Metallica & Linkin Park For Sonisphere! Galbraith Speaks!
Lamb of God, Mastodon and more set for Sonisphere!The festival season’s due to get red-hot this summer, and we’ve got the exclusive scoop with the man behind Sonisphere, the new two day festival set to take place at Knebworth on August 1st and 2nd!
Speaking exclusively to metalhammer.co.uk, veteran festival promoter Stuart Galbraith – whose CV includes previous work on events like the UK’s Download and Monsters Of Rock festivals – has confirmed the launch of Sonisphere festival, due to take place on August 1st and 2nd at Knebworth, England. Festival headliners have been confirmed as Linkin Park on the Saturday, and Metallica on the Sunday. Mastodon and Lamb Of God have also been confirmed with more announcements soon to come.
Why Knebworth?
Stuart Galbraith: “I spent a long time looking at Knebworth and I’m really excited. It’s the next chapter. We’ve done Monsters of Rock, we’ve done Download and since they lost that arena in the infield, I think that rock needed a new location and I think that Knebworth is it. The idea was to create a full-on camping festival, and that site has a great history. I mean Led Zeppelin’s last show was there, Queen’s last show with Freddie Mercury was there, Pink Floyd, these are huge bands.”
What’s the setup?
Galbraith: “We have one main arena with a stage at either end, nothing like stages next to each other like what you see at Reading. Our headliner for Saturday is Linkin Park, and our headliner for Sunday is Metallica, and the two backups are Mastodon and Lamb Of God, and they’re just the shape of what’s to come. The full lineup will include include some really special guests, and some really big surprises.”
Any hints?
Galbraith: “Let’s just say there will be killer special guests. We’re thinking quality, not quantity, and you’ll be able to see all of them. I think that Download for instance can get Slipknot and Prodigy, but then there’s the worry that they’ll be playing at the same time if you want to see both. We won’t have that issue. And we’re just running for two days, as I did with Download in 2002. I’d rather run two days of brilliant quality than stretch to three days. It’s all well and good having 100 bands over a weekend but some of those will be filler, and there will always be conflicts if you’re running five stages. So we’re going to run two outdoor stages, which is what we did in the latter stages of Monsters of Rock, and we’ll be alternating between one stage and another to keep the music continuous.”
That’s a heavy lineup – is Sonisphere a metal festival?
Galbraith: “It’s a rock festival – I wouldn’t limit it to metal, we’re broader than that but we’re not indie-schmindie. We’re not Arctic Monkeys or Radiohead.”
How will you set this apart from competing festivals like Download and Reading?
Galbraith: “The reason I think it’s going to work is that from my side of things, I’ve been involved in promoting festivals since 1984. I did Monsters of Rock for 12 years, I started Download in 2002, which went from two to three days, and I watched what happened with Download and I think they made a few fundamental errors. Download would have been better to take a year off last year and been honest with themselves, saying they didn’t get a decent bill together. That’s what we did with Monsters Of Rock where we took a year off saying we couldn’t do it. That experience has given me the confidence to make a new festival this year.”
What’s the capacity?
Galbraith: “60,000, which means we have space for everybody to camp. We’ll have early campsite arrivals at 3pm on Thursday, and checkout at midday on Monday. We’ll have a full-on experience: a cinema, a fair, market, jugglers – everything you’d expect at a full-on festival. We’ll also be running a campsite stage with brand new bands and DJ sets as well. And we don’t have a strict noise curfew like Reading or Download so the party can go until later. The idea is come and camp for a weekend and have a good time. I’m expecting a lot of people to come along just to come along for the vibe. We will also have Sonisphere festivals happening throughout Europe in the run-up to Knebworth in Holland, Spain, and Finland among others but Knebworth will be the biggest, grand finale of them all. And it’s only 45 minutes from London!”
For more information, check out Sonisphere’s ticket details and go to Sonisphere festival’s official site.
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looks like this may just piss on downloads bonfire
Not for £160 quid a weekend ticket it won’t.
And the no clashes thing looks god on first inspection, but I’d rather have clashes and more choice than no clashes and no choice at all.
beaudiful, hotel is booked – too old for camping now! bring it on, I hope Galbraith backs up the “quality” mantra with action.
I’ll definitely have to keep monitoring the situation and see what is announced later regarding Download. The guy seems to have decent credentials with previous experience re: Monsters of Rock and Bloodstock, although announcing Linkin Park as headliners and branding them “titans” doesn’t suggest much knowledge of the metal scene, about as much as Hammerfest referring to Bullet for my Valentine as “the titans of metal,” if titans is used in such a way it will have a whole new meaning soon! Metallica is clearly a solid announcement and Lamb of God are reasonable. As I say I’ll watch this space and keep a close eye on everything else, Bloodstock still looks the best so far with Enslaved, Satyricon, Amon Amarth, Saxon and others.
I may go for just the Sunday
I’m not a huge fan of Linkin Park so that doesn’t interest me that much, but we shall see who else is announced.
sounds gash
Need some quality scene bands man
Looks like an impressive line up at Stuart’s new Fest, but i have to say, if you take out the big h/liners and want a more welcoming festival experience, i am definately going to Bloodstock again this year, that completely blew my mind last year and was probably the friendliest festival i have ever been to, met loads of cool new bretheran and have arranged to see them again this year…….Line up is shaping up nicely as well…..
