Post by Nik on Aug 1, 2006 15:09:09 GMT -5
Bloodstock open air 2005
Friday 14th July
The alarm goes off at 6AM and after a quick bit of food and frantic packing I’m off on the road to the middle of nowhere. Seriously, there is absolutely nothing near the site, not even a tiny village for many a mile. An odd house here and there, but that’s it. Stumble into the campsite aroundabout half nine and spot that’s it rather on the small side, just a single field and not exactly a large one at that. Still perhaps that’s a good thing, as would become more apparent later on – when people actually got there – this would create a bloody cool atmosphere. Whereas other festivals tend to opt for a varied line-up, meaning booking the bands most likely to get people to part with their cash, bloodstock keeps things exclusively within the metal area. Which means there a total absence of the indie/emo crowd, not a bad thing! It had been a long, hard day by this point so I felt a bit of a sleep was in order.
When I wake up, somewhat predictably as I had sorted noticed the scorched heat before I passed out, I was rather stuck in my sleeping bag and indeed to my jeans. Once this situation was resolved I spent a couple of hours doing sweet fuck all until the arena opened its doors at 3. The arena is even smaller than the campsite, with the main stage at one end and a semi circle of stalls selling a decent variety of assorted wonders opposite. Amongst the usual array of cloths and food stalls there’s even a couple of quality record stalls, with a rather wide selection of stuff from across Europe. Probably a good thing that I purposely didn’t take much cash.
First onto the main stage is the compeer, I’d see this fella quite a lot over the weekend seeing as he both introduced and summed up every band that played. His message tended to consist of telling us who was coming/going, not to bother swimming in the river unless we felt like dieing and also trying to flog raffle tickets! For a whole pound it was possible to maybe win yourself one of the massive bloodstock banners signed by all the bands playing. Not a bad prize all considered, still didn’t bother to buy any but at least they took the effort to get a decent prize.
Opening the festival are Pyramaze, and a bloody good job they do of it as well. I was quite alarmed when the singer first opened his mouth, he can reach some rather high notes, but once the initial shock of that wore off I noticed that the music was fantastic, they’re very makeshift banner, draped over the centre monitor, was also memorable. Following them are Rage, sounding nothing like the band that immediately springs to mind. Hailing from the all over the globe, including a guitarist from Russia, they were quite incredibly cheesey. This is not a bad thing as it allows for some mass sing alongs that add, not detract, from their fairly heavy riffing.
After a brief break in the campsite, not a 3-minute walk from the main stage, its Nocturnal rites. The first of many a quality power metal band over the weekend they’re set seems to fly by, they don’t play it as ridiculously for laughs as other bands did but at the same time, thankfully, they didn’t take themselves seriously. Atheist are gracing a UK stage for the first time in 13 years and the nervousness of this does show. Also they’re equipment has gone missing on the flight over. Not the best start really. However they manage to overcome this to play an absolutely blinding set to a crowd of tens. To be fair, jazz death metal is not exactly the most accessible of music. They were far ahead of the game the first time round and it don’t seem like much progress has been made during they’re absence. Hopefully they’ll stick around long enough to show up their peers all over again.
Second headliners Metal church play a somewhat mixed set. The quality of they’re tunes can’t be denied and for the first half hour they are utterly fantastic. Unfortunately towards the end they just seem to drag, the singers announcements of ‘we’ve got 3/2/1 more song’ seemed to last an age and I kept catching myself drifting off. The compeer’s prediction of a 20 minute set up time for the headliners is out by about a half hour, but then again they were billed as having the ‘full European stage show’ and they certainly delivered on this front with runways and a giant gargoyle like figure behind the drums. When Edguy do eventually grace the stage it quickly becomes evident that it was worth the wait as they put in easily the most enjoyable set of the weekend. Tobias Sammet leads his group of German fagots (as they were introduced) through an hour and a half of incredibly cheesy hair metal tunes. Although tending to stick fast to the formula of fast heavy riffs and catchy sing along choruses they do have a few slower moments, such as ‘save me’, which the crowd is encouraged to sing along to as ‘shave me.’ A brief snippet of Maiden’s ‘the trooper’ and a song from Sammet’s power metal supergroup side project ‘Avantasia’ flesh out the set and, much like the ever present star jumps, the set doesn’t have a dud moment.
