An awesome weekend overall. I’m completely shattered right now. I would go straight to bed but I have to hang on and get my sleeping patterns back to some sort of normality. Anyway, a whole fuckload of highlights and pretty much no lowlights so I’m fairly pleased with all that.
A quick round up with most to be expanded on later.
Two absolute standouts for the weekend, both fairly unexpected.
System of a Down. That was just amazing, I thought they would be ok but the entire set from start to finish was astounding. Very disappointed that due to time problems there was no encore, the set to then was mind blowing. I had major doubts abot them being a headliner. Slipknot before them were so fucking good (more on that later), I didn’t think SOAD had a chance to top them but they just came out to Soldier Slide and straight into B.Y.O.B. and the crowd lost it. Loved it and I’ll happily happily go and see them again.
This one I suspect will come as a bit of a surprise. It did to the lot of us, we just went along because it was that or Feeder and so it wasn’t much of a choice. Billy Idol headlined the second stage and he was the fucking business. A whole ago Holy Moly said that he’d be the comeback of the year and of course everyone scoffed. About 3 songs in, the whole tent was with him and then there was the pure genius that was a cover of Van Halen’s Jump. It was sealed, I don’t think another act was even talked about for the rest of the night and all around the campsite was the question; “did you see Billy Idol?”. Fucking sold, he’s touring here later in the year and I’m so there.
Honourable Mentions.
Slipknot. Awesome show, more than deserve a headline slot. Joey Jordison on stage right after Dave Lombardo and he just drummed him away. Stunning piece of work.
Bowling for Soup. Wow, Just an excellent set. Not so much about the music as about the people and making the crowd have a good time and leaving people with a smile on their faces.
My Chemical Romance – Lots of buzz, pretty well deserved. Good solid stuff, lots and lot of crowd going for’em
Trivium – Fantastic start to the day. Some proper metal
Velvet Revolver – ‘Nuff Said.
Henry Rollins – Standup for about 30 minutes. Good good stuff. I wasn’t into him at all before but I’ll go check him out next time.
Good stuff.
Queen Adreena.
JJ72.
Mad Capsule Markets.
Garbage.
Megadeth
Anthrax
Slayer
Helmet – vaguely early Metallica with ramped up vocals. Good good stuff, I want to check ’em out some more.
Shadow’s Fall – looked and sounded like goth wank. We were going to head off but had to wait for someone and ended up staying. Glad we did, good solid proper metal.
Papa Roach –
Shite
The Dwarves
Altered Bridge.
Nightwish. Fuck off you late pricks. Slayer got bumped for this last year and we have to wait for you?