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1-2 August saw the inaugural Europe-wide Sonisphere festival touchdown at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, UK, painting a green and pleasant corner of England a decidedly darker shade.

On arrival on Saturday, the finale of the touring heavy metal pageant that began in Nijmegen in the Netherlands on 20 June feels somewhat sedate. The Knebworth site is compact, yet there's still plenty of space to sit down away from the writhing masses in front of the Apollo and Saturn stages.

Despite their set coinciding with the sky collapsing on our heads and a spate of poncho panic-buying, Aussie rockers Airbourne provide the day's first real highlight. Their refried AC/DC chic may be far from cerebral, but sometimes you need a bare-chested man to climb a 50ft speaker stack and play a guitar solo on top of it in order to distract you from the rain.

"Something brilliant has happened: we emerge from the Bohemia tent to find that it has stopped raining."

As if sensing our inability to resist a cheesy slice of wordplay, the heavens remain open for Heaven & Hell. Ronnie James Dio's voice is clearly still in great shape – certainly better than Ozzy's these days – but despite the band and riff-lord Tony Iommi in particular putting in a killer performance we can't help wanting to hear Dio's Holy Diver or a Sabbath classic like War Pigs.

The apocalyptic hue of the skies above would certainly have provided a suitably foreboding visual accompaniment. Is it really August?

We head to the Bohemia tent for some welcome respite from the rain and arrive in time to see Oceansize being forced to undertake a prolonged, undignified line check in front of a couple of thousand people. Frankly, they deserve better, and their all-too-brief set crams more invention and visceral thrills into five songs than many bands manage in a headline set.

Something brilliant has happened: we emerge from the Bohemia tent to find that not only has it stopped raining, but the sky has turned sixty shades of pink and orange. As the sun sets, it's squishy underfoot, but certainly not a mudbath from a Pilton veteran's perspective.

So then to the Apollo stage and day one's biggest draw: Linkin Park. In the weeks before the festival, Chester Bennington talked a very good game, promising to "kick some ass" and possibly even come away clutching the Best Live Band In The World title belt.

Sadly, the execution is lacking and the set sags horribly in the middle. When the hits come out they sound dated and the absolute nadir sees Bennington drag his Dead By Sunrise side project onstage for an encore that no-one in the crowd seems to be shouting for. They proceed to rattle through an incredibly lame Nirvana rip-off before being sucked into an ego vortex visible from space.

By the time Linkin Park close their set with One Step Closer, we're on our way back to the Bohemia tent to see Brit hard rockers Thunder play the last ever show of a twenty year career. Singer Danny Bowes is in fine voice and though they may be about as cool as Jeremy Clarkson in a hot tub, several thousand people drunkenly wailing along with Love Walked In don't care one bit.

Thunder's swansong is followed by a set from the The Wildhearts and somewhere in the blur of I Wanna Go Where The People Go we wonder if it really is 2009 after all. It must be time for bed.

Next page: Tea, toast and Limp Bizkit

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