Out in the campsite wilderness, there’s a man dressed as a tube of toothpaste and the bin-jousting tournaments are already in full swing. It’s only Thursday night. Hello again, Bloodstock, you many-headed metal beast.
Friday
Hanging out of our arses and praying for death, we limp towards the Ronnie James Dio stage to catch Nuclear Assault. It’s not the best start to the day. The veteran thrashers blitz through a decent chunk of their catalogue, but it’s sloppily delivered. Main-man John Connelly halts Trail Of Tears, saying “Sorry, that sounded like shit” before kicking off again. Oh well. Oaf are next.
A flock of inflatable seagulls has nestled in the confines of the Sophie Lancaster stage and our favourite seaside punk rockers churn out half an hour of bass-laden vulgarity. Dom Lawson’s screams border on satirical, James Rayment’s tweed-clad drumming is heinously horrible and Evil Scarecrow’s Dr. Hell pops along for a guest vocal during Fuck Off Seagull. All in all, Oaf’s set is a gluttonously grim serving of musical man gravy.
Following a much-needed burger and a cup of goat and/or virgin blood, the New Blood stage kneels to the majesty of King Leviathan. An unsigned thrash outfit hailing from Brighton, they have a touch of Revocation about them. Frontman Adam Sedgwick’s budget Dani Filth banter grates a little, but it doesn’t hinder the hulking weight of the music.
The weather is annoyingly un-metal as Belphegor assault the Ronnie James Dio stage. Corpse-painted, blackened death metal doesn’t really suit blazing sunshine but the Hellbound Austrians have a decent crack at it. The layered screams of In Blood – Devour This Sanctity are filthier than Satan’s colostomy bag and, on the whole, Belphegor have got this evil shtick down.
Enslaved are the Mean Girls to Belphegor’sRequiem For A Dream. Musically, it’s still pitch-black, but the Norwegians are up for a laugh in between caustic cuts from the vaults. Key-fingererHerbrand Larsen takes the lead on the proggier spells from ‘In Times’ and the crowd is suitably lubricated for an extra smattering of genius from Ihsahn.
The Emperor mastermind fights technical difficulties but still pulls a classic set from his sordid bag of treats. Drummer Tobias Ørnes Andersen looks about 10 but is the most precise tub-thumper this festival will ever harbour, weaving through the jazzy time-signatures of Ihsahn’s work with ease. A reworked Thus Spake The Nightspirit makes up for its expulsion from Emperor’s setlist last year and a new tune, My Heart Is Of The North, suggests that Ihsahn’s best days are still somewhere in that bleak thing we call the future. All the superlatives.
Slap us silly and call us Larry – Venom have just been announced as the first band for Bloodstock 2016. This calls for a celebratory beer. Booze ends. It’s time for the big boys to play. Sabaton amass an impressive horde for their full production, hauling along a tank and some pyro they probably nicked from Rammstein.
Vocalist/Bane impersonator JoakimBrodén grabs Bloodstock by the bollocks while delivering the usual power metal party tunes - Ghost Division, Primo Victoria and Night Witches all make appearances and No Bullets Fly receives its inaugural UK outing. There’s jumping, there’s shouting and there’s a fuck-tonne of confetti. When Sabaton return, they’ll be headlining.
Speaking of headliners, Trivium take the stage greeted by a crowd somewhat smaller than Sabaton’s. Opening salvo Silence In The Snow is hindered by Corey Beaulieu’s broken guitar, but the Floridianmetallers soldier on and deliver a decent set. The chant to In Waves and that key change during Dying In Your Arms will always be winners, but their set is a tad too polished and clinical for some fans’ liking, even if the band are terrifically tight and Matt Heafy’s clean vocals are close to perfect.
A live debut for Blind Leading The Blind provides another peek into their upcoming record, ‘Silence In The Snow’, but quite frankly we’re more interested in the conversation going on behind us: “And that’s what happens when you mix Viagra with LSD.” All right, chap.
Saturday
Day two. A man cannot live on brioche rolls alone, but there’s a pack of 24 in the tent and hunger flexes its malevolent claws. Fighting the urge to slip into a pastry-induced coma, we crawl back to the Ronnie James Dio stage for the second round.
Savage Messiah and Xerath are up first. The former put in a great performance but add nothing original to proceedings, while the latter suffer from tech difficulties but deliver an absolute blinder, melding chunks of Fear Factory, Meshuggah and Strapping Young Lad with a dollop of progression. Excellent stuff.
Ethereal arrive on the Sophie Lancaster stage and produce something closer to a damp fart than the majestic, otherworldly roar present on their debut, ‘Opus Aethereum’. Blasts of black metal fall short of the orchestral grandeur they exhibit on record, so we toddle back to the Ronnie James Dio stage and wait for Korpiklaani.
