Bloodstock Festival 2025 Review

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:26):
Hello, everybody, welcome to That's Not Metal. We are your
weekly heavy Metal mainly heavy Metal This Week podcast, and
we are here this time for a little trip report
of our trip to Bloodstock Festival. Bloodstock Festival, the I
think it's probably, you know, established fair to say, the
biggest pure heavy metal festival in the UK. As such

(00:49):
as something of a metal fan myself, many of us
we go there every single year because it is it
has that niche nailed over here, done it. So we
back here once again with a report from twenty twenty
five's Bloodstock Festival. My name is Paren heirsh across from
me and joining me for much.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Of said event. Elliott Paisley, you were here this time? Hi?

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Hello, Yes, I was. I think it was my fifth
Bloodstop weekend, sixth time at the festival. I don't do
the every year thing, and then every time I don't go,
I go, why the fuck was I not there? What
excuse do I have? And every time I go, this
is my favorite.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
I need.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
I need to make this part of the calendar. I
do in the same way like Damnation.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
What was the what was the last year you went?

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Our last four weekend was twenty twenty one when it
was prestand Oh right, yeah, creator I think was that year.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, yeah, So I've been going every year almost every
year for about a decade.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
But then he missed a couple of.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Them, and you know, people always say, oh, yeah, that
was the best woman ever. I think they were all
be pretty good. You know, this one I enjoyed myself plenty.
The was this the twentieth anniversary one or the next
year one is the anniversary one, isn't it?

Speaker 3 (01:59):
But this year I think it's twenty five, that's correct.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
But this year it just felt like a big one
because of when you know, last year that when they
announced all of this year's headliners, as they've also done
for you know, next years from this event. They came
out of the gate so hard with the headliners last
year with Trivia, machine Head and Gajeera that are like that.
I've said this a lot over the last year or sorry,
when we've been kind of preluding to Bloodstock. There are

(02:24):
some years when they maybe go a little bit more
or yeah, we've got a crowd pleaser here, we've got
a slightly more niche cult pick here, something like that.
Maybe I actually prefer some of those years I always
think about twenty twenty two when they had like Behemoth
and Merciful Fate along with Lamb of God as being
like a personal glory year that I just loved so much.
But they knocked it out of the park for like
bands that everyone likes this year basically like if you

(02:46):
want crowd pleasing, sell out the weekends in record time
headliners than Trivia, Machine Heading, Gageera, considering they're all, you know,
relatively modern bands as well. I'm saying that about machine
Head when their deabu record is ninety four, but you
know what I mean, there's not a priest in the bunch.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
They apt.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
They went hard on it, and then they backed that
up with some pretty also sizable things like subheadliners and
whatnot as well. The overall bill was good, it was great.
You know, I saw lots of bands lower down that
I was pleased about. I thought this year was very
much weighted on those big headliners, you know, like kind
of earlier in the day, we were like, yeah, we know,

(03:23):
having a decent end of time, but everyone that like
they were kind of waiting and really had eyes on
the big headlines slots this time around.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, and I think you know, I kind of understand
that because in twenty twenty for their the Opeth Architects
and Scorpions, which you know, as.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Far as I'm on a mask, sorry, Scorpions was a
previous year, but yeah, I'm on my.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Oh fucking help, that's right. Yeah, Like, in terms of
covering the sort of things Bloodstock can do, that's a
very impressive set. But it felt like maybe the story
of that year to outsiders was kind of dominated by
the fact that the headlining bands weren't super rapturously received.
But you look at the underbill for that year and
it's really fucking strong, But it feels that the story

(04:05):
is kind of determined by that. This year, I agree
in the sense that it was maybe later in the
day that I started seeing stuff that I loved, but
that those three headliners. Well, the fact it was sold out,
Like is it the first ever Bloodstock sellout? I'm not sure,
but like it was noticeably busy than other times it's been.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
I think I don't think it'll be the first Bloodstocks sellout,
but I feel like this one sold out very early,
you know, like people went for it so quickly, which maybe,
you know, the hope is I guess when you're ff organizers,
you start press setting that precedent of like everybody's got
to get their tickets early, and you create that sort
of fomo effect that I think you know this year,
certainly when they again when they announced Trivia Machine Hakagier

(04:44):
as headliners, it really created that kind of rush. So
we all had eyes on this year as like a
particularly big year, and yeah, I mean obviously it was.
It was rammed all weekend. It was a great success.
As far as that is concerned. We're not doing, you know,
all the full news round up stuff, but I do
think we should mention just to veer away from Bloodot
one moment. It's been announced just before we were recording, really,

(05:06):
and maybe there's something blood Dot relevant to it, just
because I know me and you Elliott are the primary
Megadeth fans of the T and M corner. It's been
announced that Megadeth their upcoming album is going to be
their their final album and then they're going to spend
the following couple of years doing farewell runs. So what's
your thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Immediate reactions, It's just it's so bizarre because it feels
like almost all the other big metal bands. I know,
Megadeth have kind of gone away and come back, but
they've been such a mainstay in my time as a
metal fan because if I started like paying attention to
like two thousand and nine, since then, just by going
to festivals, you can see Megadeth every couple of years.

(05:44):
They often have albums out, and it's hard to imagine
Dave Mustain doing anything else. It was hard to imagine
him retiring. So even though like bands younger than them
have retired since then, you know, it was nearly what
we're thinking now, like seven eight years ago, like Slow
announced that they were going to retire. So on one hand,
it doesn't seem that crazy. I just I'm struggling to

(06:05):
get my head around like a metal landscape that doesn't
feature Megadeth.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, that was that was my thought as well.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
And you know, obviously you mentioned Slayer, and the immediate
response there will be like, does this mean when Megadeth
do their final tour whatever, will that be their final
ever public performance? You know who can say you don't
know Megadeth? You know, are they on their creatively hottest
streak right now? Where we're all kind of like continually
waiting for loads more Megadeth albums, not necessarily so it's

(06:33):
not you know, I don't think it's a bad time
to hang up per se. But similarly to you, I did,
just it had a moment of just say, oh, Megadeth
are going to go, you know, because Megadeth have you know,
there been many of our you know, if you're into metal,
I know there's like a fifty fifty chance with Megadeth,
but if you're into metal, there's like a fifty to
fifty chance that Megadeth are one of the most important,

(06:55):
most beloved bands to you. And like I said, I
know that me and you would both count ourselves in
that category. And yeah, it was just one of those
kind of you know, knocking off moments of like another
you know, another of the old guard, you know, another
of the pillars. I've always been here on their way out,
and I'll definitely, you know, I'll definitely want to see
them on their fairworld to again. You know, Megadeth life

(07:16):
has been what it is, but I've always enjoyed and
had the most fun enjoying all of those songs. And
I feel like, you know, I've seen Megadeth a few times,
but I also feel like I haven't seen them enough,
you know, for how much they've They've been a staple
and everything, and I'm like, God, I need to catch
some of those shows before they go. And then, you know,
saying about Bloodstock, you know, obviously it won't be next year.

(07:38):
They've announced the headliners, but I imagine maybe like a
twenty twenty seven headline or something that feels like a
pretty immediately locked down.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
It's like a you know, a.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Megadeth web that bes their final UK date or whatever,
but certainly a final festival you know, appearance. I can
imagine them doing something like a bloodstop twenty twenty seven
or if it rolls onto twenty eight or whatever. But yeah,
I just wanted to again before the week goes out,
address the Megadith announcement, because that's you know, enormous historic
metal news. But let's get back into what we are
properly here to do, which is run through the weekend
of Bloodstock twenty twenty five. I was on site about

(08:11):
a day or so before you were. I always get
there from the Thursday, and I saw a handful of
vand On on the Sophia Lancaster stage on the Thursday.
The first band I saw all weekend and I watched
a little bit of them was a band called Gnome,
which was basically just kind of like desert rock, but
they're all in nome hats. That's the extent of it. There's,

(08:31):
as far as I could tell, maybe there's some lyrics,
but certainly musically, there's no real sort of gimmick element.
It's just stone of rock. But they wear nome hats,
and loads of people turned up wearing nome hats. It
was actually an extremely busy tent for like seven o'clock
on the Thursday or whatever, so make of that what
you will. And then I saw a little bit of
a band called All for Metal, which is one of

(08:54):
those you know they've had like Brothers of Metal and
any of those like something of Metal, for Metal, whatever,
you know, European power metal, powerlifter type bands who will
appear on a bloodstot second stage somewhere.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
This one.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
I should have checked this before recording. I do apologize,
but I feel like I was. I remember reading in
their bio when I was looking ahead of the festival,
that's there were like fitness instructors who decided to start
a metal band or something like it's very much we
are musclely and we have to have sing songs to
express how muscly we are. And I could tell that

(09:27):
they were fitness in structures at least because of the
very regimented way they were jumping up and down on
stage as if they were used to doing you know,
fitness instructional videos. And that made it one of the
campist things I've ever seen at Bloodstock. And that is
a high bar, so so a little bit of all
for metal. And then the headline on the Thursday was
Me and that Man, which is of course Nurgel and

(09:50):
a revolving Man.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
I suppose, because.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
You know that Me and that Man project's been kinding
for you know, about a decade now. Incredibly, I hadn't
seen it before, and I thought, well, take the chance
to watch it on the Thursday of Bloodstock. I'm here,
me and that man, you know, Nurgel doing sort of
rockabilly material, I guess is what most of them material
could be sort of described that it is that kind
of like a good time rock and roll band feel,

(10:13):
particularly when you watch them in the live environment. Like
I said that that man seemed to have like, you know,
changed several times over the duration of the project to
the point where it's become a little bit hard to
track because I know it was you know, it was
it was one guy at the beginning on the first record,
and then he made those collaborative records when he fell
out with that guy and got loads of like guest
singers and stuff in on those albums, which is that

(10:34):
Those are my favorite Me and That Man song because
it's like, oh, Corey Taylor's on this one. You know
whoever Jahanna from Lucifer's things as one whatever, like lots
of people I like. And then now I think he's
got another different that man again. Uh, I think they've
got a new record coming out. As one point, he's
got another guy with another mustache and another hat. But
you know, so it's made it hard to track. I

(10:55):
suppose when the project is called Me and That Man,
it's difficult to know who that Man has been.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
It was all right, you know.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Some of their songs are not very good. Some of
them their songs are quite good. I enjoyed they played.
The favorite song they've ever done is that song Burning Churches,
which Matt McNerney from Grave Pleasures, etc. Sings, which is
a really great song and that that man He's got
now did a very good McNerney impression on that song
and kind of people lit up for that. They also
covered Roky Ericsson's White Faces pretty immediately after that, and

(11:23):
I was like, hell, yeah, we are getting the Roki
jams In loved that and the first Sabbath cover of
the weekend as well, with a little bit of paranoid
because obviously this Bloodstock of all Bloodstock, you know, the
particular weekend there was something we're gonna say Black Sabbath
so many times over the course of it. There was
something quite warming, I will say, about being a big
outdoor metal celebration so soon really after Ozzie's passing, because

(11:47):
it just felt like, you know, obviously he's never performed
at Bloodstock because he was too big four Bloodstock, but
everyone there so clearly loved and worshiped at the alder
of Ozzie and Black Sabbath and yeah, just being a
big metal gather ring. So soon after that news we
got about Ouzzie and kind of just having Aussie kind
of hanging over it in the air in kind of spirit,

(12:07):
was like really like really just nice.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yeah, and I hadn't even clocked it for some reason
that you know, this is like maybe the first major
metal event since and also the fact that it's I
know it's not in Burming, but it's in the Middlelands,
and people in the Middlands don't mind if you get
the too confused. They they're not precious about where they're from, famously,
but the Black, the Blacks, like the whole every single

(12:33):
person in that field were like Black Sabbath, like that
just kind of.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
Goes with us.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
In fact, I remember it was like twenty thirteen, twenty
forty and I saw a band of Bloodstock on the
second stage and they covered Fairies where boots and the
singer said, if you don't like Black Sabbath, you spent
one hundred and eighty quid and three days in the
wrong field. And I don't know why, I don't remember
who the band was, but that stuck in my head.
And yeah, Cathartic might be too strong, but he was

(12:58):
just joyous every time Yabbath kind of came up again,
and like mentions of Ozsie and like, I think, yeah,
all the headliners made pretty either direct reference to it
as we'll get to and uh, yeah, it just it
felt like a it's quite a warming celebration, Like it
wasn't like dour or sad about It was just kind
of you know, we'll here for one reason, and one

(13:21):
of the people who was fundamentally in shape in that
is no longer with us.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
In terms of you know, you mentioned the word cathartic,
I will say that it was like, you know, if
you have spent however many weeks, to some degree it
might sound dramatic for someone who you know, we didn't know,
but to some degree or know that if you've spent
a few weeks, morning was the osborne ye To then
go to a big gathering like this and again have
that sort of it. It felt like the sort of
stamp of just like yeah, like we're all feeling the

(13:48):
same thing that everyone kind of needed, I think, and
that was just really nice. Onto the Friday, the opening
band on the main stage over the whole weekend, the
UK thrash band who are called Trapnel, who are a
band who I used to listen to a little bit
back in about twenty thirteen, you know, when I was like,
you know, they were part of that kind of wave
of like you know, thrash bands who were coming through
in the early twenty tens and stuff like that, and

(14:09):
at that time I was I was all in on
finding as many of those as I can. And Shrapnel
one that I remember from around that time, and I
sort of lost track at them, and I think they've
turned into a, you know, not to be too dismissive,
but a slightly less cool version of that thing than
maybe some bands have gone we really love Demolition Hammer
and we've gone really heavy or something. Shrapnel have gone
a little bit more mologic, a little soft around the edges,
but they were fine. I saw a little bit of

(14:31):
the band on the main stage called Famine with a
y who are UK doom band? Who are a band
I've never heard of outside of the context of Bloodstock,
Like I've seen them att Bloodstock at least more than once.
But they're just they appear at this festival, you know,
and they are you know, heavy black eye makeup, just
like Miserable Doom. I saw a little bit of them.

