Live Review : Bloodstock Festival on August 9th 2024

Friday beckons fourth with almost perfect Festival weather. Warm, but also enough breeze and cloud cover to stop the place becoming a perpetual oven. Friday may well be packed with many musical gems, but really it is all about one band, who aren’t even playing, Motörhead. Today is the day that Lemmy becomes a permanent part of Bloodstock lore, with a proportion of his ashes placed on site in a specially commissioned bust. The ceremony to invest the final resting place for some of his remains is an emotional affair. Even though he only played the festival once, Motörhead is part of Bloodstock history as it is through them and that appearance that Festival booker Vicki met her husband Adam. The audience is huge as the sculpture is unveiled and you can feel the emotion coasting through the gathered hordes. Lemmy was, and still is, the personification of metal. He alone encompassed the beautiful excess and raw energy of our music. He is missed, but he lives on and the everlasting perpetual presence is felt across the whole festival. 

However, we are skipping ahead. Going back to the start of the day, the crowd is in good spirits and keen to dive into the veritable all-you-can-eat buffet of molten metal. Häxan confirm to the convention that the trio is the perfect formation for maximum rock n’ roll. Hailing from South Wales they are alumni of the much smaller Jägermeister stage. They use the additional space that the Sophie Lancaster stage affords them well, and Sam Bolderson and Harriet Wadeson both shimmy around the place with both conviction and confidence. They trade in classic rock with a distinctly modern texture, big choruses and glorious refrains, but there is enough grit in the tank to stop it from feeling formulaic or derivative. Most importantly they hold their own in a particularly packed market by being personable and highly proficient.

Over on the Ronnie James Dio Stage Desert Storm are having a veritable ball. Their doom/sludge cocktail is the perfect tonic for a rapidly growing crowd that went far too hard on the first night. They would admit themselves that they aren't spring chickens (they have knocking around in one form or another since 2007 and their various members have pedigree preceding that) and that assurance and brazen world-weariness means that they are unfazed by either the size of the stage or the crowd.  Vocalist Matt Ryan seems to be having a particularly good day at work, bantering with the crowd, slamming into his band mates, and pulling a feast of uncanny facial expressions that get elongated on the big screen. Heavy enough to rattle fillings across the field but also nuanced enough to leave space for the music to breathe they make quite the impression on the early doors crowd.

Back on the Sophie Lancaster stage, Burner are busy merging hardcore with a veritable list of genres. Their riffs are guttural and angular but there is much more depth and shade at play here than you usually get in this particular corner of the Metal fraternity. Vocalist Harry Not stomps around the shop with real intent and there is an overall impression of death metal deconstructed and pumped full of punk sensibility. Watch our interview HERE.

Nervosa are known as much for their ever-changing lineup than they are for being purveyors of premium thrash, which is a real shame as they are really really good at what they do. As you would expect as the one constant in the band, everything revolves around Guitarist and vocalist Prika Amaral. She spits out the words with venom, pulling scary scouring expressions that would curdle milk. But as each track culminates, she bursts into a beautiful smile that lights up her face and reveals her utter joy at being able to do this for a living. You see Prika has grafted to make Nervosa work, even relocating herself from her native São Paulo to Europe to give the band more touring opportunities. Their brand of thrash regularly strays into Death Metal territory and they provide a highly enjoyable forty minutes of high-octane metal. 

DeathCollector are an absolute revelation. Formed in those far-off Covid days by several seasoned musicians as a way of staving off boredom and collaborating online, they have fallen upon a version of death metal that feels particularly fresh and exciting. Yes, it has all the trappings of the trad Death Metal that we all know and love, BUT there are melodic traits that give it additional layers of textures. Add to that a potent energy that feels particularly infectious and you end up with a marvellously contagious version of a genre that it looked like there was nothing new to do with it.

Green Lung pull the first super crowd of the weekend. It may well still be just shy of noon, but the audience gathered not just matches but surpasses many of the headline gatherings seen here in the past. This is all because Green Lung are something very special indeed. They are a true crossover band in that they as much appeal to the 6 music crowd as they do to the hordes of die-hard metallers gathered here today. They may all look like they should be brewing craft beer in Hoxton but they conjure up a gorgeous version of trad metal that has variation and depth. They put on a bewitching performance that signals them out as potential headliners of not just this place, but also Download and perhaps even Glastonbury. Their secret sauce is the songs which just soar with sing-along choruses that balance both weight and blatant commerciality. The first where you there? moment of the weekend and you can hear the refrains of ‘One for Sorrow’ being sung across the site long after they exit the stage.

