Hardcore heavyweights go hard at Sonisphere Knebworth.

A regular fixture of the festival season for the last few years, it’s almost gotten boring to report just how much chaos Gallows can cause with one set but when today sees the band open up a circle pit that is quite literally the size of the stage area that they’re playing to, the UK hardcore mob reach new levels of brilliance. With Frank Carter crowd surfing from the stage to stand triumphant on the mixing desk during a storming In The Belly Of A Shark and then surfing his way back to the stage, the chaos is just as poignant from the boys onstage as it is from this bat-shit mental audience. With blokes in their 50’s singing songs about strip clubs they used to frequent 30 years ago, watching Gallows rip through London Is The Reason, Orchestra Of Wolves and Leeches has never felt more vital. Gallows never miss at events such as this and today was absolutely no exception.

Read our Sonisphere review of Pendulum, Ghost Of A Thousand and Turbowolf

Halfway through their set today, Converge’s enigmatic frontman Jacob Bannon apologises for the technical issues the band are incurring with their sound but either the beer we’re being served is super-strength or we’re missing something because the hardcore legends sound incredible from where we’re standing. Not wasting a second, the US mob tear through tune after tune, baying for blood and managing to make a tent of some considerable size seem intimate through sheer intensity. Ben Koller is one of the most impressive musicians in the game and Bannon himself is a perfect combination of effeminate flamboyance and hard as nails cool. Impressive stuff as always.

Read Hammer’s Sonisphere review of The Cult, Kvelertak and Heights