Some festivals start big and just accelerate. Download for instance had Iron Maiden as its first headliner, a statement of intent if there ever was one about the space that it wanted to occupy. Some however build from minuscule begins. The first Bloodstock was unrecognizable from the event we see today.  It was held indoors at Derby Assembly Rooms, it lasted just one day, it was headlined by Saxon (at the time as far from their heyday as they could get) and it attracted 700 people. However, it was a spark, a beginning, an opening gambit that has metamorphosed into a mainstay of the UK festival calendar. There has never been any colossal game plan for Bloodstock. It has just steadily grown year by year fuelled by word and mouth, a committed fanbase and a shared love of the music.

Most of us buy our tickets blind. We trust that Vicky and her minions will put a bill together with enough to satisfy our individual tastes. Every year without fail they get it spectacularly right. Somehow each and every year they manage to miraculously conjure up an undercard that speaks to all of metal’s varied tripes. Every year the naysayers complain that there is not enough this or too much that and every year it comes together in a glorious kaleidoscope of all the various flavours of metal. This year I was almost guilty of blasphemy myself, grumbling that there was too much core and not enough that I liked. But I really should have kept the faith and held my nerve because, with the addition of a Candlemass there and a Bossk here and a Triptiycon doing Celtic Frost there, they now have a lineup I am positively salivating about.

Bloodstock is about the music. We might drink ourselves silly and do things with bins that we are not meant to, but at the end of the day, we are all here for the music. You don’t frequent Bloodstock because you have heard a couple of Killswitch Engage tracks on the radio and thought you might check them out. You pilgrimage to Catton Hall because you adore In Flames and can recite the entire of “Clayman” word for word. Helloween probably have no more than ten thousand devote fans in the entire country, but I bet my signed copy of “Walls of Jericho” that every one of them will be in that field on Sunday Night. 

Bloodstock belongs to us, Vicky and Adam (and the plentiful teams behind them) merely curate it on our behalf. Yes, it's changed and yes it's grown and yes it has diversified, but then again so has metal. But what it has never relinquished is its commitment and connection to the music. So even if the band inhabiting the main stage is not to your taste, wander into the Sophie and the new band Stage because the high likelihood is that your favourite new band is lurking there just waiting for you. 

So many festivals feel like vast money-making machines that simply see metal as another market to saturate. Not Bloodstock. Fiercely independent, stoically un-commercial and unashamedly unfashionable, Bloodstock is a labour of love run by the same family that initiated it all those years ago. “For fans by the fans” is not just a meaningless marketing slogan, it is a doctrine and ideology.

My point is that Bloodstock is unlike any other festival. It is a sanctuary; it is a Keep and it is a Bastillion.  It’s a home-from-home for so many of us because it doesn’t sway to any particular flavour of the month and the latest trend. It quite simply provides the bands we want to see, the bands that they think we will like and beer, plenty of beer. It is a communal experience like no other. We attend because we love the music and because there is nothing more glorious than watching and listening to it in the company of others that truly get it.

Bloodstock Tickets