Before making my way back campsitewards it seems prudent to grab some booze. So I amble along to the bar and inquire as to what cider they have. They only have one type and its locally brewed. Surely the best response possible! Its lovely stuff, especially when mixed with this bright green energy drink that they were handing out free samples of. After several a pint I feel the pain of being ripped off for terrible food less than I would have otherwise and then sing along heartily to metal karaoke, climaxing with a mass singalong of bohemian rhapsody. Wandered around the campsite for a bit shouting ‘Adam’ in a vain attempt to find a fella of that name. We ended up sat with some rather boring, but at least awake, people for a while before finally calling it a night in the early hours.
Saturday 15th July
The grand plan had been to be up in time for the first band, however when I do eventually crawl out of my tent it appears that, just to spite me perhaps, the first band has taken the stage over an hour ahead of billing. Thankfully its not a complete disaster as it would turn out that by the time I made it to the stage they were finishing their first song and as such I was still able to see 19th century play a fine set of classical rock leaning metal. Hailing all the way from Brazil Ashtar take rather a long time to set up, much to the compeer’s non-too subtle annoyance. This delay can be accounted for in their rather unusual sound, particularly the inspired full time violinist. They may have had quite a shaky start, things certainly didn’t look good when the operatic vocalist made her entrance, but things turned around after an ‘Irish themed’ song which heavily utilised the violin and by the time they left stage I was suitably happy to have given them an hour of my life.
Seasons end continue the operatic sound but to a lesser quality, its perhaps unfair to compare they’re more traditional take on operatic metal with something as innovative as Ashtar but it’s a comparison that can’t really be avoided seeing as only a half hours set up time separated them. Still, they played a solid set with the odd inspired moment here and there, most impressively the drum solo during which the drummer juggled his sticks in time. The day’s earlier start finally makes sense with the arrival of Gorilla Monsoon, a band completely absent from the stage time list. Their inclusion is immediately worthwhile as they begin one of the most impressive sets of the weekend, they had an oldish sound, owing quite a bit to bands like Sabbath, but not sounding past it either. A bleeding quality surprise!
Made my only lengthily visit to the second stage in order to catch Isaiah, a quality unsigned band very much at the extreme end of the metal spectrum. They were made all the more intense by the contrast between the main stage, barriers and security, and the rather more makeshift set up of the second stage, had I felt inclined to extend my hand I could have been quite an annoyance to the guitarist. Unfortunately by staying to the end of their set I missed the start of Callenish Circle over on the main stage. Not to worry though as I was still able to take in over half hour of the decent, if ultimately unremarkable, racket.
Waiting for the next band to take stage I couldn’t help but notice the amount of people in the, impressively large, crowd wearing the same makeup, a few thick black lines across the face. Shortly after I also noticed the amount of plastic swords. Good omens indeed. Ensiferum didn’t disappoint either, with a stunning power metal set that managed to keep up the bombastic energy throughout but also showed enough variation so as to not get too repetitive.
The worst performance of the weekend, indeed the only one that I could have happily missed, came from Bal Sagoth. To be totally fair they could have been playing a blinder but the absolutely piss poor sound quality meant that it was impossible to tell. I can reason that their frontman was probably singing at some point, or perhaps having a polite conversation with the microphone, but this didn’t translate into anything more than a slight variation in the feedback. That was all I could hear, no distinction between guitars, bass or drums just a frankly painful high-pitched crackle. Not the best way to spend 45 minutes all considered.
