Sonisphere Poland 2010: Rated!

Bemowo, Warsaw - Poland

Gosia Jasinska - 18 June 2010

Overall - 8/10
Unlikely to ever reoccur again, in Poland at the very least, the Big Four of metal - Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer – joined forces for a once in a lifetime show that holds more significance than the coming of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

70,000 black-clad revellers took over Warsaw for the day as ideal weather, great sound and excellent views geared the event towards perfection - and it would have been if it were not for the back screens breaking down during Metallica, awful traffic in the city and thoughtless beer vending at the event.

Getting there and back - 3/10
Travelling to and from the festival proved almost as dramatic as the event: buses taking people to the northern part of the city were over-crowded, traffic was horrendous and those arriving by cars had to park kilometres away from the site and walk.

Getting back was even more of a pain as police closed the main street in front of the festival site and fans had to walk two kilometres to a crossing for return buses.

The site - 5/10
The site at Bemowo in Warsaw is perfect for a festival: big, spacious and comfortable to walk around but organisers could have done more as far as merchandise was concerned. There were a lot of food stands, but the prices were high, hence the small queues at the stalls.

The additional attractions such as the Harley-Davidson or X-Box tents were disappointing with their size and lack of amusement. The Guitar Hero bus was quite cool though. 
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The biggest failure of the festival were cages with beer vendors. The size of the two cages in relation to the number of festival-goers was ridiculous. The ability of buying beer even in the middle of a performance was limited. Later in the evening there were no rules as far as any queue was concerned and, it would seem, the prices as well. Everything depended on the certain beer vendor and his personal idea how much a tray of beer should be. The guards helplessly tried to prevent people from taking the beer outside of the cages but eventually the crowd won.

Music - 10/10
Poland’s own Behemoth kicked off proceedings with great stage presence and a roaring performance before punk metallers Anthrax really got engaged with the crowd and despite their age were a whirlpool of energy. Megadeth can be praised for their precision and obvious technical preparation though the crowd who were being blinded by the setting sun didn’t connect as well with them as they did Anthrax.

Slayer followed with their damaging sounds and a high-tempo show that made the crowd go wild. Metallica appeared with their typical entrance to Ennio Morricone’s ‘Ecstasy of Gold’. The set was full of fire and legendary hits with James Hetfield praising the previous bands for performing so well earlier in the day. Their power and energy was almost totally unbelievable for their whole two hours, wrapping up Sonisphere Poland in style.

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