Sonisphere Festival

Sonisphere Festival
	; Main Stage at Sonisphere Festival in Kirjurinluoto, Pori, Finland.
Location(s)	Europe
Years active	2009 - present
Date(s)	June/July/August
Genre	Hard rock, heavy metal, alternative rock, punk rock
Website	www.sonispherefestivals.com

The Sonisphere Festival is a touring music festival which takes place across Europe between June and August. The festival is owned by John Jackson and Kilimanjaro Live. It is jointly-promoted by K2 and Kilimanjaro Live.^[1] It has hosted heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Metallica, Mötley Crüe, and Slayer.

Event history

The idea for Sonisphere was first conceived by John Jackson in the late 90`S. John chose the name Sonisphere, from a combination of Sonic and Sphere. In 2008 Stuart Galbraith had formed business partnership with AEG called Kilimanjaro Live. John Jackson approached Stuart Galbraith with the idea of a Pan-World touring festival which fit in with plans Kilimanjaro Live had to launch a UK festival. John Jackson is the Creator and Director of Sonisphere and Galbriath the Producer.

The first run of festivals ran throughout the summer of 2009 at six venues, returning in 2010 and 2011 with 11 venues.

Plans for future festivals consist of increasing the number of festivals, making the event global rather than local to Europe, expanding the UK event into a 3-day festival, and increasing the UK capacity from 40,000 to 60,000 attendees.^[2]

Sonisphere 2009

The 2009 Sonisphere festival tour was made up of six one-day festivals across Europe with a seventh festival in England spanning two days. The festival had a core group of bands that played each of the six dates with numerous extra bands added to each date individually. The locations for the 2009 festivals include Goffert Park, Nijmegen, Netherlands; Hockenheimring, Germany; The Forum, Barcelona, Spain; Folkets Park, Hultsfred, Sweden; Kirjurinluoto, Pori, Finland; and Knebworth House, Knebworth, England. Metallica were the main headliners for each of the 2009 Sonisphere Festivals.

Netherlands

The Dutch edition of the Sonisphere Festival took place on Saturday June 20, 2009 at Goffert Park, Nijmegen with headliners Metallica.

All bands who played at the festival include:

The following bands cancelled their appearance:

Mastodon could not make it to Sonisphere due to scheduling issues. This was announced at Sonisphere itself, although some^{[weasel words]} heard the news whilst traveling.

The Sword cancelled their show a few days before Sonisphere began.

Germany

The German edition of the Sonisphere Festival took place on Saturday July 4, 2009 at Hockenheimring with Metallica as headliners.

All bands who played for the festival include:

Spain

The Spanish edition of the Sonisphere Festival took place on Saturday, July 11, 2009 at The Forum, Barcelona with headliners Metallica.

All bands who played at the festival include:

Sweden

Jimmie Strimmell performing at Sonisphere Festival, Hultsfred, Sweden 2009

The Swedish edition of the Sonisphere Festival took place on Saturday July 18, 2009 at Folkets Park, Hultsfred with Metallica as headliners.

All bands who played at the festival include:

The following band cancelled their appearance:

Anthrax

Finland

Linkin Park performing at Sonisphere Festival in Kirjurinluoto, Pori, Finland.

The Finnish edition of the Sonisphere Festival took place on Saturday July 25, 2009 at Kirjurinluoto Arena, Pori with Metallica as headliners.

All bands who played for the festival include:

The following band cancelled their appearance:

Anthrax

Machine Head were forced to cut their set short, due to lead guitarist Phil Demmel collapsing on stage.

England

The British edition of the Sonisphere Festival took place over two days on Saturday, August 1 and Sunday, August 2, 2009, at Knebworth House, Knebworth with headliners Linkin Park (Saturday) and Metallica (Sunday). The festival featured four stages of music over the weekend, with the main two being staggered staging, the others being within the Bohemia village.^[3] The Bohemia stage (the third of four stages) was an undercover stage and was able to continue past the sound curfews placed upon the main stages. This was The Rev's final live performance as Avenged Sevenfold's drummer before his death in December 2009. It was also the last European appearance of Ronnie James Dio before he died of stomach cancer in May 2010.

Saturday	Sunday
Apollo Stage
Linkin Park Heaven & Hell FACT Anthrax Taking Back Sunday Alien Ant Farm	Metallica Nine Inch Nails Limp Bizkit Machine Head Lamb of God Killing Joke Buckcherry

Saturday	Sunday
Saturn Stage
Bullet for My Valentine Airbourne The Used Björn Again Skindred Soil	Avenged Sevenfold Alice in Chains Feeder Mastodon Saxon Paradise Lost

Saturday	Sunday
Bohemia
The Wildhearts Thunder Fucked Up Rolo Tomassi Oceansize Coheed & Cambria Flood of Red Twin Atlantic Fighting With Wire Failsafe Glamour of the Kill Sylosis Blakfish Telegraphs	Hundred Reasons Zebrahead Pepper Architects Cancer Bats Little London Corey Taylor Lauren Harris Dead by April Attack! Attack! Rise to Remain

Saturday	Sunday
Jägermeister Stage
Young Guns Exit Ten Blackhole New Device Fin The Dead Formats	Heaven's Basement The Defiled Young Guns The Crave Sharks Me Vs Hero Dear Superstar

