along with a UK festival first for Germany's pyrotechnic-mad Rammstein. The Finnish festival will be headlined by Iron Maiden too, but alongside Finland's own HIM. "In Finland we have expanded the festival to two days," explains John, "due to the massive demand of last year's first festival which sold out 60,000 in a day." The 'Big Four', Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax, will headline the festival in Switzerland, Greece, Poland and the Czech Republic.

This feature was written by Rob Greaves and published with permission.

So the annoucement came today, right when it was supposed to. Several annoucements came today but the most important is the headliners ofcourse. For the Knebworth, UK festival it will be Iron Maiden and Rammstein. Now that's a great first annoucement. The other bands that have so far been announced for Knebworth are Alice Cooper, Motley Crue, Slayer, Anthrax, The Cult, and Iggy and the Stooges.

The other annoucement that came today is that there will be more events. This year there will be 11 festials, 5 of which are weekenders compared to 6 events with one weekender in 2009. Poland is the only other event that has had any bands announced. Warsaw will see Metallica headline with Slayer, Anthrax, Mastodon, and Behemoth. They don't get Iron Maiden or Rammstein but Metallica who headlined all the events last year. To me it looks like the new events will get Metallica headlining as they cannot really headline 2 years running.

List of Sonisphere 2010 Dates

• Warsaw, Poland 16th June (new)
• Zurich, Switzerland 18th June (new)
• Prague, Czech Republic 19th June (new)
• Sofia, Bulgaria 22nd - 23rd June (new)
• Athens, Greece 24th June (new)
• Bucharest, Romania 25th - 27th June (new)
• Istanbul, Turkey 25th - 27th June (new)
• Barcelona, Spain 10th July
• Knebworth, United Kingdom 30th July - 1st August
• Stockholm, Sweden 7th August
• Pori, Finland 7th - 8th August

Now that's a lot of dates! Last year there was also The Netherlands or Germany on the tour but for 2010 there hasn't been any news. I can't see any room on the tour for them.

So we rock up to Knebworth for the first UK Sonisphere Festival on the Friday about 11am but get to the wrong entrance. The sign posts weren't good *cough*missing*cough* for anyone not coming down the A1(M). But after being directed on to the A1 we found the signs to the VIP camping which happened to be off a roundabout we had already passed a half hour before. Anyway we really rock up to the camp site and crack open the beers on a really nice sunny day. We do the usual festival stuff, drink tents and more drinks. The camp-site was nice, it was right behind the main stage, although the toilets quickly got a worse than normal stench. Well since it was just the guys it was fine. After many drinks later I was told to move my car... damn... it was in a nice spot. Luckily being private property I could move it without the 'rozzers' hassling me. Few more drinks later we headed down to the arena to take a look around and to meet up with my uncle who was dressed up as a spaceman. He got us into the FMC party where we stayed. The party was good, nothing but quality music. The rock karaoke was a laugh. Some funny drunk metal heads singing, priceless. Unfortunately Neil didn't got to sing his song. Never the less it was fun.

Saturday morning started with sausages, tea and beer. The BBQ that I bought worked perfectly. The first band on stage was Soil but just before that Blass of Glory came on. These funny Dutch guys came on with loads of different instruments and played a few songs including Ace of Spades. A perfect way to start the festival. Soil came on and boom! The base on the second stage was awesome. Soil were good and they played Halo, which everyone was waiting for, last. Was great. After Soil was the first test of the alternating stages. Bit of a pain if you really want to be at the front for two bands that are next to each other in the line up but it worked fine. Alien Ant Farm were next. They were good. My friend Matt was taking photos and took one at the exact moment when the lead singer (I've always called him monkey boy) got his wang out. If you want to see the picture it'll be on Sonisphere pictures page. AAF were good. They obviously played Smooth Criminal last but I was surprised that they didn't mention Michael Jackson.

Back to the second stage we saw Skindred. Not a band I was really interested but I'll give them their do's they sounded fine. Now Taking Back Sunday. I thought they've got a couple of songs I can vaguely remember being all right however their performance was a let down. The vocals were so weak and not at all in tune. The band were fine but the singer let them down big time, and he kept doing some weird thing with his hand that was just annoying. I'd say the only thing he did good was swinging the mic around. We still had a fun time while they played because Ian was annoying Neil (brothers) big time by pretending to be enjoying Taking Back Sunday. None of us really did but Neil looked discussed. After the disappointment that was Taking Back Sunday it was Bjorn Again. Oh man! They were class! I never thought I'd see so many metal fans rocking out to ABBA. It was great. Everyone was singing along. Bjorn Again were such good fun and the two girls had some legs on them. Their best bit had to be their cover of Metallica's Enter Sandman. Bjorn Again equal a bloody good time.

After that we checked out the VIP area where we meet Alien Ant Farm and Soil and where I put in an embarrassingly short time on the mechanical bull. Then back to the camp-site for a few beers and some burgers. Yummy. The last two bands of the day were Bullet For My Valentine and Linkin Park.

Bullet seemed OK but we only really caught the end of it as we sheltered from the rain. About 15 minutes before Linkin Park were to start I receive a text for my uncle about meeting up. I thought it was a chance see my cousins and possibly to meet Linkin Park before they went on stage. Unfortunately this turned out to be a wild goose chase as we couldn't find them. It turned out we didn't have the right passes so couldn't get to the meeting point which was the K2 tent. So after that run around we still had plenty of time to get pretty close to the stage before Linkin Park started. And as soon as the first pit opened we were able to dash through and in the end made it to within 3 rows of the front. The sun was just going down making a really nice setting for LP. Linkin Park were fantastic. As a long time fan of them you'd expect me to say that but it was completely true. In The End and New Divide were my highlights for their set. We all loved them. Unusually, before Linkin Park's encore, Chester brought on his new band Dead By Sunrise. I was all for having a listen and the were fine. Different to LP but seemed good and I plan to have another listen to them when I get the chance. It was a bit bad that the crowd chanted "Link-in-Park" after each of Dead By Sunrise's songs but I can see why they would do that. Linkin Park's set was awesome. Back to the camp-site for more beers, BBQ and bed.

Saturday as a whole was a great day all round. I was disappointed to not have met up with my cousins but my uncle was a very busy man and I did get to see them on Sunday. The highlights for me had to be Soil - Halo, Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal, Bjorn Again and last but by no means least, Linkin Park.

Here's the videos I recorded of the bands at Sonisphere, Knebworth House, UK. There's 15 in total, 7 on Saturday and 8 on Sunday. You can also check them out on my YouTube channel. Please rate and comment!

YouTube Link: Sonisphere Festival, Knebworth, UK, 2009

Sonisphere Sunday 2nd August 2009

Artists: Feeder, Limp Bizkit & Metallica.

YouTube Link: Sonisphere Sunday 2nd August - Feeder, Limp Bizkit, Metallica