It’s with great relief that 2nd headliners Turisas herald a return to quality, and sword wielding power metal quality at that. Not exactly going for the purist vote their set is the most knowingly comical of the weekend. The band themselves look somewhat like the hawkmen from Flash Gordon with a liberal splashing of fake blood. There are a lot of them as well as in addition to the usual crew there’s a violinist and an accordion player. Things take a quite surreal turn early on in the set when several of the band members strip down and imitate a sauna onstage, complete with smacking each other with branches, which must be one of the strangest things that people have ever fought over when they were chucked crowdwards. Oh and they also played a version of ra ra rasputin. So just a comedy band then? Well for the most part…yeah…but there were some rather quality tunes in there too, it’s just that most of their set was taken up with the joking about and this overshadowed their more tuneful moments. Must be said that they did put me in a fine mood for the headliners.
This is apparently they only UK show that Stratovarius will be playing all year, which is a great shame as they absolutely slay, their set simply flying by. Not the most engaging band onstage its mainly left for their music to do the talking but where for a lesser band this might prove disastrous here it only serves to put the focus firmly on the sheer brilliance of the songs. I’ll readily admit that I hadn’t heard a single one of their songs prior to the weekend, which makes it all the more remarkable that they seemed to have such force. Their classical take on all things metal made a near perfect end to the musical side of the weekend.
The rest of the night followed the previous one almost exactly, a nice helping of local cider followed by badly singing along to metal karaoke. Similar, well exactly the same really, the night ends with a mass singalong to bohemian rhapsody and with that the arena finally closes, as I leave I notice that work taking down the main stage is already underway, they certainly didn’t lose any time there! Feeling pretty much shattered from seeing every band to grace the main stage over the weekend I finally collapse into my tent and get a surprisingly decent nights sleep before heading back home in the morning. Was a rather stunning weekend all considered, I hadn’t seen any of the bands before and had heard of only a few but all of them (bar one: damn you Bal Sagoth!) were worthy of my time and a I’ve now gotta lotta amazing bands to track down albums by.
Friday 14th July
The alarm goes off at 6AM and after a quick bit of food and frantic packing I’m off on the road to the middle of nowhere. Seriously, there is absolutely nothing near the site, not even a tiny village for many a mile. An odd house here and there, but that’s it. Stumble into the campsite aroundabout half nine and spot that’s it rather on the small side, just a single field and not exactly a large one at that. Still perhaps that’s a good thing, as would become more apparent later on – when people actually got there – this would create a bloody cool atmosphere. Whereas other festivals tend to opt for a varied line-up, meaning booking the bands most likely to get people to part with their cash, bloodstock keeps things exclusively within the metal area. Which means there a total absence of the indie/emo crowd, not a bad thing! It had been a long, hard day by this point so I felt a bit of a sleep was in order.
When I wake up, somewhat predictably as I had sorted noticed the scorched heat before I passed out, I was rather stuck in my sleeping bag and indeed to my jeans. Once this situation was resolved I spent a couple of hours doing sweet fuck all until the arena opened its doors at 3. The arena is even smaller than the campsite, with the main stage at one end and a semi circle of stalls selling a decent variety of assorted wonders opposite. Amongst the usual array of cloths and food stalls there’s even a couple of quality record stalls, with a rather wide selection of stuff from across Europe. Probably a good thing that I purposely didn’t take much cash.
First onto the main stage is the compeer, I’d see this fella quite a lot over the weekend seeing as he both introduced and summed up every band that played. His message tended to consist of telling us who was coming/going, not to bother swimming in the river unless we felt like dieing and also trying to flog raffle tickets! For a whole pound it was possible to maybe win yourself one of the massive bloodstock banners signed by all the bands playing. Not a bad prize all considered, still didn’t bother to buy any but at least they took the effort to get a decent prize.
