Another year, another Bloodstock! Looking back I can’t believe this one has been my ninth festival. I’ve been going every year (except 2021) since I braved the journey alone as an anxious 21-year old for BOA 2014 and had the time of my life. It’s never been any different for me and this year was no exception.
On Thursday it was all hands on deck with our first interviews scheduled for dinner time, so Mosh and I managed to make it down from Scotland in record time to get straight to work. Following the instantaneous interviews, I headed to the Sophie Lancaster stage to start catching bands. Opening the festival proceedings was mental Irish jazz-thrashers Acid Age. It’s testament to Bloodstock’s commitment to support growing bands as I remember watching the lads hit the New Blood stage only last year. It’s always a joy to watch bands gradually make their way up the Bloodstock stages. I caught them a couple of songs in to a packed Sophie tent, with loads of sweaty metallers headbanging and cheering to the likes of “The Death of Octavia”. The energy was electric for the first band of the weekend as they raged onstage and nailed their notes . Given the increasing numbers of Acid Age shirts I saw over the weekend, the band have certainly earned a ton of new fans and I’m looking forward to seeing what the future has in store for them.
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Finally taking a breather to go and set up my accommodation for the weekend, I returned to the Sophie tent in time to see heavy rockers South of Salem. The energy and the numbers of folk increased, elevating the party atmosphere of the Thursday night. Airing bangers like “Let Us Prey” and “Death of the Party”, they proved they were anything but, getting the crowd grooving as they rocked out their whole set. After that was one of my most anticipated sets of the weekend: Hellripper. It seems as though it wasn’t just me who was buzzing for the Highland heroes of Scottish metal, with multitudes of multi-coloured/multi-lengthed hair flying and drunk bodies slamming in the pit throughout the show. The setlist consisted mainly of older tracks like “Bastard of Hades”, “Hell’s Rock ‘n’ Roll” and “Spectres of the Blood Moon Sabbath” bringing the blackened thrash bash with the banging NWOBHM/punk riffs. However the setlist wouldn’t be complete with representation from last year’s killer LP Warlocks Grim and Withered Hags in “Goat Vomit Nightmare” and “The Nuckelevee” which went down a storm. Pop fans might have had a Brat Summer this year, for thrashers it’s definitely been a Goat Summer. After a recce with the team in the press tent, I decided to call it a day and try to get rested for a busy day of interviews the next day.
Up bright and early on Friday, I made sure I was ready another of my homeland headbangers – Disposable. For opening the New Blood stage on what’s usually a groggy morning in Catton Park, the boys drew a big crowd eager for a morning mosh at their breakfast club. Unfortunately barely a song into the set, an issue onstage caused all the gear to cut out for about ten minutes. However it didn’t deter them, still getting to play their full set after the backstage crew worked their magic to bring the noise back. It wasn’t long before the pit was raging and necks were getting wrecked to banging thrashers such as “Introverted Cross” and one of my favourites, “Fleshmarket”. A breakfast treat came in the form of a riotous new rager, “Bin Kicker”, an awesome taste what Disposable have in store in the near future. The show culminated in the inflatable shark pit for “Into the Water” making for a fun frantic wakeup call. Note to Bloodstock HQ – we love a thrashing morning mosh to open the New Blood on the Friday morning, please keep it up!
Following my morning mosh I spent the majority of the day in the press area conducting interviews, prepping for them, or camera-operating for Mosh and Shells, so I didn’t get to see much music until after 5. However I went for the occasional wander throughout the day and saw snippets of what I could across the stages during my breaks. I can’t adequately review them but from what I did see of Desert Storm, Green Lung, Grand Magus, Rotting Christ and Lethal Evil, they all performed well, drew big crowds and got the Bloodstockers into their respective shows with plenty of cheers, raised fists and banging heads. Also notable within my wander was Pop Up Puppet Cinema in the Serpent’s Lair VIP tent. On the Friday those chilling in the VIP were given a teatime treat of murderous marionettes in the form of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and Chucky singing along to classic Queen songs, albeit with their own twisted lyrics. It was camp, silly and awesome.
With the work day ending it was time to properly watch the remaining bands. The top bands of the day are admittedly bands I’ve never tried to get into but better late than never! First up was Clutch giving some good old rock and roll, bringing in a massive crowd right up to food vans at the back of the arena. Bloodstock being traditionally more extreme/power metal oriented has benefitted in the past few years bringing in more palate-cleansing rock bands that go down a storm. The crowd loved Clutch, with plenty of people bopping and jiving in the scorching sunshine to their groovy riffs, myself included. It seems I’ve been missing out and have some homework to do!
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Headliners Opeth brought a different flavour with their deathly prog. After watching them, they’re one of those bands I feel like you stand still and just be mesmerized by the soundscape coming from the speakers. The crowd from my view seemed to be that way too. There was little in the way of bombast with some trippy visuals on screens accompanying the music and some dry funny comments from frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt such as, “If you’ve seen this band before, we like to take our time between songs,” following a recommendation of Lynyrd Skynyrd hits in response to shouts of “Freebird” from the crowd during a tuneup. A welcome giggle in between songs. Ultimately I enjoyed Opeth a lot more than I thought given I couldn’t get into them when I first heard them in 2008, especially geeking out watching the guitar and bass work. However, personally I would have preferred a more energetic band as the Ronnie James Dio stage headliner.
Closing Friday at Bloodstock 2024 on the Sophie Lancaster stage was mad genre-mashers Igorrr. The final gig of the night was jam-packed with people spilling out the tent up to the waltzers and dodgems nearby. I could hear the crazy riffs and stunning soprano vocals soaring out of the speakers but couldn’t see anything. By the time the cloak of darkness covered Catton Park shortly before, it had suddenly got bitterly cold and my energy was depleting. Shells told me later Igorrr were awesome, and I trust that they were despite wanting to see a few songs myself, but the combination of the cold, tiredness and not being able to see the band without strong-arming my way through the masses made me want to call it a night in preparation for the next day…
Photos by Sean Larkin and Katie Frost. Header image by Sean Larkin.