(14:51):
I also saw a band who Don't. I don't want
to necessarily punch down about them because this was on
one of the small stages, but were when I was
doing my you know, my my duty of looking through
the lineup ahead of time and reading the bios of
all the little small banter on the small stages and stuff.
There was one that jumped out at me for just
being really bizarrely worded in terms of like small metal

(15:16):
band law I guess I would describe it. And the
whole thing is we are worship we worshiped the Ominous
deer Man. And I was like, that sounds so fucking
knaff I have to go. And you know, luckily they
were in a slot where I was like, I'm gonna
go and see this, and it turns out the whole
Hominous deer Man thing is they were like a you know,
UK kind of tech metal band, you know, quite bouncy

(15:37):
or whatever. One of them was wearing a deer mask.
Wasn't even the singer. It was like the basis that
was the extent of it. But but I checked out
the Ominous deer Man band back on the main stage.
This again speaking of the things that really jumped out
with me, this band Convent with a K were on
the main stage. Who are when I was kind of
you know, I registered that they were on the lineup

(15:59):
short for the festival. I was like, I on that
band because they are not a band I would associate
with being a certainly a main stage Bloodstock booking because
Convent are a like, you know, like a hard death
doom band from somewhere in Europe, and I've you know,
I remember their records coming out, and I like, I
saw the album cover come up and I was like, oh,
fucking hell them, what are they doing on the main

(16:20):
stage of Bloodstock at twelve forty five because it's way
too heavy and way too fucking dour and miserable to
be like mid afternoon, early afternoon even main stage. For
It's like you would see this band on the smallest
stage at dam Nition, you know, like it's proper like
heavy extreme metal. It's full on death doom with someone

(16:42):
just doing a death doom vocal for forty five minutes
straight right, And I was like this, Like I went
to see it because I was like, you know, that
kind of stuff that is more in my realm. It
doesn't always get the most representation at Bloodstock because it's
fucking like niche and extreme right. So I always feel
like plic it's on the main stage, and like I
have kind of obligation to go and see this. It
was very weird seeing it in that environment, like, you know,

(17:05):
not necessarily their natural habitat. But I was like, yeah,
fair play, We've got like actual Funeral Doom vocals on
the main stage of Bloodstock at twelve forty five, so
all power to them. After that, I saw some I
think I saw actually all of Flotsam and Jetsam because
at Bloodstock in the early afternoon we are collecting our

(17:25):
seatier thrash bands from the eighties. You know, it's like
every year you and I will always see them because
I am legitimately ticking everyone of them off, you know,
as you know, someone who got into thrash metal as
a teenager. I went, oh, I've got to hear the
band that Jason Newstead was in, you know before it
was in Metallica, like all of that type stuff. I
remember these bands, and so, you know, previous years of

(17:45):
Bloodstock we've had who we had, we had like you know, Violence,
who were great, Forbidden, Sacred Rich, all of that kind
of stuff. Yeah, yeah, and so Flotsam and Jetsam, who
are the one who are primarily famous for having that
one album Doomsday for Deceiver which Jason Stare was on
before he then joined Metallica. And then they have lots
of other albums that I am not so familiar with,

(18:05):
but do say for the Diva he's pretty good. And
they opened with the song Hammerhead from that record, and
I was like, ah, I know this one, this one's sick.
And then I didn't quite know the rest of the
step quite as well, but I got that little fix
of like, you know, elderly gentleman thrash is how I
would describe that maybe the first sort of you know,
event of the weekend to a degree, even though it's

(18:27):
not a band that I am, you know, personally that
plugged into, but I think, you know, looking at it
as again, what is of interest on the BLUs dot lineup,
Pale Face Swiss were a band I think that really
kind of their presence on this lineup this year kind
of maybe foreshadows a little bit and maybe what we'll

(18:49):
be coming with next years announcement and stuff.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
But like when you.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Think about the evolving presence of you know, kind of
younger metalcore and things like that at a place like Bloodstock,
which you know did not start out in that way,
and when we are just generally talking about the kind
of newer wave of heavy bands are kind of you know,
drum up a bit of attention. We've spoken a few
times this year about Pale Face Swiss being a band
who I believe you've been around for a few years,

(19:13):
but this year just like in the blink of an eye,
one of those ones where we weren't looking and then
suddenly they blew up off the base of an album
they put out at the very start of this year,
and then they've had a hell of a year, like
you know, we playing huge shows, big tours. I like
very briefly walked past them when they were playing at
a Mystic festival in Polem when I was there a
couple months ago. But this time I was like, you know,
I'll actually I'll do my again, my due diligence, and

(19:34):
I'll watch them this time, and musically it's fine. I think,
like that's how I feel about them, That's how I
feel about their music and watching them live. It's you know,
every generation has their slip knots, and it feels like
every generation the slipknots get a bit more generic than
the ones before, and now like we have Pale Face
Swiss and Slaughter to Prevail and ven Died. You know,

(19:57):
it's not exactly Iowa, but Pale Place pas A certainly
probably one of the better ones of those. They have
one song that I really got stuck in my head
because I think they just released it before the festival,
but it was then like on the adverts and stuff
on the screens that kind of I Am the Cursed
one songs. They now have one song at least when
I go, oh, I know that one and it is
again it's it's death Cory slip Knot basically slip Knotty

(20:20):
Death Corps largely the same kind of thing, largely the
same sort of rifts, the same sort of deployments of
the breakdowns and stuff like that. Occasionally he does kind
of white boy rap bits which I don't think go
over quite so so well, he did drop one absolute
bar when he just yelled, we are the reason for
the holes in the Swiss cheese, and I was like,

(20:41):
fair enough as a decent line. But I will say
about them again, this is the Friday. They were the
first like big reaction from a crowd I saw at
the weekend they had a like four again, it was
like you know, mid afternoon. They had a very very
respectable crowd for that point. Clearly a lot of the
you know kind of like twenty fives and under at

(21:02):
Bloodstock this year were really coming for a band like
Pale Face for Swiss, and they have got, you know,
a very enthusiastic response. So I was looking at it
being like, yeah, okay, you're clearly you know, galvanizing people.
So you know, that's that's my checking in on a
band who have been one of the success stories of
this year. I suppose after this was Orange Goblin, who

(21:25):
this will be my penultimate time seeing Orange Goblin, because
they're of course boaring out this year. They do have
the Farewell Tour in December, but this is their final
UK festival appearance and that is noteworthy, not only because
Orange Goblin are such a great band.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
We very recently we.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
Did a special on The Patron talking about an albumulet
of summer albums, and I put forward their record A
Eulogy for the Dam, which I absolutely love. I'm a
huge Orange Goblin fan, but I think Orange Goblin played
like the very first Bloodstock or something, and they have
been one of those like continuous you know, the sort
of the og bloodsto bands, and you know, a band

(22:03):
who have been kind of flying the flag for British
metal for thirty years now. Doing their final British outdoor
festeralformance was definitely something that I like, you know, it
was one of the things where I was like, I've
got to be in there that field for this. It
was the first thing on this Friday that I was
like really like properly looking forward to. And they were
fucking great, you know, like in just that predictable way

(22:25):
that Orange Goblin are just one of the Again, the
reason I picked them for that summer adroulette is one
of the perfect it's sunny outdoors, got a beer in
my hand and everybody's just like enjoying some big Southern
fried riff type stuff and they were just sensational for it.
They went so quick. I will say, I think they
had like a forty five minute set, but this was
the first set that we came and I was like,
hang on, they've just started playing. What do you mean

(22:47):
this It's already wrapped up because the songs that they
fit into that little run.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
They opened with.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
Solarisphere from Time Traveling Blues and then straight into Scorpionica,
which is as a one two of like that. You know,
the sort of late nineties stoner rock from the UK
where they kind of you know, started out, was just fantastic.
We had Sarah mount Wish from that early period as well.
It was just like all, you know, all of the
great Sabbath style riffs that you can fit into a
five minute song or whatever. But then they kind of,

(23:15):
you know, obviously they didn't have time for a song
off like every single record they've done, but they did
a little weave through the years, you know, some of
the mid two thousand stuff they played, not Rocket Science.
The one song they managed to fit in from their
newest album from last year, which is a really dawn
fine album, and that song sounded sick out in the Sun,
and then ending with Quincy the Pig Boy another classic

(23:36):
into of course Red Tide Rising, which is my Orange
Goblin song that I'm so happy I know. Over the
years became their like de facto this is the big
finish closer, and they were and they were brilliant. You know. Again,
I'm looking forward to a proper headline farewell where we'll
get lots more songs and everything in December, but you know,

(23:58):
following them along on the Farewell tour and being like, yeah,
final big outdoor show of Orange Goblin, and again where
some of this stuff that we're talking about is like
more new gen bloodstock stuff. Seeing one of the ogs
just like absolutely crush it and remind you why they
are brilliant. What was brilliant then? It was the third
from the top band on the Friday, which was Lacuna Coil. Elliott,

(24:23):
this is I think you maybe said you saw like
a couple of Lacuna Coil songs if it was around
the time that you managed to get on site for
the rest of the weekend. So I'm gonna be introduce
to the story at this point.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Yeah, I mean I was. I was really hoping to
get there for Orange Goblin, but I decided that putting
up the tent properly would be far too easy, so
I decided to struggle with that for far too long.
The finly thing Coil is because I was kind of
I was listening out for trying to work out, because
I wasn't really paying attention. I was just going to
work out who was on the main stage, and because
I was so distracted with the tent. I kept forgetting
and depending on whether I was listening to when he

(24:55):
was singing or she was singing, I was going like,
what the fuck is this? This is okay, Yeah, what
the fuck is this? I was doing that and forth
for half an hour, and then I was sat down
and I was like going to treat myself to a
warm and disgusting beer that brought with me, and I thought, well,
I do need to go and hear the Guitar Hero
World tour song which is Our Truth, which I presumed.
I presume that's a big song. I don't know, but

(25:16):
I thought they might close on it, and I can't
if they close it or not, but it was towards
the end. Yeah, I do quite like that song. Like
I'm not a Lacuna Coil fan by any other stretch,
but I do think that song's quite good. Yeah, I
mean like it's it's that very polished sort of somewhere
between symphonic metal and nu metal thing, which it's not.

(25:39):
It's not for everyone, but they're fairly good at it.
They seem to go down really well, which I wouldn't
say I was surprised by. Like it's the kind of
thing that definitely has an audience of bloodstup more so
than any other major rock and metal festivals in the UK.
But like I say, I'm saying all that based on
seeing one song that I know from Guitar Hero. So
they were fine.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, I'd never seen Lacunicor before, which seems mad because
they just feel like one of the bands who again
have been here forever. I really I do like some
lacun O core material, primarily from the kind of turn
late nineties early two thousands when they sounded more like
Paradise Lost, because that kind of that sort of you know,

(26:21):
nineties European goth metal sound. You know, I have a
fondness for it. And then in the two thousands they
turned more to a sort of like alt metally thing,
and they do have some jammed but that's you know,
I sort of stopped to call myself necessarily a fan
at around that point in time. So you know, they
were playing songs from their you know, newer records which
I've never heard in my life. They were fine. My

(26:42):
thing with Lacuna Coil was a real sense of like, man,
Christinas Gabia is great, like she like is magnetic. She
had a fantastic voice. She sounded on site fantastic, and
it was like, whenever the songs are not very interesting
and there's nothing going on with them, and god forbid
that she's not doing a part. You know, I didn't

(27:04):
know really, like my mind was elsewhere. And then she'd
sing a chorus. He'd be like, oh, but Christina's great.
You know how lucudicle set largely went. They did set
off these like massive streamers early on. I don't I
think they were probably when you arrived, probably tangled around
the sound towers and stuff, because they immediately went they
set off streamers in the colors of the Italian flag,

(27:26):
and it was the most instantaneous. Oh no, these streamers
have become immediately caught in like the rafters I have
ever seen. They went off and then within seconds I
was like, someone's in trouble. Someone is going to have
to get all of these down before Emperor.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
You know.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
It was just it was crazy, but the kind of again,
the run of songs and stuff earlier on. Didn't really
know a lot of the songs, I'll be real. But
then they got into oh heavens a lie, that's a jam.
You know, you mentioned our truth. They do their enjoy
the Silence cover and I was just having a great
time singing along to one of the best songs ever written.
And yeah, like big, you know, professional, you know, kind

(28:03):
of silly look into a degree with the kind of
like weird the other guys in the band, the williamstrumentalists.
I don't know if it's a sleep token thing, but
they've all got some kind of weird, like you know,
masked outfit going on. It's like you're Lacuona Coil. Why
do you why do you look like this? But yeah,
you know, they were perfectly serviceable. After Lacuna Coil was
when on the screens they announced the first round of

(28:26):
bands for next year, which we are going to come
back to and discuss at the very end of this review.
But that was the point in the weekend where where
that happened. The sub headliner for the Friday and the
first full band I would imagine you saw, and what
a first band that would be at a festival when
you arrive and this fucking emperor playing.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
Man, this was like in a weird way. It was
one of the mans I was most looking forward to,
but because they weren't headlining, I kind of kept forguessing
there was. It was always such a nice surprise. I
wanted to pull up the lineup to see what I
was going for. Yeah, I just seen that big Emperor logo.
It's I don't know what it is. Any festival bill
you put together, you put the Emperor logo on it somewhere,

(29:06):
and it kind of it looks sick. They're sick. And
I was particularly excited because I've seen them for twice before,
both times at Bloodstock, and on both occasions they were
doing an album in full, which I mean, I'm not
going to complain. I still think maybe seeing in the
Nightside Eclipse is the best headline set I've seen, possibly anywhere.

(29:27):
But I was quite curious to see what it would
be like without those sort of limitations. So this was
like one of the sets of the weekend I was
most anticipating.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Yeah, so I never saw the Nightside set. I saw
them twice on the Anthems run, and then I saw
them a few years ago, which was the first time
seeing them do a sort of general set, and that
was really cool, and I was imagining, I guess this
will be pretty similar to that. By and large, it
kind of was.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
But I did have.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
I had a moment where they open with Into the
Infinity of Thoughts, and in the US recently, of the
few months, they've been doing night Side again, just kind
of seemingly randomly, and I didn't have you know, I
didn't expect this going into the festival, but when you know,
they came on stage and the first thing you heard
was that iconic sort of you know, ambient intro and

(30:15):
then into that incredible first riff, my brain just went,
Oh my god, they're gonna do Nightside, you know, and
I thought I was having a real tie realization that like,
oh fuck, I didn't expect this, but I'm about to
see a set of like one of my favorite albums ever.
And then they didn't do Nightside, And to be honest,
I wasn't upset about it because we got to see
other Emperor songs and they're great as well. But there
was just a little moment where I was like, oh
my god, it's a surprise night Side set, and then

(30:37):
it wasn't. After night Infinity of Thoughts, they went into
in the Wordless Chamber from Prometheus, which I'm if I
remember correctly, I might be wrong with this, but I
feel like in the words Chamber is what they opened
with the last time I saw Emperor, it was my
first time seeing them do like, you know, other stuff,
and that was you know, seeing anything from Prometheus, but

(30:58):
that song just coming out the gates is fantastic. And
then from there on it was just basically Emperor greatest hits.
You know, plenty of stuff from anthems, fair bit from
nightside throwing, like I said in the World's Chamber or
a curse you all men from Equilibrium, which unbelievable. Riff
Emperor are so obviously they're so proficient. Indoor emper sets

(31:18):
are some of the best sets I've ever seen in
my life, the times I've seen them indoors. Outdoor emper
sets turns out, are just fucking great. You know, it's
just like, ah, wonderful. You've got the for sunny reasons.
You've got the big sunglasses on and as Fenris said,
big sunglasses.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
Cool band.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Isan had like a lilac telecaster that he's fucking playing
the craziest fucking rift you've ever seen on, you know,
in like you know, one of the great black metal bands,
and he's got this like wonderful slightly too small looking
lilac telecaster with his sunglass, and it's like that is
an absolute dude, Like that's a legend right there.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
I mean, it's hard. It's hard to imagine that the
guy who invented the telecaster whatever fender, when he was
putting that thing together, he can't have vent any idea
that it's going to be used for such evil.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
Make the Night Spirit, you know, yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
Absolute madness. I didn't get to see all of Emperor
because I had to get into position for the next band,
because I was really pushing for that, And it's a
real sort of it's a bit of a catch twenty
two because I'm looking at where I left. I left
at the very end of Cursha all Men, which fucking outrageous.
And on one hand, I'm thinking, well, I've seen the

(32:28):
rest of the songs before, so I suppose I didn't
miss anything. But then at the same time I was leaving,
I was walking away from cosmic keupes to my creations
and times I'm the Black Wizards in a Saturna and
the big track on the Yes, which even though I've
seen all those songs in that exact same field, I

(32:49):
don't feel great about I don't feel great about missing that.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, so I I left when they were starting in
a Satana, So I missed, you know, the end of
that Andy Transiperium. I was very I thought, because I
you know, I was gonna leave Nail and Prey slightly
to get to Nail Bombs, similar to you. And I
was like, I'm going to miss I on the Black
Wizards and you know Satanna because that's what they always
end on those two. And then the fact that just
in time I got me, I was like, yeah, this

(33:15):
is the moment.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
I again.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
I didn't feel right walking away from an empress at all,
because that's never happened in my life and hopefully it
never will again.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
It was.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
It was extreme circumstances and I was like fuck again.
I literally saw them playing anthems twice, but I was like, oh,
you Insuperium. I wanted to see you in Perium just
again because it's the best thing.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
Just what a staggeringly talented, incredible, cool, unbelievable band. Every
member looking fucking rad, Organ monkyby from shining on the
keys with his hood up, looking like a little goblin,
Sam Off there just you know, rocking out with the
big shades on. As we said, with the lie that
telecaster sounding, I think they've made the last time I

(33:56):
saw the Bloodstock outdoors, I would say this maybe a
little bit better than that, just in terms of like
the outdoor vibe and sun and sound and everything. Maybe
went a little bit more their way this time for
whatever reason. So yeah, just pleased to see the Mighty
Emperor again with strengthied burn. Those fucking like eight to
nine minutes just absolutely melted my head.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
It was crazy.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
As said, we both left Emperor slightly different times early
to go see what was when this Bloodstot bill was announced.
Even though we've said that the again the headliners are
such huge, crowd pleasing headliners, I did feel for my
personal sort of looking at it, I was like, these
are safe, crowd pleasing bands. There wasn't a booking that