Opening the festival are Pyramaze, and a bloody good job they do of it as well. I was quite alarmed when the singer first opened his mouth, he can reach some rather high notes, but once the initial shock of that wore off I noticed that the music was fantastic, they’re very makeshift banner, draped over the centre monitor, was also memorable. Following them are Rage, sounding nothing like the band that immediately springs to mind. Hailing from the all over the globe, including a guitarist from Russia, they were quite incredibly cheesey. This is not a bad thing as it allows for some mass sing alongs that add, not detract, from their fairly heavy riffing.
After a brief break in the campsite, not a 3-minute walk from the main stage, its Nocturnal rites. The first of many a quality power metal band over the weekend they’re set seems to fly by, they don’t play it as ridiculously for laughs as other bands did but at the same time, thankfully, they didn’t take themselves seriously. Atheist are gracing a UK stage for the first time in 13 years and the nervousness of this does show. Also they’re equipment has gone missing on the flight over. Not the best start really. However they manage to overcome this to play an absolutely blinding set to a crowd of tens. To be fair, jazz death metal is not exactly the most accessible of music. They were far ahead of the game the first time round and it don’t seem like much progress has been made during they’re absence. Hopefully they’ll stick around long enough to show up their peers all over again.
Second headliners Metal church play a somewhat mixed set. The quality of they’re tunes can’t be denied and for the first half hour they are utterly fantastic. Unfortunately towards the end they just seem to drag, the singers announcements of ‘we’ve got 3/2/1 more song’ seemed to last an age and I kept catching myself drifting off. The compeer’s prediction of a 20 minute set up time for the headliners is out by about a half hour, but then again they were billed as having the ‘full European stage show’ and they certainly delivered on this front with runways and a giant gargoyle like figure behind the drums. When Edguy do eventually grace the stage it quickly becomes evident that it was worth the wait as they put in easily the most enjoyable set of the weekend. Tobias Sammet leads his group of German fagots (as they were introduced) through an hour and a half of incredibly cheesy hair metal tunes. Although tending to stick fast to the formula of fast heavy riffs and catchy sing along choruses they do have a few slower moments, such as ‘save me’, which the crowd is encouraged to sing along to as ‘shave me.’ A brief snippet of Maiden’s ‘the trooper’ and a song from Sammet’s power metal supergroup side project ‘Avantasia’ flesh out the set and, much like the ever present star jumps, the set doesn’t have a dud moment.
Before making my way back campsitewards it seems prudent to grab some booze. So I amble along to the bar and inquire as to what cider they have. They only have one type and its locally brewed. Surely the best response possible! Its lovely stuff, especially when mixed with this bright green energy drink that they were handing out free samples of. After several a pint I feel the pain of being ripped off for terrible food less than I would have otherwise and then sing along heartily to metal karaoke, climaxing with a mass singalong of bohemian rhapsody. Wandered around the campsite for a bit shouting ‘Adam’ in a vain attempt to find a fella of that name. We ended up sat with some rather boring, but at least awake, people for a while before finally calling it a night in the early hours.
Saturday 15th July
The grand plan had been to be up in time for the first band, however when I do eventually crawl out of my tent it appears that, just to spite me perhaps, the first band has taken the stage over an hour ahead of billing. Thankfully its not a complete disaster as it would turn out that by the time I made it to the stage they were finishing their first song and as such I was still able to see 19th century play a fine set of classical rock leaning metal. Hailing all the way from Brazil Ashtar take rather a long time to set up, much to the compeer’s non-too subtle annoyance. This delay can be accounted for in their rather unusual sound, particularly the inspired full time violinist. They may have had quite a shaky start, things certainly didn’t look good when the operatic vocalist made her entrance, but things turned around after an ‘Irish themed’ song which heavily utilised the violin and by the time they left stage I was suitably happy to have given them an hour of my life.