There is a particular change in tempo and style happening on Sophie as Exist Immortal bring out to play their particularly commercial take on metalcore. There are traces of jagged brutality, but it exists to frame the pure saccharine choruses that boil over with accessibility and pop-like refrains. They attract a particularly youthful crowd who bounce around in delirious happiness whilst those of a more veteran disposition try to figure out what they are doing with our music. A dose of neon tartrazine hyperactivity that brims with energy may well be the future. Watch our interview HERE.

Grand Magus have been doing this for years and do it gloriously well. This is the dictionary definition of metal. Assured, gigantic and full of large pounding choruses. Janne "JB" Christoffersson is sporting yet another new look. This time around he has a billiard ball smooth barnet and shimmering silver fox beard. He has a charismatic commanding style that makes sheepherding an audience of this size look like a piece of cake. In the form of ‘Skybound’, we get just one slice from their impending new release, but it gives us enough reassurance that they are not about to dive off in a trip hop or trap direction. In a festival setting, there is something wonderfully reassuring and reliable about Grand Magus, there are probably just a handful of people in the crowd that listen to them regularly but in heartfelt synchronisation, we all bellow along to ‘Hammer of the North’ like it was our collective favourite song. Its soaring “whooa ooha” refrain flutters across the site fuelled by that communal bond that makes Metal so compelling

Haliphron provide the perfect destination for those searching for blatant bombastity. Formed of dignitaries from across the Dutch metal scene this is a high-concept exercise in big-sounding metal. Bathed in soaring guitars and rampant keys it sounds like a Chris Nolan film with additional theatrics. Former Izegrim bassist Marloes Voskuil is freed from her instrument and proves to be a confident front woman grabbing hold of an audience keen to be immersed in their widescreen take on Metal.

Nobody does Black Metal like Rotting Christ, in fact it is not even clear whether they are Black Metal anymore. If they are still hanging onto that label then this is the Stadium variety, full of sweeping melody and Herculean choruses. They just do it all so well and by peppering it with call and response sections they capture the imagination of the audience, sweeping them away in the majestic splendour of the whole endeavour. There is a real simplicity and rhythmic intensity at the heart of Rotting Christ’s music. Everything is stripped  back to a circular tribal intensity that just builds and builds. Compelling and utterly building.  

Over on the Sophie Lancaster stage, they are playing host to one of the mainstays of European metal, Wolf. There is a wonderful dependency about what they do. It is ramble-rousing power metal that holds back on the cheese and instead goes hard on the stomping riffs and foot-tapping rhythms. A highly enjoyable distraction.

Enslaved have evolved into something very special indeed. They do cinematic all-encompassing progressive metal like nobody else. They grab hold of the listener and take them on a journey into a sonic tempest of sumptuous sound and heart stopping melodies. Everything just builds and builds, making you feel like you are at the centre of an ever-escalating storm, continually churned by a perpetually changing melodic refrain.

Enslaved have steadfastly resisted making bad albums which means that sixteen records of progressive goodness and a forty-five-minute run time don’t make cohesive bedfellows. Rather than go for a scattergun approach they major specifically on last year’s “Heimdal” and their 2003 masterpiece “Below the Lights” (with ‘Homebound’ from previous release “Utigard” thrown in for good measure). This concentration on two albums that are separated by 20 years allows us to witness the stark development of the Enslaved sound, but also to realise that they have always been groundbreaking and experimental even when they were angry young men. Truly metal’s most extravagant inventors.

Turning our attention once more to the Sophie Lancaster stage, Darkest Era are bringing the melancholy in ample measure. They create an atmospheric eerie sound that haunts the available nooks and crannies of the billowing tented venue. This is highly emotional and textured metal, the passion and pain flows freely from Krum’s fragile vocals. 

Hatebreed, the classic veterans of hardcore-metal unleash their musical assault on the ravenous crowd. They dive headfirst into a slick and ferocious set of all their hits, with each song an explosion of sound, shaking the pit and rising people out of their camping chairs. The guitars deliver a vicious dose of riffs that keep the heads nodding, while the bass and drums lay down a punishing foundation, their thunderous rhythms inciting a frenzy in the pit. The relentless hardcore onslaught continues as bodies collide, limbs flail, and the crowd reach fever pitch. They storm the stage like hunters, their presence commanding and electrifying. Whenever frontman Jamey Jasta steps forward, a dynamic and swaggering vocal power, the crowd roars in response eager to slam and spin to the brutal beats. This is hardcore metal with an intensity that feels capable of crushing mountains.