(34:41):
was like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm gonna
get to see X in the way that The example
I will always bringing up now is merciful fate when
they did it a few years ago, or you know,
even like you know, Emperor the first time around they
did it. You know, it's just the nature of things,
you see, But had lots of times, but Bloodstock this
year was a little lacking on like the holy fucking
shit factor for me. The thing that they added that

(35:03):
became that like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm
going to get to see x was when they added
nail Bomb onto this Max Cavalira's you know, mid nineties
industrial one album Wonder that he you know, has revived,
not actually with you know, Alex Newport from First Channel
who was the other primary member of that duo from
the nineties, but just him and like one of his

(35:25):
sons because they're always involved and you know, some other
guys just touring and playing nail Bombs shows. And when
we did the Sepultura band special from the eighties and
nineties on the Teenam Picture on last year, one of
the most fun things that we did was like remembering, oh, man,
that nail Bomb album is like one of the great

(35:47):
one and dons of metal ever, so getting to see
songs off it was like, a man, that's gonna be
fucking awesome.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
You know.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
They played like one, I think maybe two shows in
the nineties they did, like a warm up show and
a big outdoor all show that every nail Bomb fan
has watched the footage from that show and it basically
being like, yeah, these are the next nail Bomb shows.
After that, it was bewildering. My primary comment about nail
Bomb before we get into how good or bad it

(36:15):
may have been, is it should not have been put
in the Sophie tent this happening, not only just because
the ten minute overlap with Emperor was the worst clash
of the festival for me, but as it turned out,
you know, going over to that Sophie Lancaster tent, that
was a main stage booking, you know, that was people
were really trying to get in for nail Bomb and

(36:38):
for something of such exclusivity. Well, I think maybe even
people who aren't hardcore nail Bomb fans probably heard, oh
it's Mats Cavalier's other band from the nineties, and they'd
just come back. There's some sort of casual interest in
seeing that as well, you know. So that was a
main stage at the very least a Sophie headliner, But
that was a main stage crowd if I ever saw
on The.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
Reason I left them for so early was because I
or if I leave four songs early, or you know,
twenty five minutes before the end, I'm gonna be guaranteed
a pretty good spot for nail Bomb, because that band,
The Emperor, have headlined that festival that they're gonna be
so many eyes over there. I'll sneak away. And as
I'm missing these songs and walking towards the tent going,

(37:19):
I've just thrown away some of the best black male
songs ever in favor of a tent I might not
get into. And I managed to worm my way in
by being admittedly slightly selfish, But I just let you
say it was maybe the set of the weekend, whereas, yeah,
well I can't miss this because genuinely, when are you

(37:40):
going to see it again? You really have no idea.
Because nail Bomb, you have to remember that they almost
basically weren't a band even back then, Like you said,
they did maybe two shows, one album. How many years
were they active for? Eighteen months, two years, something like that.
The fact that it's back at all still blows my mind,
and it could just go away again at any time.

(38:01):
So like it being on the Sophie Tent was one
thing I at least presumed it was headlining. I can't
fathom why this was the subheadlining band on that stage.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
I just it was it was major. Where about did
you end up in the tent?

Speaker 3 (38:18):
I sort of ended up next to one of the pillars,
so not super close, kind of off to the side,
but I had a good view and I'm quite tall,
so I was. I was okay with it, but there
was no getting close.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Yeah, so I was. We managed. Basically, I was as
far away as you could feasibly be while still technically
being inside the tent. We are, you know the bit
at the very back where the kind of disabled ramp
seating is. We were stood directly next to that, basically
at the ve like the closest bit of the Sophie

(38:52):
Lancaster the tent to the main stage, and that was
the closest we got right. It was crazy round and
having said that, you know, I enjoyed, like, you know,
me and my one of my one of my mates
who was like also like, yeah, we're going to see
fucking nail bomb. We just had a lovely time sort
of rock it out back there for the hour there
on or whatever. It would have been nice to get closer.
I heard, you know, some people were a bit a

(39:13):
bit closer, complaining a little bit about sound. You know,
problems or Gremlins or stuff like that. I think where
I was wasn't necessarily detectible. It was just like, oh,
there's nail Bomb. They're kind of far away, but they
sound pretty you know, like for what they are and
where they are good, So just that I just want
to it's right. That's the sort of literal physical position
from which I'm judging this. But basically, you know, nail

(39:34):
Bomb they had one album, so you know roughly the
material they're going to do. They throw in a Dead
Kennedy's Police truck cover towards the end as well, which
fuck yeah sick. They also did their uh it's on
the album, but the Doom cover exploitation, so you a
couple of like hardcore punk things. And the thing that
I love about nail Bomb, and part of the reason
I love the album so much and was excited to
see it is it's like it's an industrial crust band basically,

(39:56):
right like in Crustrial if you will. Like it's a
clearly like Swedish anarcho punk and like UK D beat
inspired band that they've just like souped that up with
fucking industrial you know, like power and samples and stuff.
So that combination of those two things, and that just
great back and forth of like crust punk energy, the

(40:18):
fast stuff on it again the covers, but also like
opening with Wasting Away and that kind of stuff, but
then pivoting into your hard crushing like riff slammers, cockroaches,
maybe one of the biggest riffs that the Sophie Lancaster
Tent will ever have played in it just a proper
audience leveler, you know. But that sort of switching back

(40:38):
and forth between those two modes, that's what I love
about nail Bomb, and it was there in the live environment.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
Well yeah, and part of me was curious about how
it was gonna work because obviously Alex Newpoison involved, and
it's kind of a whole new band. And I remember
like when it was announced Alex wasn't gonna be past
when I thought, was that really a nail Bomb? And
I went, yeah, well, Pig Destroyer are basically joining nail Bomb,
and he went, okay, fine, sounds good, let's do that,
and fucking hell like the song sounded huge, like world

(41:07):
of shit when that riff kicks.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
In, Yeah, man, that is and you've got a whole
tent and go and hate is reality.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Hate is reality.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Well again, that was thing that struck me, and I
obviously knew that about the record, but I I wasn't
prepared for how well those songs would translate to a
festival crowd. I mean, I'm sure everyone there is somebody
with the record. Like you said, there's not a ton
of material to be familiar with, but it felt like
every song it just went off. And maybe it's the
fact of people feeling lucky to be seeing it in
the first place, but every song, like I say, it's

(41:37):
an incrustrial record. Every song sounded like a crowd pleaser.
And also those two stars, like you say, they're they're
quite different and it's quite an, you know, ingenious combination.
But both of those things have the exact same understanding
of satire, which will get to the same thing happened
again on the next day. But I will never not

(41:59):
find it funny when it's just like the New York Times,
but instead of saying the New York Times, it says
lies propagander, propa gander, You're being brainwashed, that's the headline.
You're being brainwashed. Fucking Like, the whole thing was just
like a punch in the face and you know, again
like Max's son, when I saw that he was in
the band, obviously there's the natural thing if you go

(42:22):
that this guy's cool and he's in go ahead and
die and stuff like that. But you go just giving
it to your son, is that really gonna Is that
gonna have the same effect? He fucking he stepped into
the role, and especially around like halfway through, I was like,
he's crushing it. It was around world of shit. When
they started doing the back and forth, I thought, he's
nailing this. And if I was a dad and I

(42:42):
had an incrustraal band to give to my son, I'd
do it.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, you know, Max was, you know, really really up
for it. But it's funny you say that about you know,
Max's son in the band. Is he said something? Max
said something where he jested to him when he was
introducing the band, and he was like the heart and
soul of nail Bomb. I was like, what, he wasn't
even in nail Bomb. He wasn't Probably, you know, I
don't know if this is the same son who famously
like appeared on stage at like Dynamo ninety five whatever

(43:06):
that show is like, yeah, back in the year is
a run. But I this is again I haven't read
into this. This is purely me spitballing based off of
literally that line that Max said on stage. But I
was like, is Max's son just such a nail Bomb
fan that he like initiated this and was like, Dad,
come on, we've gotta go out there and play nail
bomb song. So like maybe I don't know, maybe like

(43:26):
he's the reason that this is even happening. I don't know,
but he was like he was fucking loving it. Like
the only person who liked being a nail Bomb more
than Max Cavallera is Max Cavallera's son. He was going
ape shit, so fair play to him. So yeah, that
was a good and sick life. They ended on the
last track on the record, but they did the most
like insanely dragged out last riff of it where they

(43:48):
like they finished playing that riff and then started it again.
I'm gonna say maybe three or four times. It went
on just so intensely, like yeah, that.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Was just just punishing.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
So like, yeah, I mean, obviously I would have liked
to have been closer to it, and I think it
should have been a mainstage booking but I am still
very happy to have nail Bomb on my list of
bands that I've seen, you know, an incarnation of, because
that record is so great and it was really fun
in the live environment. And then again because that was
in the sort of in between subheadline and headline slot,

(44:22):
it was quickly back over to the main stage to
see the Friday headliner, which was Trivium Trivium going into this,
I swear it was announced at one point when maybe
when they were first announced it, this was going to
be part of the Ascendancy, you know run. So I
assumed they would be playing Assidency record and then we'd
have like half hour of hits or something at the end.

(44:44):
It turned out to not be that, and I would
say absolutely for the better, because what we got as
a festival set was so much more fun and entertaining
and memorable than if it had just been the album. Again,
you know, I didn't go to the tour in January,
so I didn't see the Ascendency set, but I'm happy

(45:05):
that they made a moment of it the way they did,
because what I would say about this Trivium set is
they actually, by some distance, they had the smallest production
of the three headliners here, Like for whatever reason, Trivium's
pyro budget was like fifty quid, whereas Machine Heads and
Gajeiras was like, you know, at least triple figures.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
So it was a.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Smaller, you know, paired down show than maybe what some
bloodstot headliners do. Like eventually they got the big inflatable
ascendency guy they had from the tour kind of appeared
up behind them, but he wasn't even there at the
beginning of the show, so it looked a little bit
sparse to begin with. Even with that being said, I
would probably say that this was my favorite of the
three headline sets this year because what Trivium kind of

(45:50):
you know, lacked maybe in production value, they made up
for in making a fucking special event of it. You
know when bands come to headline a festival and some
of them kind of do it in their sleep, and
you know, it's the same show that they've gotten every
other UK you know, European Summer festival whatever that year,

(46:11):
and they kind of sleepwalk through it versus a band going,
we are so fucking pumped to be here and we
are going to show everybody that and we're going to
give people a night to remember, and Trivium, I would
say famous put us in of effort, right, Like Trivium
are never really that sleepwalky band. Trivium always feel like

(46:33):
they care. But I don't know if I've seen a
Trivium show where I guess they've had the platform to
so specifically make a meal out of it in the
way that they did.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
Yeah, I don't think I have the same relationship with
Trivium that any of anyone else who's on the show does,
but they might have been the best headline set of
the weekend. Considering the other two bands, I've a much
closer relationship with, Trivium might have been the one that
walked away going. I think they were the best, and
I wasn't at that twenty fifteen time.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
That was at twenty fifteen, Yeah, yeah, yeah, twenty fifteen
was the last time I headlined it, so ten years
ago that was I was not that one after that
was the year before I started going famously. A lot
of people have said that was not the best Trivium show.
It's kind of comes at the wrong moment for them, right,
like it's Silence in the Snow era. I believe they
would have had the kind of you know, the inter

(47:26):
years drummer they had at that point before they got
Alex In, probably around the time that Matt wasn't really
screaming fully yet again either. I think it was just
they were headlining the festival for the first time, but
at the wrong moment for them. Now obviously basically any
point in the last I know, eight years or something
is the right moment for them.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Well, that's that's exactly it. It feels a bit like they've
had a It was kind of poetic in the way
that Trivium are now having like their second I say,
having like for the last eight years or so. It's
almos like they've had a second descendancy where they've gone
from being yeah, that the band that could have but
didn't and now said, ah, they're the band that could
again and blood stop being bigger, Trivian being bigger, having

(48:06):
released three of their most acclaimed records ever in that time.
I do think if they just an ascendancy in full,
it would have been great, but it wouldn't quite have
matched the moment. It wouldn't have felt like that. It'd
be a bit like if was Slip knocked it down
in two thousand and nine. People thought they were going
to do the self titled and it's like that doesn't
really tell you the whole story. It feels more appropriate.
There's the greatest hit set, and I don't know if it.

(48:30):
I mean, some aspects of this show they just couldn't
have done in other places. But it felt like they
deliberately put this set together with the festival in mind,
with like the occasion, the sense of occasion that headlining
Bloodstop brings, and they just fucking brought it like they
just by any metric, they smashed it. Like you say,

(48:51):
they didn't have the most impressive stage show of the three.
They are the youngest of the three band, not the
youngest necessarily, but like the one that maybe.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Their debut album is released, the last out of the
three headliner, and so I think they are the youngerest.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
Yeah, that's right. Were just like the guests they brought out.
That's when it kind of for me, that's when it
starts to change gears and you go, oh, this isn't
just like the Trivium headline show.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah, the Bloodstock show.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Because it kind of so they opened doing the start
of ascendency basically like they open with Rain, which is
a very normal trivium thing to do anyway, like they
do that every other tour, straight into Pool Harder, which
obviously was great, but like at the very beginning, and
they were doing what I thought was going to be
the start of the Ascendency set.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
I thought.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
I was like, Okay, I feel like we're going to
be in for a merely very good trivium set, you know,
because the first few songs was like, yeah, Acendency not
the most production good stuff, you know, but it didn't
feel momentous. And then they started pivoting away from Ascendency, right,
and the first other song we got was Catastrophist, which
you know, great big tune, and I was like, okay, cool,
we're mixing things up. We'll go in other areas. And then,

(49:56):
like you know, a little bit of five or so
songs into this, it just turned into like, oh, anything
fucking goes.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Like I did not see any of this coming.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
So it's amazing how early they did this, right, the
first five songs, and then they go, right, it's time
to pay tribute to Ozzie, and we're going to cover
a Black Sabbath song, and here's fucking rob Flynn coming out,
who's obviously on site to sing it, and the song
is Symptom of the Universe. And I think that was

(50:27):
the point where just from there the rest of the
set was just like, oh my god, this is so good,
this is so amazing. Everybody who was in this field
for the entire rest of this set is just like
kind of enraptured and can't quite believe what they're seeing.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
Yeah, because it's around then I was like, I kind
of need a piss. Maybe I'll wait for like if
they play some more Vengeance Falls or something, I'm not like,
you know, I'll go. Then there was no leaving after
that because you genuinely did not know what was going
to happen. Like that Symptom of the Universe was fantastic.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Yeah, on that sent to me the verse bit this
is again a tangent. But at nine am that morning,
I woke up in my tent to the sound of
Trivium sound checking, and I knew it was Trivia because
they were playing throws to Petition. And you know, it's
very common thing at festival you wake up early in
the morning and you can hear a band, headline band,
you know, noodling away on their songs and you go, oh,

(51:15):
that's that's fun. I'll see you in like twelve hours
hearing at a Throst pedition. Great, And then I heard and
I went hang on, and I was like, that's either
just a fun little sound check riff that of them
playing around perfectly feasible, or they are they could have
placed with the universe. That'd be mad, wouldn't it. Then

(51:35):
here it came here they were and Rob sound is
fucking evil on it, you know, like growling that shit.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
Yeah, because I first obviously excited, but I did think
this is an unusual combination. Like Rob Flynn's got a
very like guttural bark and that's one of Ossie's higher,
more waily songs. How is this gonna go together? But
Triviam they just kind of they like slapped an engine
to it where it just it sounded so dirty. But

(52:03):
then when when like Matt would come in to do
the accompanying like years in the chorus, it just flew
and not only like so that cover was one thing,
and then as soon as he comes up to the
mic again and goes like There's been a lot of
talk recently about whether sleep Token or a metal band,

(52:24):
so people around me, people around me naturally just going
like no rubbish, lots of booze. Yeah, and I don't
know if Matt registered it. Then he goes, well, three
is here with us tonight.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Obviously you know in this context, you know we're not fans,
but all respect to three from Sleep Token. It is
very funny to go, here's our good friend three. Like it,
whether the band are good or not. It's an amusing
thing to say to introduce your good friend three. And
he came out not wearing, you know, sleeptoken robe attire.