Seasons end continue the operatic sound but to a lesser quality, its perhaps unfair to compare they’re more traditional take on operatic metal with something as innovative as Ashtar but it’s a comparison that can’t really be avoided seeing as only a half hours set up time separated them. Still, they played a solid set with the odd inspired moment here and there, most impressively the drum solo during which the drummer juggled his sticks in time. The day’s earlier start finally makes sense with the arrival of Gorilla Monsoon, a band completely absent from the stage time list. Their inclusion is immediately worthwhile as they begin one of the most impressive sets of the weekend, they had an oldish sound, owing quite a bit to bands like Sabbath, but not sounding past it either. A bleeding quality surprise!
Made my only lengthily visit to the second stage in order to catch Isaiah, a quality unsigned band very much at the extreme end of the metal spectrum. They were made all the more intense by the contrast between the main stage, barriers and security, and the rather more makeshift set up of the second stage, had I felt inclined to extend my hand I could have been quite an annoyance to the guitarist. Unfortunately by staying to the end of their set I missed the start of Callenish Circle over on the main stage. Not to worry though as I was still able to take in over half hour of the decent, if ultimately unremarkable, racket.
Waiting for the next band to take stage I couldn’t help but notice the amount of people in the, impressively large, crowd wearing the same makeup, a few thick black lines across the face. Shortly after I also noticed the amount of plastic swords. Good omens indeed. Ensiferum didn’t disappoint either, with a stunning power metal set that managed to keep up the bombastic energy throughout but also showed enough variation so as to not get too repetitive.
The worst performance of the weekend, indeed the only one that I could have happily missed, came from Bal Sagoth. To be totally fair they could have been playing a blinder but the absolutely piss poor sound quality meant that it was impossible to tell. I can reason that their frontman was probably singing at some point, or perhaps having a polite conversation with the microphone, but this didn’t translate into anything more than a slight variation in the feedback. That was all I could hear, no distinction between guitars, bass or drums just a frankly painful high-pitched crackle. Not the best way to spend 45 minutes all considered.
It’s with great relief that 2nd headliners Turisas herald a return to quality, and sword wielding power metal quality at that. Not exactly going for the purist vote their set is the most knowingly comical of the weekend. The band themselves look somewhat like the hawkmen from Flash Gordon with a liberal splashing of fake blood. There are a lot of them as well as in addition to the usual crew there’s a violinist and an accordion player. Things take a quite surreal turn early on in the set when several of the band members strip down and imitate a sauna onstage, complete with smacking each other with branches, which must be one of the strangest things that people have ever fought over when they were chucked crowdwards. Oh and they also played a version of ra ra rasputin. So just a comedy band then? Well for the most part…yeah…but there were some rather quality tunes in there too, it’s just that most of their set was taken up with the joking about and this overshadowed their more tuneful moments. Must be said that they did put me in a fine mood for the headliners.
This is apparently they only UK show that Stratovarius will be playing all year, which is a great shame as they absolutely slay, their set simply flying by. Not the most engaging band onstage its mainly left for their music to do the talking but where for a lesser band this might prove disastrous here it only serves to put the focus firmly on the sheer brilliance of the songs. I’ll readily admit that I hadn’t heard a single one of their songs prior to the weekend, which makes it all the more remarkable that they seemed to have such force. Their classical take on all things metal made a near perfect end to the musical side of the weekend.
The rest of the night followed the previous one almost exactly, a nice helping of local cider followed by badly singing along to metal karaoke. Similar, well exactly the same really, the night ends with a mass singalong to bohemian rhapsody and with that the arena finally closes, as I leave I notice that work taking down the main stage is already underway, they certainly didn’t lose any time there! Feeling pretty much shattered from seeing every band to grace the main stage over the weekend I finally collapse into my tent and get a surprisingly decent nights sleep before heading back home in the morning. Was a rather stunning weekend all considered, I hadn’t seen any of the bands before and had heard of only a few but all of them (bar one: damn you Bal Sagoth!) were worthy of my time and a I’ve now gotta lotta amazing bands to track down albums by.