Eternal Champion are Manowar but without the pretension or the loincloths. They make epic metal that stirs the spirits and makes you hold your sword arm aloft. They may well be currently mourning the sudden loss of their bassist Brad Raub, but that does not stop them from putting on a ramble-rousing show full of rounded riffs and dynamic choruses. Eternal Champion live their music and they bound around the stage with flare and furious energy. They have been clear that they are only doing these to not disappoint or let down their fans and the fevered devotes at the lip of the stage drink up every venerated moment, regularly interacting with vocalist Jason Tarpley whose mammoth frame looms over them. ‘I am the Hammer’ is everything you want from a metal track;  heroic, larger than life and full of chest-thumping grandeur. It then segways into ‘A Face in the Glare’ and everything goes up one notch further (we are talking well beyond eleven now). A wonderfully blockbuster display of pure unadulterated metal.

Clutch are venerated, Clutch are beloved and Clutch are here. They pull a headliner plus crowd with every available piece of ground in the arena occupied. Clutch’s sound is souped-up blues; chunky, chugging and loaded with finger-licking riffs. They have taken southern rock and give it a pinch of chilli, producing an additional punch. Some describe it as stoner rock but it is much cleverer than that (sorry Stoner fans). Clutch create a form of heavy rock that seems to be simple but has a lot going on underneath the water.

Part of that subversive complexity is the drumming of Jean-Paul Gaster (watch our interview HERE). He provides a rhythmic backbone that escalates everything to another level. Add to that Neil Fallon’s passionate preacher style and you get a performance that jogs along at a terrific pace taking in a lot more musical mileage than you expect. The fact that Clutch feel so at home here at Bloodstock, shows how far the festival has come. It hasn’t lost its core component (as the magnificence of Eternal Champion shows) but its church is now broad enough for guttural blues rock to fill every bit the essential component.

Talking of the blues, back on the Sophie Lancaster stage, The Vintage Caravan have slowed everything down to a much more manageable place. Its still the same musical artform that Clutch wrangled, but The Vintage Caravan’s blues is softer, sleeker and much more refined. It ozzes with smooth class and you feel the audience collectively sigh as it washes over them. It builds with regal beauty and whilst it may well be the most sedative music available across the weekend it does not mean it is any less majestic.

And so onto our first headliner of the weekend. Opeth have been here before (as Mikel acknowledges during the evening, they last headlined in 2010 replacing Heaven & Hell after the sad passing of Ronnie James Dio), but tonight is different. Even though a new album is imminent this is fan picked set. Mikael Åkerfeldt refers in his usual tongue-in-cheek style, to the fact they had been press ganged by the fans into playing certain songs. But if truth be told a fan-picked set turns out to not be much different to usual Opeth sets, there is just more of the growl-based stuff. 

Putting aside the question of who decided the set, Opeth are tremendous. They may not have pull the same crowd size as Hatebreed or Clutch, but they still manage to entrance everyone watching. There is something magical about how they effortlessly slip from harshness to harmony. The songs build exquisitely, the crunching guitar swirling around the heavenly melodies. Then there is the matter of Mikael’s stage delivery which is fantastically dry and self-derivative. He wears his heart on his sleeve and refuses to take himself seriously. As the festival morphs in his size and scope there well have been eyes raised about Opeth status as a headline but they prove beyond doubt that they belong here at the summit of the bill.

Sophie Lancaster Stage 'after dark' headliner Igorrr is an enigma, and we did wonder how Gautier Serre and his musical crew would go down at Bloodstock. But the Frenchman always delivers a unique performance and the packed tent delights in the blend of black metal, electronica, baroque elements, breakcore, and straight-up metal. The diverse vocals sit atop dense blast beats and it's a juxtaposition that’s as awe-inspiring as it is perplexing. Think of melodrama with dollops of classic symphonic metal and even cinematic grandeur touch akin to Hans Zimmer’s. Gautier Serre’s genius shines through and the crowd go wild for the whole show as he masterfully weaves together clashing breakbeats, chunky riffs, blended tempos, and operatic splendor, leaving the crowd both awed and open mouthed.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Igorrr + Opeth + The Vintage Caravan + Clutch + Eternal Champion + Hatebreed + Darkest Era + Enslaved + Wolf + Rotting Christ + Haliphron + Grand Magus + Exist Immortal + Green Lung + DeathCollector + Nervosa + Burner + Desert Storm + Häxan