(53:04):
He's wearing appealing flash t shirt, which is kind of funny.
But he obviously has to still cover his face because
he's three from Sleep Tooken and he can't break character, right.
You know, they've not reached that stage of their slipnock
Kiss journey yet, so it kind of there must be
more to it than this, but it almost I can
imagine him being like, I'm going on stage, oh wait, fuck,
give me those tights and just pulling them over. Spray

(53:27):
painted a little pattern on it because he looked very unusual.
And they played throwser Perdition with two bass guitars with
three and pawlow kind of you know, like duel bass
noodling each other and three from sleep Token. I wouldn't
say looking completely comfortable as part of a trivium. I

(53:47):
don't know level of performance in terms of how they
attack the song. He he did look like a weird.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
Funk bassist who had wandered on during the wrong song.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
Well when he came out, I don't know how to
explain that. The little kind of shy move he was
like he had his hands behind his back. He kind
of he looked like a nervous kid who like wet himself.
He was kind of like stepping over his own feet
and looking up past his eyebrows in a sort of
little old me way. And when he's playing, like you said,
he didn't look entirely comfortable. Halfway through he seems to
kind of relax into the into the setting, and besides,

(54:20):
now's the time to break out the les Claypool leg
rays and he starts doing the duck. I've only seen
les Claypoel do this, where one knee is going up
like shoulder height, and it's just the inner monologue of
like okay, okay, I'm enjoying this. I'm enjoying this now

(54:42):
while dressed like that.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
I did.

Speaker 3 (54:45):
I didn't know three from Sleep Soaken was funny, but
apparently he is.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
It was very, very amusing. So this is literally a
run we've got simply with the universe with Rob Flynn
then throws a position in with three and Matt walked
up to the mic half of that and goes, oh,
what are trivia I'm gonna do next?

Speaker 3 (55:00):
Dundun and then they just fucking cover Master of Puppets
and I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
At this point, I was like, oh my, okay, simply
this is one thing. It's an Aussie tribute. Sure, just
going for the fuck of it. We're at Bloodstot let's
cover you know, a song everybody knows, even if they
don't actually know us in our headlineset was just fucking
outrageously sick.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
I mean, we might get to another one of these
sort of things that happens on the Sunday, which didn't
work quite as well, not with the headline band. But
like you say, when you're just going on, you really
don't know what's coming. There's no more guests, so you
think back to business as usual. Master of Puppets just
how brazen. You know what, We're having a good time.

(55:46):
Let's play arguably the greatest metal song ever made in
a way, it's the ultimate step up. It's just it
was so fucking electric, and by then people were so
on board. I thought, like the guests and the band
being on form, and you know, Trivia's reputation has changed
a lot in the last ten years as well, so
everyone's just along for the ride. And then when that

(56:07):
comes you really do go. Really, I really have no
idea what's going to happen. Yeah, they might just start
going into all sorts now.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
That Master of Puppets moment was really where it became
like I don't know how many times they've they must
have played it live before because if they have a
recorded cover of that song, but how many times on
this run? Right, I presume they're not breaking up Master
of Pupps every night. That was where it went. This
is special, Like this is a total one off. We
are at like the metal festival in the UK and

(56:34):
everyone's fucking just having the best time watching them play
Master of Puppets For the sort of one off exclusive thing.
It had a real air respontaneity to it exactly in
a way that most festival headline sets, by their nature
cannot have, and I think that was what was really
special about what Trivium kind of tapped into there. So
then we went back onto more conventional Trivium terrain. They

(56:54):
did the live debut of that song Bury Me with
My Screams, which they had just released this weekend. They've
got an E coming out later in the year. I've
heard this song. I think I heard it once when
my first time hearing, because I didn't because I was
on site on Thursday when they released it. My first
time hearing it was them playing it live. And then
I've listened to it again, you know, after the fact,
and it's pretty good, you know, but like seeing it
was like, oh you know again. It added to the

(57:17):
spontaneity in a way of like, oh, yeah, we've also
got a brand new song in the tank that you
know a lot of people are presumably just going to
hear right here and now. And then the guests kept
coming because my the one closest to my heart. But
it was also in a way one of the more
amusing ones was when they got to in Waves and
Esan from Emperor came out, which Emperor and Trivium, particularly

(57:39):
obviously Matt and Esan. They're well known to be friends
and you know, you know they work together of their
bit the Ibarakia and of course had lots of contributions
from Usan. So when I saw the two of them,
as you know, build together, I thought that was a
great package. And I was like, that's a lot of
fun to see those two bands together. And I was
hoping during Emperor that maybe Matt would come out and

(58:00):
maybe saying that, you know, the clean bit at the
end of thus make the night Spirit or something like that,
and that didn't happen, but instead the reverse occurred, where
for the beginning of in Waves and the big scream
welcome Esan from Emperor. How fucking before we got to
what actually happened. This how surreal is that I know
they're mates, but like, how incredible is it that we
can watch a headlining festialformance by a very popular band

(58:23):
that most people know and they have three from Sleep
Token and fucking Esan as part of the same stage performance.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (58:33):
I mean, you think of the bands that Trivium are
peers of, and you think, like Bullet for my balance.
Well yeah, maybe not now, but like a one sign
bullet for My Valentine, Killswitch, Engage on the larger end
of Avenged Sevenfold, anyone else you want to put in
that sort of bracket, even someone like Lamb of God.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
None of them. I'll bring it out, is shan to do?
It turned out not to be, But typically they're like
closing farewell songs, Yeah, bring out the guy who wrote
in the night Side of Clips and anthems to the
Welk and at Dusk to do those shrieks with you
so fucking sick. And it's so much of the appeal

(59:11):
of Troop And I think why the wider recognition of
this means that they're such an appropriate Bloodstock headliner. They
clearly have such a love for metal in all its forms.
And between Rob Flynn three from Sleep Soaken and Ishan,
you kind of see that you kind of got a
flavor of everything that not just Trivium draw on, but

(59:32):
in a way everything that Bloodstock itself touches on.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
Just as you mentioned Bullet My Valentine. Probably my favorite
stage patter moment of the weekend was Matt Gohen. Did
anyone to see us in January Trivium and Orbit Culture.
How fantastic was that? Like people were really covered to
see Orbit Culture. But yeah, that was sensational and I
just love the continuation of the streak. But yeah, so

(59:58):
in ways with Isan, he went slightly too early, bless him,
and it was it really endeared me to him because
it's like he plays the most fucking complicated music in
the world, but he probably just heard in waves that
afternoon and he went slightly too early.

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
But when he actually hit it in the proper screen
came in hearing it through you know, Aran's fucking mangled,
you know, more necro screech. Wow, it was like it's
a stray sort of dream come true for like, you know,
fourteen year old me. It was absolutely brilliant. And then
just to complete the guests as well, Josh from Malevolence
who was playing with Rough Justice, who I didn't get

(01:00:36):
to see, but they were there as well, and so
he's done this before, but just kind of completing the
party atmosphere, he came out and played the Deceived with
them as they did, and then they ended on last
two songs, Down from the Sky and the Sin and
the sentence. My only complaint is I might have swapped
the sin and the sentence for in the Court of
the Dragon, just because that record didn't get any representation,

(01:00:56):
and I feel like that would have been a really
like fist pumping powerful end to the festival set, you know,
in the God of the Dragon. But that was yeah, Trivium,
like we said, they just absolutely turned it into a
spontaneous anything goes kind of a fair in such a
brilliantly for feeling kind of way. So an absolute victory

(01:01:20):
for Trivium, as you know, a second go headline Blood Start,
but they've properly got a great one in the books now,
which was good. And then I did not watch the
Sophie headliner for that day, Cataclysm, because they've always kind
of struck me as like a boring person's idea of
what death metal is. So yes, yeah, they didn't didn't
really go for that. But the next day, Saturday, first

(01:01:40):
band or on the main stage is a UK band
called Cage Fight, who I saw about a month ago
supporting Employed to Serve, and I did not realize until
I got in there that James from Tessa Ratt is
in that band because I walked into that venue for
employed seven month ago. He was on the merch and
we both sort of looked at each other. We're like,
what are you doing here? And I was like, I
live here, and he was like, I'm playing here. And
it's like, oh, okay, great. But Cage Fight is, you know,

(01:02:04):
not Tesseracti at all. It's he has a six string
guitar in it and it looks too small for him.
One of those affairs. It's like that guy if he's
got a guitar with less than severn strings on it, it
starts to look a little bit like a toy in
his hands. But it's moshy, hardcorey metal, pretty decent first
pig Squeals of the weekend from the vocalist, So you know,

(01:02:27):
I'll give some horns for that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
Yeah, I mean I only saw a couple of songs
this because I got on site fairly late again, But yeah,
like you say, like pig squeally, groovy hardcore, you got
a fit if you were hungover that day. Pretty fucking
gnarly way to kick things off. But yeah, I guess

(01:02:50):
it's kind of I like the Bloodstocks, one of the
rare outdoor festivals in the UK where that could be
the first thing on.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
Yeah, and they're they're supporting the final star Bard uk
R at the end of the as well, if you're
interested in going catching that next time on the main
stage at the band called The Spirit, who are a
European kind of melodic black metal band. You know, there
are there are many bands who do the dissection thing,
which is basically what this is and with a bit
of you know, kind of more German Dark Fortress or
whatever going evolved as well, and The Spirit are a

(01:03:18):
decent one.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Yeah, I mean you've you've basically some of the whole
appeal that I sort of stood there the section I
like Dark Fortress nodding along for forty minutes, start going
like this is what that sounds like?

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Nice?

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
Yes, I was very pleased though to have again slightly
earlier in the day, this time a band I was
really looking forward to on the main stage, which is Warbringer,
who I was the second time I've seen them this
year because they played Incineration Festival as well. But this
is just a perfect like what I want at some bloodstock,
you know, It's like I want not only you know,

(01:03:52):
your flocks them and Jetsum's I want some, you know,
A great example of the kind of twenty first century
wave of thrash, war Bringer being one of my favorites
of that kind of late noughties, early twenty tens generation,
and particularly on this album they put up this year,
which we reviewed towards the beginning of this year, and
it's one of their best records. It's one of the
best thrash records released in the last few years. And

(01:04:13):
it's just I was very up for seeing a band
I know to be Sick live come out and smash
the Blood Dot main stage with that very particular brand
of thrash metal. That's like, if you want to see
that kind of metal on any stage, you want to
see it on the Blood Dot main stage, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
And that's what it was. War Bringer a brilliant Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
I'd never seen them before, and I kind of touched
it in the review, but like war Bringer abound that
sort of for whatever reason, passed me by the twenty
tens thrash bands. I definitely heard them, though I wasn't
too familiar with their songs, and I wasn't too familiar
with many of the songs they played outside the stuff
on the new record. And every single one was By
the second chorus, I was chanting along with us. But

(01:04:53):
they're so catchy, which is weird for a band who
are kind of on the more technical end of thrash.
That they're more mega than they are Anthrax, you know,
And sometimes that stuff can be even if it's instantaneous
the songwriters and be kind of obtuse. Their songs were
just so instantly graspable, and He as a frontman had

(01:05:15):
so much charisma, like he just he walks that line
of like it being fun and engaging without ever feeling
sort of too silly, which can be a thing with thrash.
That's a hard line to walk. But it was just
as far as like very early afternoon in a bloodstock,
about as perfect a band you could book.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
Yeah, it was actually quite a different set from the
one they played Incineration Festival, Like they only played one
song off the newest record actually, which I was quite
surprised by it because they didn't even play the single
from the record was a Better World, and they played
that Incineration, but they didn't play that, he which was
quite surprised by. We got the Sword and the Cross,
which is a fucking great tune and he's got the
sword that you know he whips out for that occasion.

(01:05:59):
But as you say, like the really like instantaneous catchy
stuff from across the rest of their career. I love
those thrash puns like you have the right to remain violent,
and you just immediately know when you're in that song.
It's like you know when you're gonna go violent.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
We made violent and all that shit.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
Woe to the Vanquished with fucking great Hunter Seeker second
song that's again a favorite of mine from back in
the day. That one was great, and then ending on
Living Weapon, which I've still not seen them do what
was like my absolute war Bringer tune from back in
the day, which was Shattered like Glass, but Living Weapon.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Was like next to that on the album, and I
was like, yeah, I remember this one.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
This one's fucking great, and they again, they attacked it
really well, and it reminded me of the various times
I've seen Exodus crush outdoor festival stages at metal festivals,
you know, which is high praise because one of those
great thrash festival bands of that generation. And seeing a
band like Warbringer come out and kind of just absolutely
like detonate it in a similar kind of way with

(01:06:54):
the collection of songs from a good you know, fifteen
years now of their career was really gratifying, and really
it's just it's been a fun year to be a
war Bringer fan. You know. They've just kind of these
things happen. You know, bands will be great for a
long time, but then they'll suddenly just get like a
bit of umph and kind of just take over for
a little while, and they'll be like, Yeah, they've been
doing fucking brilliantly, and that's what it feels like with
war Bringer for these past few months, and they were

(01:07:15):
absolutely excellent for doing that. After that, Oh, you've mentioned
you put this down this band Peng Shwe You saw
a little bit on the Sophie Ancater stage, which I
did not see this, So what with this about?

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
I saw about four minutes of it, so I don't
want to judge. Maybe they're much more diverse than what
I saw, but I was. I was struck by the
four minutes I experienced. They're kind of a combination of
I guess like grime, drum and bass with I don't
know enough I want to say rock or mel It's
kind of like on like music for the Jewels of Generation,

(01:07:50):
the sort of guttural, more guitar based stuff that's something
like poison or Voodoo people, that sort of thing is that.
But the four minutes I was there, I think the
only thing I heard the singer say, and he said
it a lot, was it. The song, as far as
I know, goes fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off,

(01:08:11):
ad infinitum. And they had a fucking huge crowd for
the Sophie stage. It was packed out of a couple
of thousand people, all nodding in time to a man
shouting fuck off. So if if you want your finger
on the pulse of what the next big thing is
going to be, it's going to be a sweary drummond

(01:08:33):
bass so.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
Take notes, all right?

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
Sounds good On the main stage after that, which we
both saw, I believe was Harriet, who, of course I
dare say, played the Blood's Not main stage before. I
think I saw them at the Sophie Anger stage a
few years ago, one of the you know, more kind
of upcoming UK metal bands. I last saw Harriet when
they played this hardcore festival in Liverpool called No Play

(01:08:57):
Festival last year, and I remember saying on the podcast
that I was kind of let down by them there
because I think they had something.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
Going on that day.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
I think there were issues for whatever reason, because they
just looked like they weren't in it. You know, they
looked kind of just checked out and bored, and it
wasn't really all there. This was better than that, Like
they were actually they had pep in their step. You know,
they had energy and they were actually like laying into
it the way that you would hope a really fucking
heavy band to do. So, so immediately an improvement tick there.

(01:09:27):
Well done, Harriett.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:28):
I think it's my second time seeing Harriet. I think
I saw them a bloodstock in twenty twenty two.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Yeah, talking about Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
And I I like Harriet. I think they're a cool band.
I do think they maybe well they have in sound,
which the sound is good. I do like the sound
they create. I think he's got a really nasty wretch
to him. I like the level of punch their music has.
I do think they they still lack, like really decisive

(01:10:01):
songs where you walk agoing. That was great, Yeah, I
think in the ten that maybe work better on the
main stage. It kind of means it sort of sloped
together for me.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
Yeah, I do largely agree. Even though, like I said,
this was like, you know that this had more fucking
umph to it and more like you know, energy in
it than the last time i'd seen them, it's still
kind of there's not really a lot to it beyond
just you like get in the pit, you know, and
they play down tuned moshi. I very cruel way of
describing it would be to say it's riffless music, because

(01:10:35):
it's just it's dropping an anvil on your head over
and over again. And there are fantastic bands who've done that.
But I agree that that Harriot have not really yet
turned that into properly standout moments. I think they played
Siege Lord early in their set, like second song or something,

(01:10:57):
and that I think is one of their their better songs.
Kind of passed that I got sort of like beat
down fatigue fairly quickly. I end that I watched about
I watched about half of this set, maybe twenty minutes
of it Cuse I was like forty five minutes of
this essentially the same kind of riff over and over again.
I was just like, I'm not really feeling that to
the same degree. And I think Harriett Are. I think
Harriet Are band who are decent, and they're still somewhat

(01:11:19):
in the potential stage when they've kind of been pushed
ahead to a like this is the new you know,
one of our new great band stage, which I don't
think their music has really arrived at that. Yeah, but
they are certainly heavy and certainly punchy. In the live environment,
it was just again kind of I wanted a bit more.
I still do want a bit more dynamics out of it.