Dead by Sunrise appeared on the Apollo Stage on the Saturday night as part of Linkin Park's encore.
Coheed and Cambria were late arriving, due to them missing their ferry and as such were moved onto the Bohemia stage to play a later slot originally intended for the band FACT. As such, FACT played the Apollo stage, to a less than warm reception.
Blaas of Glory, a gypsy-style cover band, performed a small set on the Saturn stage on the Saturday before Soil.
Lamb of God's guitarist Mark Morton missed the band's slot on 2 August as his wife was due to give birth around that time. Unearth's Buz McGrath filled in for him for the band's show at Sonisphere UK.^[4]
Nine Inch Nails performance was their last ever in Europe as they are set to stop touring at the end of their current tour after 20 years.
Thunder played their last ever set as well after 20 years of performing.
Anthrax played what was billed as a one-off show with former vocalist John Bush as the originally intended vocalist, Dan Nelson, was no longer part of the band.
Machine Head pulled out when Limp Bizkit's addition bumped them down the bill; however, they did return to play the fourth slot on the Apollo stage as Special Guests.

Band dropouts

Frank Turner pulled out for undisclosed reasons, though he has claimed to fans that he was forced to choose between this festival and Leeds and Reading festivals, ultimately choosing the latter.
The Sword pulled from the line-up because they were exhausted.
Fear Factory cancelled tour dates for what they claimed to be recording of a new album, but was ultimately found out to be legal disputes over the use of the name Fear Factory.
Thin Lizzy pulled out as the band parted ways with guitarist-vocalist John Sykes.
The Chapman Family were removed from the line-up for undisclosed reasons, though later appeared on the Reading/Leeds line-up.
Dinosaur Pile-Up were removed from the line-up for undisclosed reasons, though later appeared on the Reading/Leeds line-up.
Dirty Little Rabbits pulled out before the festival due to their drummer suffering from exhaustion after months of touring with Slipknot.
The Ataris pulled out after one of their members contracted swine flu.^[5]
Machine Head were originally billed to play the third spot of the Apollo stage on the Sunday, but pulled out after Limp Bizkit being added to their spot caused disputes over their placement. However, these disputes were settled and Machine Head did, in fact, return to play fourth spot on the Apollo stage.

Sonisphere 2010

The Sonisphere 2010 tour visited eleven locations around Europe between June 16 and August 8, 2010. The locations for Sonisphere 2010 were Poland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Turkey, Spain, United Kingdom, Sweden and Finland. Unlike in 2009, there was not a full touring headliner performing each date. The headliners for 2010 were Iron Maiden, Metallica and Rammstein.

Poland

Warsaw, Poland was the host city for the first of the 2010 festivals; that was first announced on December 9, 2009. The 2010 Sonisphere in Poland took place on June 16, 2010. Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax, bands which make up the big four of thrash metal, played together for the first time.^[6]

The bands that played there were:

Switzerland

Switzerland was the second nation to host the Sonisphere festival in 2010 with the event taking place at Degenaupark in Jonschwil on June 18, 2010.^[7]

The bands who played in this area were:

Czech Republic

Czech Republic hosted the festival in Milovice on June 19, 2010; this was also a one day festival. Metallica headlined this event.

The bands who played in this area were:

Bulgaria

Bulgaria held its first Sonisphere over two days in Sofia on June 22 and 23, 2010. The venue was the Vasil Levski National Stadium.^[8]

22 June 2010	23 June 2010
Sofia Rocks Powered by Sonisphere Festival
Metallica Slayer Megadeth Anthrax Bastardolomey	Rammstein Manowar Alice in Chains Stone Sour Skre4

This concert was also broadcast live around the world in movie theaters as part of the Big Four Tour. This was the first time in their history that all four bands played together on one stage, performing the Diamond Head song "Am I Evil?".^[9]

Greece

The Sonisphere festival in Greece was held on June 24, 2010 at Terra Vibe Park in Athens in front of 30,000 people.^[10]

The bands who played in this area were:

The Big Four did not all play together.^{[citation needed]}

Romania

Romania held the Sonisphere festival from June 25 to 27, 2010 in Bucharest at Romexpo.

Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Accept	Metallica	Rammstein
Manowar	Slayer	Alice in Chains
Volbeat	Megadeth	Stone Sour
Paradise Lost	Anthrax	Anathema
Orphaned Land	Vita de Vie	Luna Amara

Turkey

Turkey held the Sonisphere festival at the same time as Romania: June 25 through 27, 2010. This part of Sonisphere was at the BJK İnönü Stadium in Istanbul.

The bands who played in this area were:

Metallica
Rammstein
Accept
Slayer
Megadeth
Anthrax
Manowar
Alice in Chains
Stone Sour
Volbeat
Hayko Cepkin
Pentagram
Foma
Blacktooth
Gren
Ete Kurttekin

The Big Four were on the stage one after another, but did not play altogether.

The programme for events was as follows:^[11]

Friday, June 25

Rammstein 21:00 – 23:00
Alice in Chains 19:00 – 20:00
Pentagram 17:30 – 18:30
Stone Sour 16:15 – 17:00
Blacktooth 15:00 – 15:45
Ete Kurttekin 14:00 – 14:30
Door Opening : 13:00

Saturday, June 26

Accept 21:00 – 23:00
Manowar 19:15 – 20:15
Hayko Cepkin 17:45 – 18:45
Volbeat 16:30 – 17:15
Murder King 15:30 – 16:00
Door Opening : 14:00

Sunday, June 27

Metallica 21:00 – 23:00
Slayer 19:00 – 20:00
Megadeth 17:30 – 18:30
Anthrax 16:15 – 17:00
Foma 15:15 – 15:45
Gren 14:15 – 14:45
Door Opening : 13:00