Festival report: Sonisphere Finland 2010

We went, we saw, we were drenched. Here's the story in brief.

The festival

First of all, "Sonisphere" is the dumbest name for a music festival I've ever heard in my life. Seriously. Secondly, the arrangements are barbaric. At least in the old days, when I went to festivals in Finland, you got yourself a ticket and they gave you a bracelet or something so you could come and go as you liked. Not so at Sonisphere: once you check in for the day, you can't check in again. So you're stuck in the small, cramped festival area, eating "pizzas" the size of CDs for 8e and drinking 6e pints of beer. Of course, bringing drinks of your own is prohibited. And this year too, they ran out of drinks, or at least non-alcoholic ones.

Overall, Sonisphere Finland is a dreary, poorly organized experience. It's a made-up festival; don't go.

The downburst

This year, Sonisphere Finland was hit by a freakishly strong downburst, meaning very strong straight-line winds and intense rain. We were right in the middle of it.

We were in front of the smaller stage, waiting for the Stooges to come on, when a thunderhead rocketed across the sky toward us. It started raining, and we thought what the hell, so we'll get wet. It's not like there's anywhere on the grounds you can really find shelter anyway. The rain got stronger, and a lot stronger, and rather alarmingly, it tilted. One minute the raindrops were falling on your head, the next minute they were hitting your back hard. Then it changed into hail. All I can say is it felt like somebody threw a bucket of ice at my back.

The whole thing lasted for maybe ten minutes, which we spent getting completely soaked and fairly oblivious to things around us. When the rain suddenly stopped, we saw both stages were ruined. Falling debris had totally trashed Alice Cooper's drums, and we later learned that all of Mötley Crüe's and the Stooges' stuff was destroyed in the storm. 40 people were injured, one of whom died later in hospital.

Although we came out of it uninjured, on the whole the downburst wasn't much fun either. If you're offered a chance to be in one, I wouldn't do it.

The bands

At one point, some people sitting next to us on the grass were going on about how great Slayer was. "They played all the songs exactly like they are on the albums!" Yeah. They did. It was mortally boring. And, sadly, so was Alice in Chains. They didn't connect with the audience at all, and the whole show was just indifferent. I'd been looking forward to the "new" Alice in Chains for a long time, and was really disappointed. Very dull, by-the-numbers performance.

As I said, the Stooges' stuff was destroyed by the storm. When Mötley Crüe heard their stuff was gone, they immediately left without playing a single song or even showing their faces. Which is ridiculous. Iggy, on the other hand, came on stage to say that they'll play whatever they can, given that their gear was destroyed and the stage was in ruins. Eventually, the roadies managed to hook up a guitar and a mike for Iggy, so he and their guitarist did a four-song acoustic set for us. They brought out the sax for "I Wanna Be Your Dog", but they didn't have a mike for it, so whenever Iggy finished a verse, he held his mike up to the sax so we could hear it.

It was awesome. I can now report that the Stooges totally kick ass. In a way, that experience alone was worth the price of admission. Of course, it also helped that Alice Cooper announced he's playing his full set no matter what, so as soon as the stage was cleared he did, and kicked ass too. Alice was simply great. Good, old-fashioned rock'n'roll from the man who invented shock rock.

Iron Maiden headlined the festival, and after an endless delay, they too eventually came on stage. I should admit that I don't particularly like the "new" Iron Maiden. Ever since Bruce came back, Maiden have felt like a tribute band to themselves, knocking out identical, massively boring records that just sound like ripoffs of "classic" Maiden. To make things worse, they played new stuff on this tour as well, including at least one track from their upcoming album, which lasted for hours and was terrible.

They were as boring as hell and their new music is frankly shit. On top of that, Bruce Dickinson is apparently so much in love with his voice that he would blather on at the audience for minutes on end. Shit, if I wanted to listen to an overweight airline captain tell bad jokes, I'd take a plane. Preferably somewhere Iron Maiden aren't playing. They're a bloated, boring parody of themselves.

So, to sum up, Maiden, Slayer and Alice in Chains sucked, the Stooges and Alice Cooper kicked ass, and Mötley Crüe are a bunch of faggots.

The trains

We left for the festival on Saturday morning. It turned out that someone had left the bow gate on the locomotive open, and it sank at Järvenpää. After waiting at the station for an hour, we got moving again, but without any air conditioning. The geniuses who've designed VR's current passenger cars haven't left a single window, hatch or aperture that can be opened from inside while the train is moving, so if the aircon isn't working, no air gets in or out. It was uncomfortable.

After another hour's wait at Hämeenlinna, we eventually got to Tampere well over two hours late, and missed our connection to Pori, thereby also missing the Cult.

The return trip wasn't any better. The festival train we were returning on had "Jazz train" signs on it, presumably because it's the same service they run from the Pori jazz festival. Jazz is gay, annoying and takes forever, so they were the right signs.

First, the train was delayed by hours because the festival was delayed, which is fine. However, the storm had knocked over several trees onto the tracks, and we had to wait for an incoming local train to clear the track because we could leave, leading to a delay of well over an hour. Once we finally got moving, we got as far as Tampere before the locomotive broke down and we had to wait for around an hour for a new one. In the meantime, everything was fine except for the vaguely piss-colored water swilling around the floor of the car.

After Tampere, we got a move on southward, and everything went fine until someone jumped in front of the train at Hyvinkää and got run over and killed. His body ended up right under my window, which I only noticed after it was covered up. Naturally, this led to another half-hour wait, and all in all we eventually arrived at Helsinki hours late.

With VR, you'll usually eventually get there, but remember this: The schedule is a lie.

Conclusion

Don't go to Sonisphere. Especially if Iron Maiden are playing.