(01:11:39):
And that's even with I know that there are parts
when you know, like Debbie will sing here and there
and stuff like that, but I still think, certainly in
the live environment it needs to kind of, you know,
separate itself out a little bit more, I suppose. But
after that, and speaking of I mean this is a
real one eighty but like speaking of events, on the
Bloodstock main stage, Creeper were up next, Which is that

(01:12:00):
a mad sentence because it's something that you know now,
it's not even that surprising. It makes total sense. But
like I have, you know, I've seen Creeper so many
times over the last decade. Prior to two years ago,
they could not have played Bloodstock, like it would not
have been the right thing at all. And this was
so unique to me as again, a band I've seen
so many times, but I was like, I've never seen

(01:12:21):
them here in this kind of environment, you know, not
only a big outdoor festival stage, but for fucking metal heads,
you know. And it makes sense that they do it
in the Sanguavore years because the image has gone more
in this kind of over the top, you know, horror
theatrical kind of way that works at a Bloodstock. Again,
bands like Wednesday thirteen or whatever will play all the time,

(01:12:43):
but the music is now like you know, meat Loaf
choruses with like Ozzy Osbourne eighties you know, fucking ultimate
sin riffs and stuff like that, and that's now a
you know, it's closer to stuff like Ghosts and so on,
and that is perfectly fitting at Bloodstock. But as again
a fan from the ep eras and he's follow them
through all these transformations, it was just so novel to

(01:13:04):
kind of be like this band who I love so much,
so many of us have this real sort of ongoing
emotional attachment to them being at like the weekend festival.
I will go to most years when I could never
have imagined them there before, which is like a real
like let's see how this goes. It had an air
of kind of like let's just go with it and see,
you know how this sort of ends up more than

(01:13:25):
basically any other creepy show I've ever seen, which is
normally just a guaranteed hit.

Speaker 3 (01:13:29):
Well, I think it's so cool that for like a
smaller band on the rise, typically it's like, you've got
to streamline your stage show. You got to know what
your image is, you gotta have it nailed down, and
then you gotta play all your big songs in a row,
and then maybe you're crossover with people. They basically played
in fact they own, with the exception of one song
down below, everything was off sang before and sang before two. Yeah,

(01:13:54):
Like they didn't play the song of theirs as the
most streams on Spotify. They didn't play anything off sex
deephon the infront of which and then they couldn't have
necessarily with this guess up in this asthetic and everything,
and that's I do think it's so cool that the
band of that bold, where a less courageous band would go, well,
let's try and see if we can have our cake
and eat and try all these different things. It's like, no,

(01:14:14):
we're at Bloodstock. This is the sort of look we're
doing for this tour and the next one. Let's let's
let's meet that moment. And as someone who was sort
of a Creeper agnostic up until Sangapore and then I
went all in on that record, and I've been caning
it in the run up to this, and since this
was everything I wanted and more, it was fucking excellent.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
Have you seen Creeper prior to this? Never?

Speaker 3 (01:14:41):
And I never really right. I've heard good things, but
like I say, I was never that wild about the
other records, and I'm still quite iffy about sex Steph
and the Infante Void. It was only when Sangopore came
out I thought that now that this is something I'd
like to go see.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
See, I think the set description that you just laid
out you were almost sound like the description of the
kind of person they would be trying to win over
specifically at Bloodstock, right because I don't think I'm off
top of my head. I'm not sure right now. At
Creepers like most stream songs, so I imagine it might
be misery or something like that, but they can't do
those cyanide Okay, well that's still it's not gonna work

(01:15:16):
a lustock, right, Like, they're not gonna they're not gonna.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
Do that shit.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
And you know, it's it's the only time I've seen
not end on misery and it's felt natural. You go, yeah,
of course you're not gonna be misery, Like this is
fucking Bloodstock. You Misery is a song that works. It's
incredible in the live environment, but it requires a crowd
of really rabid creeper fans to sing it back to you.
You can't just sing it to a bunch of metal

(01:15:40):
heads who don't know it. That's just weird. The idea
of them doing anything again. They did down below, which
works because again it's very it's got that Steimen in it.
But I just knew it was gonna be all sang
with oran on because that's the stuff you're gonna do
at Bloodstock, you know. And you know in a way
that you remind me of years gone by, previous years
when it's been like Greenlong in a similar slot or something,

(01:16:01):
and it's like, yeah, this is a band with fucking
big tunes. And a fun show and you're just gonna
win over a bunch of Bloodstock attendees with you know,
Forest Church and Maxine Witch Queen and that kind of stuff.
You know for fucking former horror punk band or whatever. Creeper,
this was the same kind of thing. It's like you
come out and cried to Heaven and.

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
Lover's lead of Stray and all of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:16:23):
It's just it went over really really well in a
way that I was just I think I knew it would,
but it was it was just for me. Again, we
have every different experiences here because I've seen Creeper so
many times, but this was just like a very novel
different Creeper show for seeing that, even though the show
is always fantastic in a similar sort of way, and
they had some pyro will obviously just like a consummate

(01:16:46):
front man. They didn't do like a dedicated Hannah song
because they didn't have room for one, but there was
like a can'try what one it was, but there was
one song where she like just mosied out and ran
to the front to do like the bridge or something,
and you could see people around it being like, oh
my god, what the fuck that woman's incredible, Like she'd
been hiding at the back for the whole set and
then she just come out and nailed like the sickest

(01:17:07):
like you know, female vocal on this stage of the
entire weekend. It was fantastic and being like visibly like,
oh my god, these guys are so good, which was
like again quite assuring to see around me. Creeper of course,
also had the advert on the screens all weekend or
for whatever reason, Will got roped into doing bloodstocks like

(01:17:29):
official ticket resale advert, so he kept appearing the whole time,
you know, reeling off his thing about where to buy
and sell your ticket. So that was quite amusing just
seeing him up there the whole time. But yeah, Creeper
having you know, to win over people for the first time.
I've had to see Creeper do that in like a while,
like I can. It takes me back to again when

(01:17:50):
they were kind of breaking through on a turn it
in your Arms or whatever, and seeing them at like
you know, slam Dunk or places like that or whatever
where it's like you've got to win over some people.
Seeing Creeper back in that position with a new crowd,
with like a mostly new set of songs, and I'll
just say, you know, the two new sangle for two
songs were both very good in the live environment. Headstones particularly,
I think is an absolute jam. That track fucking rips.

(01:18:11):
Seeing it live absolutely cemented that Blood Magic is a ritual.
I thought, you know, kind of, it's got me more
into it again seeing with it live. But the new
stuff sounds good. But like I said, seeing them back
in like winning people over mode and it being Bloodstock attendees,
it was just like it was heartening.

Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
Better than Misfits.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
So for context, there was a guy next to us
who after every single Creeper song would turn around to masic,
this is way better than the Misfits. So it just
became the thing for some reason. I hope that that
guy has a lovely time caning the rest of the
Creeper catalog though now he's discovered them.

Speaker 2 (01:18:45):
So yeah, good stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:18:46):
After this, uh Kooblai Khan t X on the main stage,
I did not watch because I do not really care.
I had something else beginning with k which was much better,
which was a Katsu curry that was very, very sick. Indeed,
I came back for Fear Factory, who were playing D
Manufacturer in full. I had a realization that I've seen

(01:19:06):
thear Factory several times. I have never seen them not
doing D Manufacturer because they did this at Bloodstock, you know,
and you know around that that year generally as well
for the twentieth aniversary a fit of de Manufacturer, and.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
Now they're going back with a thing, if you know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:24):
The main difference is, of course that last time they
did it, Button see Bell was there and now it's
the new guy, which was my first time seeing the
new Fear Factory singer. But it was a weird like
a ten years have past and we're back to see
Fear Factory playing D Manufacturer and that record is a
ten I always love a lovely time seeing it. It
was obviously a different experience seeing it with the newer

(01:19:45):
guy Elliott.

Speaker 2 (01:19:47):
I know that you are, like I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:19:48):
A big fear Factory enjoyer. I know that you've always
been slightly less fuss and maybe this is like an
actual musical discussion that we can follow up later on
down the line at some point. But boy, I guess
what we were impression of seeing Fear Factory, maybe for
the first time, but like you know, with the new
singer they've got because this is the sort of again
the interesting factor about it being like, you know, Fear

(01:20:08):
Factory have been in a weird period of instability the
last couple of years, and now they're at the stage
where they're out on the road again and they're touring.
But it's kind of divides into people who are like,
oh my god, that guy is way better than Burton
was in the last few years, or people who are like,
but he's not Burton.

Speaker 2 (01:20:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:20:28):
I mean I'm not like you say, I'm not a
big Fear Factory fan. There is something slightly odd about
the fact that Dino is the one remaining member and
even in very recent times, like they've changed everyone out
and he's not even been in the band the whole time.
I think that's what that's where it's slightly straight.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
We've had Dino less years and burtonless years. It's very weird.

Speaker 3 (01:20:48):
Yeah, And I haven't seen Fear Factory before, but I
heard them when I went to my first festival. It
was download twenty twelve here on, fairly early, and I
overheard Fear Factory in the distance. I thought, bloody hell,
that sounds bad. And thirteen years later, hearing those songs
with someone who can sing, but having but that song
being dog Day Sunrise again on both occasions is slightly surreal.

(01:21:13):
He's clearly like a much more capable vocalist than burtency Bell,
and he seems to go over really well with the crowd.
I heard a bunch of people afterwards saying that I've
seen Fear Factory a bunch of times. That was one
of the best times I've seen them, and I think
it was mostly down to him. I was slightly soured
by the absence of one Tony Campos, who I don't
know when this happened. I was led to believe that

(01:21:34):
he was in the band, and I thought, well, at
least I get to see my good friend Tony nowhere
to be seen. I had to waste another couple of
hours before I got to let lay eyes on him.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
But don't I don't know if you had left at
this point. He emerged for Lynchpin. At the very end,
they played the Manufacturing full and then as a last
song one they added in lynch Pin and people notice it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:54):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
I didn't realize this because you know, obviously it's a
big tune. I like that record. But in my head,
you know, nineties is like the Fear Factory era. It
must be a new metal floor filler thing, because people
went fucking crazy for Lynchpin in a way they hadn't
done for most of the Manufacturer. It was just something like,
oh with absolutely bouncing.

Speaker 3 (01:22:12):
I'm not just saying this as uh, Lynchpin is a jam, Okay,
I don't yeah, as one as not keen on Fear Factory.
That song's fucking great.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
But when they played lynch at the end of Tony Campos,
like it just appeared sort of randomly on I think
he was on the side of the stage and then
they like dragged him out and he just started stomping
and dancing and doing like backing vocals and stuff, and
it was like ladies and a gentleman Tony Campos. We've
brought up Tony Campos in a very nonchant way, you know,

(01:22:44):
for Patreon listens and everything. I'm just gonna say this
might be a bit of an ill like a bare
Bevin situation or something where there was a moment when
you brought up you specifically mentioned Tony Campos by name,
and I just started laughing because of the idea that
I don't know, you specific know who Tony Campos is
just like made me really.

Speaker 2 (01:23:03):
Laugh for some reason.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
He's like one of those for higher you know, he's
been in many different bands, Bassis guys.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
But that was very amusing.

Speaker 1 (01:23:09):
But I Tony Campos was there at the very end.
We'll come back to him later with his reason for
being here. But yeah, like thear Factory, like I said,
Dean manufacture fucking sick. The band were really tight and
really on it. Like I think the the you know,
the attention has gone to the vocals over the years.
The were thing that could happen to Fear Factory is
if the drummer had a bad day and as long

(01:23:29):
as he is pounding out those machine gun double bass
parts and is like locked in, then I think I'm
probably going to enjoy it to some degree or another.
And he was great, so you know that all of
those rapid fire parts just really sounded strong. There was
a particularly wonderful moment.

Speaker 2 (01:23:46):
For Zero Breed.

Speaker 1 (01:23:48):
I think that's tracked like three on the record, when
Dino just.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
Walked up to the mic and went this.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
Song was on the Mordal Calmbat sound track with the
most like Yeah, ninety five, the kind of like moment
of the weekend. And then it had a payoff because
before when the little drop pasts of the song, they
added in a fatality over the speakers, which was very sick,
and I enjoyed that very much. The singer, again, he

(01:24:14):
was good in a way that just kind of didn't
go beyond that, Like he was very on point. I
think a lot of people have said, like, it's amazing
actually how much he sounds like Burton, you know, in
a way where like fear Factory melodies are fucking weird.
Like it's like you think it even like Replica, which
is like the hit from the manufacture. It's like it's
really hype fucking you know, stomping floor filler song, and

(01:24:37):
then it goes.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
Fil bruised and alcoon. So it's like, how was that
the chorus? That's really bizarre?

Speaker 1 (01:24:43):
And I think, you know, it sounds sick on record
when it has that sort of like ghost in the
machine kind of vibe, but I think it maybe always
just inherently is a little strange translating it live. They
clearly have found a guy who can exactly do the
Burton bits in a perfectly translatable way live and he
sounds kind of uncanny, and he does it really really well.

(01:25:03):
I think it's just the thing. It had the unavoidable
air of like, here's a band from the nineties. Here's
a singer who's like twenty years younger than the rest
of them, and he's a big fan of the band.
But it just has that like big fan of the
band who's kind of found his way, like a Tim
Ripper Rowen's vibe, you know what I mean, Like a
guy who is really good for the job, but just

(01:25:24):
maybe not necessarily is the guy when you picture the
band in your head. And that's kind of all it was.
I enjoyed the set, you know, but that's kind of
the vibe that it had. After that I saw I
think you saw all the band. I saw about half
of them Undeath on the Sophie Lancaster stage because I

(01:25:46):
was thinking at this point in the weekend when they
came on, I was like, Yeah, something that I haven't
had that I need at this point is just some
really fucking good death metal. And there are not many
bands on the planet right now better equipped to deliver
that in a punchy package than Undeath.

Speaker 3 (01:26:01):
I just they're one of my favorite like young metal
bands to see live every single time. It's just so
much fun. I mean walking on to cox Sparrow, which yeah,
perhaps we should have anticipated with the poster, but that
was nice.

Speaker 2 (01:26:18):
That was unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:26:19):
So again, like we did, you know, the summer Admroulette
and I declared it to be cock Sparrow Summer. And
this was like, the signs are all here, It's Cocksparrow Summer.
And this was before fucking Undeath designed to you know,
design a tour poster and sell you know, tour merch
with a kind of Coxsparow rip version of their logo on.
And then they came out to fucking We're coming back,

(01:26:39):
and you know, me and my mates were just having
like like we just want to see Coxsparrow now. Sorry, Undeath,
I'm in the mood for singing these songs now. But
that you know, you're immediately on to a winner, there,
aren't you.