Folk metal’s always a pleasing prospect come mid-afternoon, so Korpiklaani’s slot in the sunshine reaps a ridiculous crowd. New track ViinamäenMies has all the “Hey Hey Hey!” bits you’ll ever need and it seems the entire county of Derbyshire is here to dance. By the time drinking anthem Vodka kicks in, a giant football is being hurled across the moshpit and a conga line crawls through the crowd like an unhygienic, alcohol-fuelled snake.
The antithesis to Korpiklaani are Napalm Death and, to put it politely, they tear Bloodstock six hundred and sixty six new arseholes. Barney Greenway’s grunts and random limb flailing have become staples of the Napalm Death experience, with guitarist Mitch Harris being replaced by the dreadlocked, “Munky from Korn” (apparently) Erik Burke. The brutal Brummies unleash a salvo of grindcore to an audience of equally bemused and enthralled punters and Dear Slum Landlord…, a cut from ‘Apex Predator – Easy Meat’, assures us that they won’t be playing it safe any time soon.
Seeing as we came from down the road and Burgerkill flew all the way from Indonesia, it only seems fair that we check out their slot on the Sophie Lancaster stage. Their dense, hook-laden thrash gets heads banging and bodies moving, leaving us with further hope of seeing them on British soil in the coming years.
“We’re going to play a song from one of the more hated Opeth records.” MikaelÅkerfeldt is on sterling form here, introducing jazzy number The Devil’s Orchard. In the hour they’re afforded, Opeth manage to make ‘Pale Communion’ songs sound a hell of a lot heavier than on record and the majestic, sweeping The Drapery Falls is, unsurprisingly, the centrepiece of the weekend.
The sun tiptoes underneath the Derbyshire countryside and night swallows the festival. Within Temptation headlined Bloodstock in 2005 – when it was an indoor affair too – and, since then, they’ve changed drastically. Songs from last year’s ‘Hydra’ are essentially pop songs with guitars, yet the likes of And We Run still get lungs tearing and arms raised. Props to the band for including Xzibit’s rap – balls of iron, man.
The symphonic metallers are the embodiment of headline material. Sharon den Adel goes for the customary wardrobe changes without doing a Rob Halford, the whole band’s tighter than a cat’s arse and, even when faced with a power outage during Ice Queen, Mike Coolen goes for a drum solo to keep the crowd from fidgeting. It’s an absolute triumph, but someone’s going to get a right spanking for that technical fuck up.
Sunday
The final slog. The sun – being the merciless bastard it is – lashes at our backs. There are no brioche rolls left. Sunday, let’s have you. The Sophie Lancaster stage sees Dead Label play to an annoyingly thin crowd. The Irish trio churn out a volatile brand of groove metal that’s simplistic and executed with the utmost conviction. This would be an absolute blast outdoors. Someone sort that out for next year.
Dead Label have gotten us all enthused and, in no effort to curb said enthusiasm, the Ronnie James Dio stage gets its arse handed to it on a bloody platter. Orange Goblin do what Orange Goblin do best and rock the absolute face off all in attendance, then Pro-Pain provide the now obligatory hardcore set of the weekend, igniting short, sharp blasts of New York nastiness. Sepultura rip through a set of classics, proving that, even 30 years into your career and with a bassist who is the spitting image of George Lucas, you can still slay an unsuspecting crowd with the likes of Arise, Roots Bloody Roots and Propaganda.
The brash folk metal of Ensiferum proves to be a crowd pleaser. There’s chanting, there are beards and women throwing beach balls from the stage. Set-closer and bastardised disco hybrid Two Of Spades is Ensiferum’s answer to Turisas’Rasputin cover, juxtaposing with Cannibal Corpse’s death metal racket, which comes afterwards. A man behind us notes that George Fisher looks like a slug when he’s headbanging. We accept this. Lawnmower Deth’s unbridled silliness then takes over on the Sophie Lancaster stage and you can’t argue with a packed tent doing the Hokey Cokey alongside homegrown thrash metal.
The party continues as Trepalium sulk on stage, bringing a much needed dose of boogie metal to Bloodstock. It’s tight, it’s technical and it’s got the entire tent clicking their fingers in a non-ironic manner. Oh, shit. Behemoth have been announced to play ‘The Satanist’ in full at next year’s Bloodstock. That’s our August plans sorted, then.
Redeeming himself after that shit-show of a Download slot last year, Rob Zombie tows none of his robots or pyro into town tonight – he just plays a rock ‘n’ roll show. Industrial arse-shakers like Superbeast, Pussy Liquor and the inevitable Dragula affirm his status as a world-beater, even though the Ramones and Alice Cooper covers could have been played from a jukebox, appearing with none of Zombie’s trademark chug.
The dude’s got ridiculous dance moves, John 5 is still the most underrated guitar player in metal and Piggy D’s crucifix-themed bass is going on our Christmas lists when we get home. Rob Zombie, you sang in time and didn’t miss out half the words. Well done. It’s probably time for a sleep, a shower and something other than brioche rolls now. See you next year, Bloodstock. You ‘orrible thing.
Early bird tickets for Bloodstock 2016, featuring Behemoth and Venom, are on sale now. Head here for more details.
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