Both Download and Sonisphere are going to be the same price once you include camping at Download, so it’s all about line-ups. For me, if it’s between Def Lep, ZZ Top and Slipknot or Metallica, Mastodon and Lamb Of OMF God, there’s only one winner…
“Scannin’ the scene out in Knebworth tonight…”
Have no idea why they would have linkin park and metallica headline a new festival but hey linkin park are shit lol
[...] Sonisphere will take place on August 1st and 2nd at Knebworth and will be headlined by Metallica and Linkin Park. Get your Sonisphere ticket details and the full Sonisphere announcement, including an exclusive interview with Sonisphere organizer, Stuart…. [...]
Weak line up so far. Metallica’s not enough to tempt me to a festival.
Yeah it’s only 45 minutes from London, it’s about 4/5 hours from Newcastle though! Download’s strength is that it’s located centrally, like any national event should be.
Not sure where I’m going this year, Download I’d imagine though…
Ummm….Download had a great line-up last year, despite the relative weakness in headliners. It doesn’t matter so much there anyway, because you have 3 headliner slots to choose from each day, and always 3 bands to choose from. And more days, of course. And lots more bands. And more support of lesser known and up-and-coming bands (presumably what he refers to as ‘filler’!), so greater variety, not just bigger money for the ‘big boys’. It’s a shame SG has decided to build a ‘rival’ festival, and that it may draw some bands and people away from Download. That’s his decision though. Mine is to stick with Download. I completely disagree with the comments about fundemental errors – I think they are doing it the right way and moving forward, and that this festival is a step backwards to the old MOR days. MOR was great in its day, but things have moved on, and moved on in a way that is much better for the fans (in my opinion) and, with the support for smaller bands, much better for the long term future of rock music.
This is pointless, exactly the same as Download. GTFO.
Or why not go to Nijmegen for Metallica and Slipknot or Swedenrock for ZZ Top, Heaven&Hell and Motorhead – they are as easy as Knebworth or Donington from Scotland. Get it up ye, ya soft southern jessies.
You read this here first: NIN and Prodigy are also playing it.
[...] Check out the Sonisphere bill with Metallica [...]
im a big lp fan when they were rap metal/nu metal. but now theyve just turned to pop rock. im thinking they are going back to the rap-metal scene with this metal festival they are going on or something idk.
as good as metallica are and they are one of my favourite metal bands of all time, I WLL NOT BE PAYING £130-140 just to see them, LINKIN PARK as headliners! wat and absolute joke, theyre not even METAL, i call them PANSY ROCK-CRAP NU-METAL at best, TITANS of metal! LOL
that guy doesnt have a clue, the least they could have done is give REAL fans the option of only going to the sunday and not having to pay 130 just to see metallica, but as he knows full well, people wud hav only gone on the sunday as the headliners for saturday are weak at best, so they wud not make any money that day if they did that.
shud hav got GUNS N ROSES or someone of that caibre if he expects people to pay that sort of money as well as the rip off in-festival prices for drink and food!
Download suffered from the same cluelessness and shoddy organising from rip off merchants
[...] Check out our exclusive interview with the Sonisphere organiser Stuart Galbraith [...]
hmmmm five mins away from my house….yea i be there!
When I was a teenager Linkin Park was my favorite band, but now im in my mid 20’s and I think Linkin Park is getting old for my taste. The only reason they brought in Linkin Park is for assurance that they actually sell out the festival for Saturday because of their name. All they want is to generate revenue so they can pay for the use of the land. Remember even festival organizers have to eat.
not paying that for Linkin park headlining one of the days – not sure I will go to Download either yet – may just go the bloodstock as I am one of those people that like the filler bands such as Spineshank, bloodsimple, soilwork etc – in fact my highlight of Rock am Ring was 36CF
[...] and Linkin Park will headline this year’s Sonisphere festival at Knebworth Park on August 1st & 2nd. Get our interview with Sonisphere organizer Stuart [...]
Stop having a go at LP. I knwo tons of people that like them and their Pro Rev show in England was a 60000 Venue and it seemed pretty full to me. But I understand people might not like them, personally Im not too keen on Metallica, but they definately arent crap. But I still have the same problem as you lot, with the bands announced so far, I only want to go on Saturday, and dont really want to have to buy the £130 quid weekend ticket. Single day tickets or awesome bands on both days please!
LINKIN PARK ROCK!! METALLICA ARE ACE- GOING TO SEE METALLICA IN NOTTS THIS WEEK…AND SAW LINKIN PARK 4 TIMES WITHIN THE LAST 1 1/2YRS… BOOKED VIP TICKETS :O)…ROLL ON AUGUST…
Metallica & LP will be 2 great headliners at Kneb, but it’s simple: Download will have more choice and many more up & coming bands to check out…and the headliners look pretty good too! Download for me!
Hey band Please bring back With You Runaway Figure 09 and Hit The Floor FRGT/10 Nobody Listening, Ph5ing me A*wy High Voltage QWERTY A Place for my Head with brand new extended intros and new outros this summer for 2009. Play With You with extra brand new reanimation new intro live this summer. Play By myself reanimated live 2009. 1stp klosr back too. it will be great to bring the old songs back we want to come back with brand new intros and new outros.
Play With You Runawy Figure 09 Hit The Floor and A Place for my Head FRGT/10.
Ive got my ticket for Sonisphere at Knebworth
ive heard ALOT of rumours about the last three slots on the main stages ! The line-up is absolutely phenomenal so far!! Download was amazing, i didnt go because im going to sonisphere, but i love LP, B4MV, Metallica, Lamb Of God, NIN, Mastodon the list goes on !! And yes… i am aware alot of you are doubting wether linkin park should be in this festival at all, and i know they arent metal? but as it says above, this isnt a metal festival?