Speaker 3 (01:26:50):
Yeah. And then just like they've already across their three
records put together a pretty massive like ten to twelve
song run where if they're playing for forty five minutes
to an hour, there's just no dips. I've pulled up
the setlets just to remind myself the opening run of
Dead from Beyond, Rise in the Grave, Ecrobonics and more

(01:27:10):
insane as far as like Chunky mosh Ready, Death Metal Goes,
which again songs which are instantly catchy if you're tuned
into their frequency. They just went over so well. It
wasn't like the busiest I've seen the Sophie tent all weekend,
but it was. It was pretty good. Like they pulled.
They pulled a very decent crowd, but the people that

(01:27:31):
were there were just all in. I feel like that
the pit to population ratio had to be one of
the biggest of the weekend. And one of the one
of the strangest bits of stage patter I've ever seen
was when before Chane to a reaking rotted body, he said,
this next song is about a hypothetical situation, which is

(01:27:55):
a very disarming thing for a death saying towards the
end of the set, when you're like huge and Chandelier,
that's that happened, Rise from the Grave, that's all. There's
nothing hypothestical about these like suddenly you're on edge, but
as a one two to finish Lesions of a different
kind into Brandish the Blade. Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:28:14):
I left halfway the set to get to the subheadliner,
but I would have liked to have seen Brandish the
Blade because that track is is really strong. And they
played in a again, like across the weekend. They played
in a skate shop here in Liverpool and like you're
basically like a floor show and the videos of it
look so fucking good. Of just like Undeath surrounded by
trainers playing you know, time to Ride from the Grave

(01:28:35):
and like hardcore kids you know, jumping over each other
look absolutely fantastic. But again I was happy again earlier
in the set pretty you know, coming pretty straight onto
stuff like It's time to Ride from the Grave, which
is immediately you're sewing, and then they played a little
bit about when I was kind of making my way out,
they played enter Patient, which is one of those new
songs I've just pat on, that little Worse dual single

(01:28:56):
they did out. Yeah, Undeath always work catching live just
like super full of Beans, aren't they? And they just
they just hit that groove that just absolutely kind of
moves you you're inner being in a really strong way.
I went out to catch the subheadliner because it's a
band I'd never seen before, and it was one of
those positions where I was like, well, you know, this
is maybe not necessarily a band who I would be

(01:29:18):
going to catch their headline shows or whatever. This is
my opportunity to see them, you know, a band of
some real note Ministry with subheadlining the main stage on
the Saturday. And Ministry are a band who obviously they
have such a huge kind of shadow and you know,

(01:29:40):
presence specifically in the world of industrial metal. If you
are into that music, at some point your paths will
cross with Ministry. They're just absolutely unavoidable. But kind of
following all of their records through like the two thousands
and particularly maybe the most recent run, it's real from
Afar stuff for me, you know, like I I like,

(01:30:00):
you know, the Psalm record and stuff like that, but
like following through their most recent stuff, there's kind of
the hardcore contingent of Ministry fans who know exactly what's
going on. I was not necessarily amongst them. I did
not know really how good or bad or whatever Ministry
was supposed to be in the live environment in twenty
twenty five. You know, this is a band well over

(01:30:21):
thirty years into the career. At this point, I wasn't necessarily,
you know, educated on like what kind of sort of
legacy band Ministry are in twenty twenty five, so I was.

Speaker 2 (01:30:32):
Very curious just to go out and see it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:35):
This is the set that I heard the most people say,
I don't know if that was great or shit, like
it's one of those two things, and I don't really know,
and I'm I'm sort of similar.

Speaker 3 (01:30:47):
It's it's so weird because when it was good, I
was like, this is fucking sick, and when it was shit,
I was going, what is going on? But the weirder
part is I don't know why some parts were good
and some parts were bad. That was obviously because Ministry songs.
This is the thing that's baffling about them. They have
got great records and they have got bad records. But

(01:31:09):
it's not necessarily obvious why some of those records are
great and some of them are bad. I was fluctuating sometimes.
I was going, when we had the run towards the
end of all the Psalm songs of New World Order
into just one fix, into Jesus built my Heart Rod,
I was going this band fucking rock. But there were
so many moments during it I was going, this is

(01:31:31):
so like unbecoming of a subheadlining band when Al Jorgensen
is wearing a big sort of Russian sherpa hat and
is just miming the samples to the songs as they
come on and pointing to the crowd like, isn't this
a band? And you're like this, there's no song playing,
You're you're you're miming to the news.

Speaker 1 (01:31:53):
Genuinely, like if you have not made CU team. Ministry
cannot stress enough how much of it is miming for
the news. That's literally because you know, industrial band, a
lot of sampling going on. Ministry songs, a lot of
them are made up of you know, it's exactly what
you're saying about nail Bom, you know, propaganda. You know,
it very much went like the most insane clip show

(01:32:16):
about like.

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
The FBI and Nicaragua or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
Like you know, all this kind of stuff. Lots of
the songs are made of like you know, chopped up
samples and stuff like that, and Al, you know, I
guess he's been playing them a long time. He knows
every fucking word of these samples not only his own parts,
but he is going to point at the crowd while
being like the CIA did this, this and this in
a very but while the thing that got me about

(01:32:40):
this is the band were again very like loud aggressive.
You think about Ministry and you want them to kind
of be like a sonic assault basically, and the band
pretty much were that, right, Like it's that tight, really
like loud, sort of industrial punk sort of feel either
like you know, really slamming on stuff like just one

(01:33:01):
fix or like the really out control like again more
punk fust pay stuff, and the guitar was really aggressive.
But again maybe this is you know, as a casual fan,
there's one guy in Ministry who everyone kind of recognizes
because he's the guy who will be in the pages
of Kerrang or whatever that is al and when it
was like, this is like a really fucking hard industrial
punk band. And then they've got like bugs Bunny the

(01:33:22):
cheerleader up front, but he's like the guy you know
from the band, and as you say, this guy in
like a massive Russian hat miming along to the news.
But then also his the thing that got me is
that I legitimately I cannot tell you right now, what
was Al and what was track? Yeah, because he was
like yelling. Maybe he was, certainly it looked like he

(01:33:47):
was yelling, but the vocal was so like fucking awash
with the sample and stuff and the layering of the
multi tracking of that kind of crazy industrial processed voice
sound that's on you know, the records that I have
no idea if like, if it is a completely live

(01:34:08):
if it is, you know, a live performance, it certainly
has a lot of elements going on that obscure the
fact that it's a live performance. I can say it
as diplomatically as that. So you have, as I say,
Russian hatted bugs, Bunny just appearing to yell at the
front while the band play, and it's that for like
seventy minutes straight, and it was really bizarre. And then

(01:34:28):
you get to some of the songs are so weird, right,
Jesus built my hot Rod. The entire fucking song is that,
you know, my ding down down that whole fuck that's
the song. So that's like that's one of their their hits,
you know, that's one of their bangers. But I like
don't know if Al did anything during that song, because
he just walked around mauving my dinger ling dong, and
that was the sun.

Speaker 2 (01:34:49):
I hadn't seen anything quite like it.

Speaker 3 (01:34:51):
And I just want to say the thing you said
about their branch of like satire if you want to
call it that, and terrible to nailed on. I think
ministries is even funnier because it's like two IQ points smarter,
which makes it seem more stupid, because it's all stuff
like f E A R false evidence appearing real, or

(01:35:12):
like the library it's where they keep the lies. It's
like it's all that sort of thing. You'll say something
like that, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and
he just like winks at you and points and goes
like like clue in, lock it, get on on my frequency.

Speaker 2 (01:35:28):
No, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:35:31):
I like, like you say that. The fact that the
one guy who we know in the band and he's
kind of like the cheerleader or like he's more like
the master of ceremonies for cheerleader is exactly the word
that came to mind.

Speaker 2 (01:35:47):
At one point.

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):
I genuinely thought this is like a political satire necrogoblicon,
except instead of a goblin, they've got a bloke.

Speaker 2 (01:35:54):
In a big Russian Hat.

Speaker 1 (01:35:57):
But as we say, it's the guy that we all
know to be, like mister Ministry, who was the kind
of superfluous cheerlead. The element of the live show, yeah,
which it was hard to get my head around, was all.
I mean when they were opening with Thieves, you know,
fucking banger hell yeah, and it sounded very again intimidating,
But the show.

Speaker 2 (01:36:15):
Was just kind of incongruous at times.

Speaker 3 (01:36:18):
I Mean. One of the things that kept coming to
mind as I was watching was like this band was
supposed to headline Damnation. That was that was on the books,
and you're like the thought of like you'd get to
the end of a day at Damnation that would come
on and then just all look at your show and go,
I guess we're going home.

Speaker 2 (01:36:38):
Yeah. It was a lot, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:36:43):
I'm happy to have ticked off Ministry, you know at
the end as an iconic band from the area, which
is bewildering headliner on Saturday, Machine fucking Head. As they
go by, I realized that, you know, seen Machine had
many many times, but this is the first time I've
seen them headline festival because I started seeing Machine Head
around the time that they swore off festivals for a decade,

(01:37:05):
you know. So even though much about this felt very
familiar to me as a machine Head fan who've seen
them many times, there was a moment occasionally of like, damn,
this is actually the biggest machine Head show I've ever seen.
And obviously they've returned to doing festivals. I saw them
when they did the Secret Set in the Sophie Tent
at Bloodstock a few years ago, which was mad. That's
the other time along with nail Bomb, where I've seen

(01:37:27):
it that full of course. But you know, they've been
doing big European festivals and stuff for a few years
since the Kindom and Crown record came out. I've heard
general reports that they've been just fucking crushing it again
on that part, you know, headlining Vacker and places like that,
and bringing the level of spectacle that you would then
want from something in that position. I went into this

(01:37:49):
not unexcited because I love machine Head and they're always
brilliant live, even when they have been on slightly ropia records.
But I did go into it thinking I'm not a
fan of what they have currently been doing. Right, Like
we reviewed the new record a few months ago, we
did not like it. We fell on the side of
not thinking that is good. I will go on record,
I've said it at the time, and I'll say it
again here. I think it's the worst machine Head record,

(01:38:11):
because every other machine Head record, even the Ropia ones,
have some redeeming features and some songs that will go
back to. They played Bulldozer in this set, and that's
always what's going on with Supercharda.

Speaker 2 (01:38:20):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:38:21):
The new record is just the least I want to
stick on anything from a machine Head record. So I
was going into just being like, I'm sure machine Head
will be good, but I didn't necessarily have a specific
reason to be like really amped and looking forward to
machine Head when I have seen them, you know, so
many times, sometimes on stronger records. But man, if machine
Head aren't a fucking good bloodstock headliner, you know what

(01:38:44):
I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:38:44):
Like I did, you know? They played two.

Speaker 1 (01:38:45):
Songs from the new record, bone Scraper still Sucks and
that o Whoa hearing it over and over again all
the weekend on the screens that can get in the bin.
And they played one other one that I don't even
remember the name of it, but it's one of the
ones that has the really weird sort of wet pivot
into the chorus, but otherwise everything else they did machine
Head was fucking cloud nine for an hour and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:39:03):
It was brilliant, wasn't it.

Speaker 3 (01:39:05):
Yeah. I saw went it with the same attitude because
I've seen machine Head once before and it was a
download twenty twelve, which at the time, because I was twelve,
I thought like, wow, they were amazing. They were brilliant.
And then in the months afterwards it was like machine
had melt down at download Adam Juice has left the band,
and you're like, oh, okay, well I was having a
nice time and they went we're not doing festivals anymore.
So I just never saw them again, and like I

(01:39:28):
know they've played some festivals in recent years that they
were at the Bloodstock, which I attended on a different
day in twenty twelve, and then obviously it wasn't a
download last year when they did it e Cuch. Anyway,
my first time seeing machine Head in thirteen years, and
I had the same feeling because unatoned, I do not
like that record. I'm not very keen on the bulk

(01:39:49):
of a Kingdom and Crown catharst As have not benefit,
So they've not an now my like outside of Bloostom
and Diamonds in that time. But got to say opening
with Imperium and then going into tents on Hammer, I'm
fucking ready to rock after that, Like even the likes
of Bone, Scraper and Outsider, which were definitely the lulls

(01:40:12):
in the set. But I was so ged up by
those first two songs that a song I don't really like,
is There Anybody out There? Came in a couple songs later,
and I was I felt like I was possessed. It
was like someone else was singing for me.

Speaker 1 (01:40:28):
Yeah, I think after a decade, I think I like,
is there Anybody out there?

Speaker 2 (01:40:33):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:40:34):
I never liked it, and I think it's the verses
that always threw me off when he comes in there.

Speaker 2 (01:40:38):
Doing like no no no, no, no no no.

Speaker 3 (01:40:40):
That always bits are not good.

Speaker 1 (01:40:42):
Yeah, they always immediately sort of threw me off from
actually enjoying the rest of the song. But maybe it's
seeing it headliner. It's a song that should be in
a festival headlining set, it turns out, because it just
feels fucking brilliant in that and you know, people obviously
know that song really, really well it is like their
biggest song these day, and having it sort of you know,

(01:41:02):
early middle, so not in the ending run, but early
middle and just geeing everyone up, is there anybody else there?
Genuinely feels fucking great. So like I think, finally after
a decade, not gonna be a perfect song, but I
think I've come round to actually like kind of being
a fan of it, particularly in the festival environment, that
was brilliant and that was the vibe right, it was
my god. Even when this band again on a lesser

(01:41:24):
album cycle or whatever, but they have some of the
I think they're probably the Bloodstock band. I've said a
similar thing about a Monomath, but I think maybe in
a more mainstream capacity, people just love those machine Head
songs so much like if you want to hear a
Bloodstock festival crowd, go ape shit singing something back. I
don't think there is a band who are equipped to

(01:41:45):
do that more than machine Head. Be it from everything
from is There Anybody out There? Through to of course
let Freedom ring with the shotgun Blast and then Halo
and from this day, you know, like getting your new
metal banger in there. But on the best of like
that era, absolutely pop the fuck off Locust. It was

(01:42:06):
so rallying in that way that machine Head at their
very very best always are show wise. Again, this was
from Trivium. It was a significant jump up in terms
of like just pure money on show spectacle. My favorite
bit was in Davidian the post kind of you know,

(01:42:27):
shotgun blast Rift that when every double bass hit a
fucking flamethrower went off just across the stage, like going
back and forth. Just that was wonderful. But then just
like hit tons of fireworks and all sorts going off.

Speaker 2 (01:42:41):
It was just a massive evening.

Speaker 3 (01:42:45):
It was such a fucking good time. Like like again
going into this kind of going you know, historically I
love machine Head, I might not love them now, but
I'm sure it'll be a great show. I was just
I was so swept off in it, and rallying is
exactly the word. There's something about that band in that field,
even in the sort on the form they're on. And
I wondered if the fact that it's basically all new members, no,

(01:43:08):
in fact it is all new members since I last
saw them, how much that would play a role, because
I feel like that four of machine Head was such
a such a striking band at that period of me
getting into metal, I wondered how that much would factor
into it. But Rob Flynn, as much as he's responsible
for some profoundly embarrassing stuff in his time, I don't
think I'm the same person after seeing him do the

(01:43:29):
bastard slam battle thing you can see on YouTube. That
still haunts me. But he is a fucking great front
man and the way he's got a very strange energy
because on one hand he's got the sort of Randy
Blyth thing of calling everyone motherfuckers, you know, open this
piss up, get fucking crazy. But then he's also like
a youth pastor. Where's my banana man? Give it up

(01:43:52):
for banana man? Banana man? Are you ready for There's
a guy in the crowd. He's wearing a banana costume,
and Rob's giving him a cute nickname, and he's going
he comes up with his game. It's like I'm going
to throw a beer to someone in the crowd and
just go brob, I don't want to spoil your fun.
That is impossible. It is not possible to get a
cup with thirty minute liters of beer in it throw

(01:44:13):
it upside down across thousands of people and hope that
that man in the banana costume is getting a single drop.

Speaker 1 (01:44:24):
You say this though, that first catch was incredible, like
they it was when they repeatedly did it after that,
I was like, now you're trying to recapture lightning in
a bottle. You're not going to get that again. That
first catch from banana man was genuinely yeah, was brilliant.
I would be proud, don't get me wrong, but yeah,
I mean, just on the lineup thing, I was really

(01:44:44):
a surprise to see Vog there because Vog left machine
Heads like a while ago. Apparently machine Head's like current
guitarist wasn't able to make it. So Vogue has come
back in to like fill in for a future and
he was like just playing with decapitated like that week
and then you come over to do very bizarre. So
again the lineup fucking who knows, Like Bog was not
in machine Head and now he's there again for a while.

(01:45:06):
But the vibe was pretty immaculate and rob as a
front man. I think, you know he can be corny,
we know he can be, but I completely love their earnestness,
like there's nothing about even when again, you know we
sometimes just criticize the material and maybe the motivation behind

(01:45:26):
it or whatever. But watching them live in a similar
way to you know, Trivium, felt like they very earnestly
wanted to make a fucking event out of bloodstock. This
machine Head show, by and large, I can't imagine, was
different to most machine Head shows they've done this summer.
Like they weren't surprises in the setlist or anything. It
was a machine Head show. They were brilliant, but there

(01:45:47):
wasn't like that, oh my god, I can't believe they
bust out X song or whatever, but they still through
Rob's earnestness and his ability to engage with the crowd
in front of him, it still felt like a special
occasion and not like Stock, you know, insert whatever night
of the tour has just been copied and pasted in.

(01:46:08):
And the moment where that really came into into you know,
a parents was Darkness Within, which obviously always been you know,
ever since it come out. It's been a guaranteed song
every single night, and Rob's speech is a guaranteed part
of that every single night. Some people will love that.
Some people will use that as they're like, oh my god,
hurry it up or whatever, but dedicating Dance within to
Michelle Kerr, who was Machine Heads you know, press officer

(01:46:31):
in the UK for like thirty years.

Speaker 2 (01:46:33):
I think it's like the.

Speaker 1 (01:46:34):
Whole career or something. Michelle ker again press officer in
the UK. She passed away last year and she is
one of those people who you might not know as
just a regular punter, but all the behind the scenes
people in the industry in the UK have first hand
experience working with with Michelle. Like I wouldn't call her,
you know, a close friend of mine. I could not

(01:46:55):
say that, but I have experienced, you know, hanging out
with her, just we met on a handful of occasions whatever,
just you know, being around her as someone who is
in the UK press industry thing everyone does. And so
you know, I was watching this with again like people
who write for Metal Hammer in places like that, and
that level of very like you know, authentic intimacy of

(01:47:18):
like we know genuinely that Michelle Kerr would be here
at Bloodstock had she not passed away the year before.
And the fact that Rob as someone who worked with
her for so long, came to this festival and just went,
you know what, this one's for her like this is
her moment was genuinely again so earnestly moving in such

(01:47:40):
a real way that it just kind of made the
whole experience and the whole night again have that gravitas
to it, you know, and it just it gave that
evening a certain level of emotion that just really carried
it through again through to ending on Halo and all
the rest else where. Again it was, you know, in

(01:48:02):
some ways a predictably great machine Head show, but I
will say it's in their absolute you know credit that
a predictably great machine Head show still feels like a
kind of live for the moment thing.

Speaker 3 (01:48:16):
You know. Yeah, and uh, I mean my my rule
live for the moment. Moment of the set was from
this day. Just a quick gess go about that because
I was, because I was. We were sort of like
trying to find each other for a few songs, going
like I'm studying, I'm stood, and I was like, ah,
you know what, we're going to see a band after this.
I can wait out. I wasn't expecting from this day
to play and as soon as I kicked in, I

(01:48:38):
was like, I need to find him before this song ends.
So I was I was probably infuriating hundreds of people,
a dozen people a second, just charging around. I didn't
make it in time. I was trying to kick off
the new metal evening in style, but you know that
just want to say that was one of that song
being played because I wasn't expecting it was one of

(01:48:58):
my highlights off the whole weekend. Yeah. I think they're
even smiling thinking about it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:04):
I think they started playing that song again maybe about
ten years ago or something, but probably after you last
saw them. And it's like, of all the sort of
new metal again, like I remember when this bird was
a bit new metal. Like it's well of those ones
you never want them to drop out to say it's
fucking unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (01:49:18):
Never never, And it sets us up nicely for the
real band. I think we can both agree.

Speaker 1 (01:49:25):
Yeah, so this the second stage headline on Saturday, the
Static X. I. You know, when I was initially putting
you know, my schedule together, I didn't necessarily know if
I was going to go watch Static X. Right, you
can be quite tired by the end of the night.
Static X is not my band. It turned out that
for work reasons, I was you know, assigned to go
and see Static X. I was like, Okay, you know,

(01:49:45):
let's let's go and do it. Ended up going and
watching them with you and uh, Status X, Like I said,
you know, I didn't live through that era in the
same way, so I have no attachment to Static X
from the time they are not a and from that
nineteen ninety nine new metal era that I ever got
into retrospectively, and I think seeing this set it does

(01:50:06):
confirm to me.

Speaker 2 (01:50:07):
Why you know on record that might be the case.

Speaker 1 (01:50:10):
But we had a really surreal hour watching static X
from a right outside the tent because it was so full,
which meant that we were stood kind of with our
arms slightly folded, politely looking at each other being Now
they're being like, this is very strange, isn't it. But
the whole static X thing, because not only again a
band from the era that I, you know, I'm not
a dedicated fan of, but you know, you may remember

(01:50:33):
the whole deal with static X. Currently, Wayne Statics, the
main guy in static X, passed away over a decade ago.
At this point, Static X was revived with I think
the guy from Dope wearing a strange kind of mechanized
ghoul Wayne static mask and It's kind of testament that
if you do something for long enough, people will stop caring.
Because when that was first announced, there were so man

(01:50:55):
people who being like, what, I can't believe this. If
you see what the static X are doing, this is
fucking mad. And now they've been doing it for like
six seven years and no one's like, oh, yes, Wayne Static.
They've got the big zombies out, they've got giant bubblehead
Frankenstein mascot versions of Wayne Static wandering back and forth
cross Dad and never were.

Speaker 2 (01:51:11):
Just like, yeah, it's what do you want?

Speaker 1 (01:51:13):
I guess it just it coasts on a level of
surrealness that I still don't entirely know where to like
land on it.

Speaker 3 (01:51:24):
But I had such a good time. I think the
fact we were outside of the tent that was already
the first funny thing, because anyone looking just think these
must be the biggest static X fangs in the world,
Like they've come across let and they're like, oh no,
let's stay for an hour and a half outside even
though we can't get in, we have to go and
see static X. One thing you said to me, which

(01:51:46):
I keep thinking about, was you said to me and said, like,
are we on the first or second song, because all
Static X songs sound exactly the same if you're not
too familiar, they all sound completely identical. And you turned
to me and said, are we on the first or
second song? I think we were on the fourth. I've
gone and checked me. I think we might have been
on the fourth Static song at that point. And as

(01:52:09):
kind of dull and repetitive as their music as Gonna
say can be, always is they they so made up
for it with all the weird stuff. Like so, first
of all, I mean, let you say, he comes out
a sort of ghoul mechanized Wayne Static mask it used
to be when they first came out. I think that's

(01:52:29):
why it was even more shocking, just like a zombie
version of Wayne. Statically, you're like, those are his cheap bones,
those are his eyebrows. Like you've just you're wearing like
Wayne's Static's face on your face. That seems really ghoulish.
But I did think this is a little bit more tasteful.
I see what they're doing here.

Speaker 2 (01:52:45):
Now he's got like glowing eyes. Yeah, yeah, you were.

Speaker 3 (01:52:50):
Outcomes the twelve foot we say, looks like a made
the dead terrorists. I forgot.

Speaker 2 (01:53:02):
What a weird era that word speaking of weird eras.
But yes, carry on, he.

Speaker 3 (01:53:06):
Comes stumbling out. I'm thinking this is slightly less tasteful,
and there's just so many stuff in the whole time,
they're just going deez Dean stan Steanz. So while that's
going and you're in this sort of trance state, you're
start having these little epiphanies. We're like, what's evil disco?
Why do they keep mentioning evil disco? As it's always

(01:53:26):
been their brand? Have they always been an air quotes
evil disco band?

Speaker 2 (01:53:30):
Who else is he? Is this a genre?

Speaker 3 (01:53:32):
Are there any other bands in this thing? What's this
song where the lyric is just He's a loser over
and over again with like karaoke words on the.

Speaker 2 (01:53:40):
Screen, He's a loser.

Speaker 1 (01:53:44):
I know there will be people listening right now who
were right there in nineteen ninety nine and like, yeah,
that's the loser song. Well a banger, right, you have
to insert yourself into my position of someone who doesn't
really know statiquette songs. And it was really really surreal
in that way, and the evil Disco thing that was

(01:54:05):
an epiphany I had. I was like, oh, I think
I like I static X now makes sense to me.
Now I've heard the term evil disco. Doesn't mean I
think the music is like, you know, my favorite thing
in the world or something. But I was like, these
songs are the same fucking beat every time, Like this
is the same and genuinely again, the fact that we're
watching from outside the tent made it kind of funny

(01:54:26):
because imagine if you were right in the middle of
the tent, it basically it looked like a rave. You know,
they're like big, crazy, you know, bright visuals and stuff
on the screen while playing basically just like hard bass
music and everyone inside is just dancing. And imagine if
you're you know, if you're in the middle of that,
you've helped your way along to enjoying it in whichever
way you see fit, and they're just like bombarding you

(01:54:48):
with that, Like you would probably really enjoy that in
a way like a big daf rave would would go down.
The fact that we were watching it from kind of
observing the rave just made it more amusing. But when
I heard the evil disco term, like, that's what you're
trying to do, that's your thing. Okay, it's not just
that you're doing corn rifts, but you've only learned one riff.
It's that you are trying to do. That's that's the

(01:55:12):
kind of you know, evil disco thing. And they I
only registered it like when it came up at the
end of the fucking set. And then they like they mentioned,
you know, they hit this one for Wayne, the King
of Evil Disco, and I was like that that I
get you now.

Speaker 2 (01:55:23):
I understand what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:55:24):
I understand why your songs are all the same song
over and over again, because it's it's dance music. Basically,
it's not you shouldn't view them as a new metal band.
You should view them as a dance band with new
metal guitars.

Speaker 3 (01:55:36):
Well, I think I think you shouldn't view them as
a new metal band, but that's.

Speaker 2 (01:55:41):
Sure, yes, but they do.

Speaker 3 (01:55:43):
I think the thing you've just touched on that is
why I still can't believe that Static X are American.
It's like dank Zones are just polish. In my head,
static X with their name, their look, their songs, but.

Speaker 1 (01:55:55):
The logo, which we said, looks like a pair of
trainers from the nineties, like you're rad cour trainers would
have static X in that front on the side.

Speaker 3 (01:56:03):
Trainers you'd be embarrassed if you mum brought them for you.
So the man at the shop said these were the ones.
Everyone's very I can't go to school in static X,
oh Jesus. But to me, they just I just every
time myself, I was saying, are you sure you're not Serbian?
There's something so bulkan about static X.

Speaker 2 (01:56:22):
I don't know what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:56:23):
It's big, particularly the lie visuals. It's big Eastern European
vibes for some reason. But of course Tony Campos was there,
and you got your your Tony Campos filled.

Speaker 3 (01:56:34):
I was. I was starting to get worried. I've got
to say, if he's not in fear fact, if he's
left static X, i am missing the Sunday of this festival,
I'm walking straight to my car. I will abandon my tent.
Admittedly I didn't. It's you kind of realized that there's
a reason why Tony Campos maybe isn't a megastar. He
just sort of plugs in, does the job. But I'm
a fan, even if it was from one hundred feet away.

Speaker 2 (01:56:56):
I got to enjoy it. I'm a fan as well.
Static X.

Speaker 1 (01:56:58):
Again, I don't know genuinely if I would say this
set it was good or not, but I will say
from it I understand Static X the band more than
I did beforehand, so it was it was educational, it
was enriching in that way. And then we went to bed,
and then it was the final day, Sunday. Sunday morning

(01:57:21):
hit me like a sack of shit, so I didn't
actually get out in time to watch the first couple
of main stage bands, which were Ghost of Atlantis and
One Machine. I'm not sure what was the first band
you managed to catch on the main stage, but I
got in for Rivers of Nail.

Speaker 3 (01:57:34):
I saw the last two songs of One Machine. Yes,
you know, not so much to report like they I
think a lot of people got hit by that same
sack of shit as you, because it was very quiet
in the field around that time. I guess they're sort
of slightly thrashy power metal, maybe a bit like Symphony X,
but a bit less complicated. They were totally fine, like

(01:57:58):
not really feeling it one way or the other, but
it was okay.

Speaker 1 (01:58:01):
Yeah, I tell a lie. Actually I saw before Rivers
Nihil on the Sophie stage. I saw a band called
Frail with a y who I've seen their promo pictures
and stuff about and I was, I recognize that band.
I'll go check out what they're about, and they're I
think they're American and there are kind of doom metally banded.
You're with a female singer that so it has that
kind of ethereally Chelsea Wolf sort of you know, Kingwoman

(01:58:22):
whatever kind of vibe. But Fraile's thing, for some reason
is this week or the week of blood thought. They
released a cover of Lana del Ray's Summertime Sadness that
is getting them a bit of that kind of you know,
novelty media circulation or whatever. And they played that and
it was the first of several pop covers I saw
this last day. It kind of started the trend. But
Frail's you know, ethereal doom cover of Summertime Sadness was

(01:58:46):
it was all right. But Rivers of Nail on the
main stage, first time I've seen that band, even though
again another band who had been out for quite a
long time. At this point, I used to be into
Rivers of Nihill. I remember when they came out and
it was more of kind of aggressive, you know. Their
records were produced by Eric Rutan kind of technical, brittle
death metal thing, and I like them at that stage.
And then where Ours Know My Name? They weren't kind

(01:59:07):
of more progressive, had the saxophone stuff in, and that
felt like kind of their moment, They've gone further down
the prog tech rabbit hole, and I've kind of been
lost along the way, Like I don't have you know,
ill ill feelings towards what they're doing, but it's just
it stopped really involving me. And they put out a
record earlier this year that again kind of you know,
brushed past me largely, and they played I think like

(01:59:31):
all songs from that new record, and then they played
one from where Else Know My Name at the end,
so I couldn't say I was really like you know, uh,
you know, familiar and knowing the ins and outs of
the majority of the material that they were playing. But
I will say Rivers of Nail are a very impressive
live band in terms of watching the musicianship on show,
which I alway feel like sounds like a bit of

(01:59:52):
a backhanded compliment because it'd be like, yeah, you know,
they're very good musicians in a way of saying like
they're not exciting or engaging stage personalities or wherever. But
genuinely watching them, I was like, Wow, you guys are
fucking proper, and particularly I guess this might be a
thing they've developed more on the last couple of records.
They have like multi part vocal harmonies going on with

(02:00:12):
like you know, they've got the guy up front who
does the growley vocals, but then it's almost like a
tech death mastered on because they have like another guitarist
who does you know, singing, and then the drummer is
fucking singing as well, and like those two are harmonizing.
And when I was watching them do these like two
part clean vocal harmonies over this kind of progressive death metal,
I was watching them being like, damn, you guys have
really fucking worked on this, haven't you.

Speaker 2 (02:00:34):
I can tell yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:00:36):
And I mean I feel exactly the same because a
lot of those techie bands where you like you say
you go, it's very impressive. You guys are great musicians,
but that sort of it. I got that feeling, but
it was also just it wasn't just impressive to watch.
It's fun to watch them play, like yeah, ei, those
vocal harmonies because the thing they reminded me of was
when I s s of Vortex used to be in

(02:00:57):
demon Borgie vocal sections.

Speaker 2 (02:00:59):
In your own this is sort of like this.

Speaker 3 (02:01:01):
This is a different flavor. And I'm not that keen
on the records, but live hearing that I think. I
think if it was just the low end, guttle stuff,
which on record is the stuff I prefer, and he
does have a pretty bestial voice towards seeing him, you know,
pull that voice out well, well, some of the hardest
finger playing on a bass that I've seen in age.

(02:01:23):
It's just like I just try to pull out the strings.
Combining that with the more sort of layered multi harmony vocals,
I think it played to their strengths in terms of,
like on the main stage plays people who maybe aren't
too familiar with them. It did just add a bit
of dynamism to the set, which also was helped by
the fact that the guy with the saxophone would come
out every now and then, and that was obviously clearly

(02:01:45):
a sort of bit of ear candy that was unusual.
I thought they were very good. I'm not that keen
on where they've gone in the last couple of records,
but I thought they did a really solid job of
setting up the day on the main stage. I think
they were like, well the second man I saw, but
like as far as like a midday thing to kick
things off, I think they did a really good job.

Speaker 1 (02:02:05):
Yeah, and the six sophonist, he did have a belt
made up of piano keys, which made him look like
a secondary secondary score music teacher who's come out to
do It's that's the phone parts.

Speaker 2 (02:02:15):
But I rated it. It was good.

Speaker 1 (02:02:17):
After that, you, I know, watched the band who I
did not watch tell me about what was going on
with August Burn's Red.

Speaker 3 (02:02:26):
I think august Burn's Red understood that maybe Bloodstock isn't
typically their crowd, so it's how we've got to get
people on side, and they decided I couldn't kind of
but I couldn't really believe it was happening. It's like
halfway through the song, but they decided the move for
them would be to open with a cover of Chop Suey.

Speaker 1 (02:02:45):
Bizarre, isn't it? August Burn's read of all bands. I
can't pin them down because because I'm not a fan,
They're one of those metical bands who just like never
interested me. And the thing that always sticks out in
my head, is like, Oh, that one's August Burn's read.

Speaker 3 (02:02:57):
Is.

Speaker 1 (02:02:57):
I know that they're the band with the fucking Christmas
album and that seems weird. And now you add in
Chop Suey cover in the mix, and I don't know,
August Burns read a serious band, Like what's their deal?

Speaker 3 (02:03:10):
Well? This is the thing is like when they're not serious,
it's Christmas albums and hit Me Baby one more time.
And when they are serious, it's so dour, like their
brand of metalcore is. It's not like the Parkway Drive
thing of like get on my back, we're charging into battle.
It's not the Killswitch engage thing of like wearing your
heart on your sleeve. I'm not really sure exactly what

(02:03:31):
their flavor is. I'm not too familiar with them. It's
only Sam was here, their biggest fan. They can come
out and explain what makes August Burns read such a triumph.
But it was just so unusual for them to come
out and do this Chop Suey cover and then they
walk this line where the singer seemed to be going like, oh,
this is a bit of fun, like hey, the Sun's

(02:03:52):
out play, a bit of system of a down that
would be good. The rest of the band stonefaced like
the exact same expressions as when they were playing They're
dour metal core songs, so it didn't even feel like
the maybe close to the stage people getting into it.
Where I was standing, it was this weird feeling of
like the kind of MOPI metalcore band wants.

Speaker 2 (02:04:13):
To party now.

Speaker 3 (02:04:15):
And then they went into their own songs, which I
find completely nondescript. I don't know what they played off
what records. I've heard a few of their albums. I
didn't really recognize any of the songs they played. They
don't set the mood all that effectively by just going like, right,
most popular about song of the twenty first century and
then to ask song.

Speaker 1 (02:04:32):
Yeah, I can understand that. I instead, I want to
see a band, just out of recommendation from my friends,
you know, I had a tip. I was like, you
should go and see this band. I went to this
band Dogma on the second stage, who I had not
listened to beforehand, so it was pretty blind for me.
This is a band I think they maybe have got
one record. They're kind of you know, on the up,

(02:04:53):
and I think you're probably going to start seeing them
pop up a little bit more in places like metal
Hammer and so on, and you know they're gonna I
think they're a band who you might start to recognize
a little bit more because they have that kind of
vibe to them of something that can catch the eye.
It's basically, it's a band made up, but I don't know.
I think that where they're from is like a secret,
you know, like I don't know where this band are from.

(02:05:14):
But they're made up of a bunch of nuns. Basically,
it's like five sexy nuns, and that is the presentation
of the band. The singer had incredibly strong knees because
she was slot dropping like a maniac and I could
not do that one time without my knees screaming at
me in some way or another. She clearly works on
that shit, so good for her. But they're basically is

(02:05:35):
kind of like you know, trad metal with you know,
it's got kind of a poppy edge. I would say,
you know, it's very clearly relatable to like a ghost,
I would say, I would getting some pabblewolf vibes as well.
It's kind of, you know, like big again. I don't
know where they're from. But it's sort of big. You
could imagine them being European heavy netle played by a
bunch of sexy nuns, and they sing songs that are

(02:05:57):
kind of, you know, cheekily blasphemous about the Catholic Church
in a you know, like a sexy kind of way.
And that's the picture of the band really, so it
kind of it sells itself in that sort of way.
There's a clear image and a clear sort of you know,
a cohesive idea of what the band is kind of
gets at and stuff. And I was genuinely impressed by
this lot in a way that I get. I have

(02:06:19):
not even like not really listened to their records to
confirm how well it might work on record, but live
they were kind of sick as fuck, Like it was
really fun because, uh, you know that the heavy metallisms
of like duel guitar solos, you know of like the
you know, the these two nuns back to back actually
doing these like dual shreddy harmony parts. I was like,

(02:06:40):
that's legit. That rocks one of the guitarists. Even though
again they all they're all just dressed the exact same,
it still feels like each nun kind of has a
stage personality, you know, like the bassist is kind of
like a girning and doing the bass face and stuff.
And there's one of the guitarists who particularly stood out
to me because she had what I will only describe

(02:07:00):
as cradler filth guitarist energy, you know, that kind of
aura that particularly the crayler for guitarists who recently left.
But the guy who used to kind of really have
that spider like sort of weird way of like very
spindily plucking at his guitar and stuff, and kind of
felt like, you know, he's some sort of weird demon
orchestrating guy. There's one of these nuns who's doing that shit,
and she was great, and there's like attention to detail

(02:07:22):
in that where I'm pretty sure she had hanging from
the headstock of her.

Speaker 2 (02:07:24):
Guitar some prayer beads hanging off it.

Speaker 1 (02:07:27):
It's like, that's fucking cool, you know, like you've put
thought into like making every little bit of it work.
And again, you know, they've got a front woman who's
just prowling about and singing these songs that sounded pretty fun.
Like the choruses considering I've never heard songs in my life.
The choruses were hitting, and then they really nailed it
when they dropped a cover of Madonna's Like a Prayer,
which nice. Again, of all the metal pop covers I

(02:07:48):
saw this day, this was the best one by a
mile because it thematically totally like, of course, this fucking
band who had been watching for half an hour or
whatever doing these like blasphem of sexy heavy metal songs,
are then gonna do fucking.

Speaker 2 (02:08:00):
Like a Prayer. And they crushed it. It was brilliant.
It was so much fun.

Speaker 1 (02:08:04):
So, like I said, I I've not checked out this
band's records to really like follow up on how much
on may or may not like them, but live it
was a blast. And I know they played a London
show like right after this and kind of made it.
I think it's like the black Heart, but they made
a thing out of it where they had like a
confessional booth in the fucking like, you know, they're turning
it into a bit of a you know, a you know,
some some eyecatchy guinea key type stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:08:25):
But like it was really fun. It was really good fun.

Speaker 1 (02:08:27):
So Dogma, I might keep an eye on them and
see if there's actually more more to that, because it
was genuinely of I would say that the surprise of
the weekend really in terms of that I didn't know
anything about who really entertained me. And after that had
to go back to the main stage because something I
had been told a lot about was the band fire Schwans,
who are also a band I had only recently learned of.

(02:08:48):
This band I heard of for the first time basically
exactly a year before this, when Whack in twenty twenty four.
I turned on the live stream at one point, as
I often do when the back in live stream is
go and catch whatever band was going to come on,
and the ending of the set before the band I
was going to watch was this band firesh Funds, and
I turned it on and I was immediately greeted with

(02:09:09):
the most German looking thing I've ever fucking seen in
my life. And I was like, what the hell is this?
Who are these guys? Because it was just like proper
ott vacken Core is the vibe I was getting of
this thing. And then when they announced the I think
it's their debut UK show this thing, I was like, okay, cool,
you know it makes sense. It's coming over here. And

(02:09:30):
i'd heard reports from their Vacan show of them having
I know they have a pipes player, and I was
told that they have a flaming pipes player, like using
his pipes as like a flamethrower.

Speaker 2 (02:09:42):
That did not happen.

Speaker 1 (02:09:42):
I don't know if that is completely outlandish exaggeration or
maybe there's a difference in production budget in Germany versus
what we got here. But sadly no flaming pipes. But
I've heard a lot about firesh funds and I was like,
this is going to be just very daft, isn't it.
And I suppose out of you know, out of due diligence,
as as a guy who's seen many a daft band
over the years, I'll go and check this out. And

(02:10:05):
I told you to do the same, cause like this
will be daft, let's go watch this, and it was.

Speaker 3 (02:10:10):
It was a lot to take in.

Speaker 1 (02:10:11):
This wasn't it in a similar way, obviously very different
vibes sy static X, but these were the two sets
and ministry as well, where we kept looking at each
other being like what do we make of this?

Speaker 3 (02:10:20):
I so I knew nothing except that you'd recommended it
to me three or four times before the set came.
I've just doubled checking. I was definitely, definitely And I
got there and I saw the big dragon in the background,
and I saw them coming out in their costumes, and
I thought, I see, okay, I've seen this before. The
like of this makes sense, and you know, I could

(02:10:42):
follow it. For the first couple of songs, I was like,
these are an intensely German band doing songs about sort
of like Norse gods and stuff like maybe the Scottish
Highlands and et cetera, et cetera. Bagpipes flew the fact
that that's the bit that you said, you get you know,
they're a German band doing songs about Norse god and
the Scottish Highlands. This, I completely understand.

Speaker 2 (02:11:04):
This works.

Speaker 3 (02:11:08):
I'm with you, I'm following. I'm following, and i'd kind of,
you know, i'd entered the world that they'd built for me,
which is just the world I've just realized. But I've
I've entered like the realm that they've set up. Where
I got confused, and I think we all got a
bit confused. Is when he said this size the song
off our next album, Our next album, is going to

(02:11:28):
be called nat club. You go, what, sorry, Night's club,
the ancient historical fantasy band. The next album's nightclub. And
then the next song comes in, party, Party in the nightclub,
raise your fist up, drink another pint up, and suddenly

(02:11:50):
the whole vibe you said it. It was laughing electric
call boy.

Speaker 2 (02:11:53):
That's exactly the vibe. I, I would say.

Speaker 1 (02:11:55):
The moment that I started laughing before that was there
was a song called Bastard von Asgard, which is about Loki.
Are describing you know this, this god Loki. He had
many children outside of oude of Wedlock. This is what
we call in Germany.

Speaker 2 (02:12:08):
I'm Bastard. I got the crowd to repeat it and that.

Speaker 1 (02:12:12):
Made me laugh a lot. And then we've got nightclub,
and I was with you. I was confused to fuck.
I don't know if you've seen this post festival. I've
looked this up. It's nightclub with a K at the beginning.

Speaker 3 (02:12:23):
Never mind all questions now in the press, now.

Speaker 2 (02:12:26):
It works right, it's the night club. But yeah, so
that was around the point.

Speaker 1 (02:12:31):
So again it's it's it's folk metal, not the I
would say, the more like when I try and argue
the genuine nritive folk metal, like oh no, they're not
all stupid, they're great. This is not the kind of bands,
is not the kind of band I would put in
that category. This is, as I say, sort of novelty
festival folk metal, and they know it to the point

(02:12:52):
that it turned more and more into a comedy thing.
We looked up firesh Funds I believe is again the
German translation doesn't quite work if you put it into English,
but it's a dick joke basically, like there's some kind
of innuendo going on there. And it turned more and
more into a kind of comedy thing. And when they
started doing nightclub, they also started introducing these sort of

(02:13:13):
scootery elements of like the du you know that kind
of shit. And that was the point where it completely
clicked of like, oh you're not just because you know,
I quite like some of the pipe melodies and the
fiddle parts and whatever, because you know, it's fun. But
when they started doing that, I was like, yeah, okay,
this this is the German in it coming out. It's
electric coll boy, but they've dressed up in like togas
you know, or like put some body armor on or something.

(02:13:36):
It is like folk metal fantasy version of the same
scooter party shit that Electric Callboy do, which made me
realize that outside of you know, the genuinely heinous you know,
falling in reverses or whatever of this world, this might
be sound least favorite band in the world. I don't
know if Sam has ever heard fires fans, but I

(02:13:57):
was watching it. I was like this confluence of elements,
like everything Sand hates about folk metal, everything Sam hates
about Electric core Boy, everything Sam hates about like novelty
pop covers at metal festivals. When they started then doing
fucking Ozo's dragon Stead and Tea. Towards the end of all,
I was like, we might have found the ultimate Sam
repellent band in the form of Fronts, and.

Speaker 3 (02:14:20):
Yet also have I woken up in Mark stage. This
is like, it's amazing those two get on when they
went into that like, I don't know it like that
my ya, I don't. I didn't even know that was
really a song. I just remember like it being on
YouTube videos.

Speaker 2 (02:14:36):
I am a few years older than you. It was
a hit back in the day of the early two thousands.

Speaker 3 (02:14:40):
It was about yeah that that's when, like any semblance,
it's already gone if there was any semblance of like
legitimate popticon, and.

Speaker 2 (02:14:54):
I'd love to see it.

Speaker 3 (02:14:58):
Uh, you know what it was kind of was naf obviously,
but the time flew by it, I did have a
nice time.

Speaker 2 (02:15:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:15:08):
Well then so yeah, only complained is their bagpipes did
not shoot fire, but they were there and that was that.
Then after that was ah, yeah, the Black Dahlia Murder
was next, which was something was again when I was
looking forward to the weekend and like lot of the things,
I really must see the things that are going to

(02:15:29):
have some level of a the aura around them. This
obviously stood out to me because this is the first
time I have seen the Black Dahlia Murder since Trevor
Durner passed away. I know they have played the UK.
I think they played Download or something, but this is
the first time they were put in front of me
with Brian front in the band. And it's been so
long now, you know, Like I know, Trevor died pretty
much at the height of the COVID pandemic. The last

(02:15:49):
time I saw the Black Dahlia Murder was twenty eighteen
when they supported Cannibal Corpse and Trevor came out and
did a duet of Striped with with Corpse Grinder, And
that's a really wonderful memory I have of like the
last time I saw you know, Trevor in the live
environment seven years on, being like it's Black Dali Murder
of Time again. It was surreal, you know. And uh,

(02:16:10):
you know, the newest record we reviewed it. It's a
very good record. It is my least favorite Black Dahi
Murder record. Just kind of goes that way sometimes, not
going to criticize it very heavy at all. It just
didn't necessarily jam its way into my head the way
my favorite Black Dali and moder records have. But going
into this with this level of you know, some level
of heaviness, you know, because it's seeing a band who
I love very very much, who when Trevor passed away,

(02:16:33):
it's one of those, you know, kind of band member
death that kind of hit me the hardest because so
many of us loved Trevor and kind of what he
stood for in the world of extreme metal and so on.
The thing that kind of maybe not surprised me, but
that my takeaway from this is just sort of like
how nonchalantly natural it felt, you know, like going into

(02:16:55):
that with all in my head about like, oh my god,
it's the first time seeing them without Trevor and all
this stuff. What doubt they were the Black Darliy Murder.
They played and it was just like old times to
a degree.

Speaker 3 (02:17:07):
Yeah, I mean it was my first time ever seeing
the Black Dogs just evaded me over and over again. Yeah,
So I obviously I had the same thing of like,
it's gonna be weird seeing this band without Trevor, even
having never seen them with him, But I did. I
My thing was more that, oh shit, I hadn't even
I've been thinking so much about new material and like

(02:17:28):
the sort of tetal aspects of the roles in the band,
it hadn't really occurred to me what it might be
like to hear those songs live with a different voice, because,
as we said, you know many times and when we're
reviewing the last record, Trevor was one of those real,
once in a generation extreme vocalists in the league of

(02:17:49):
people like Danny Filth, do you I mean, like a
real one off that can't be replicated, and I always
at the time they don't try and replicate it. But
the Black Darling Mud are such a well oil machine
that pretty much as Miasma kicked off, which throughout the set,
we were sort of debating and ranking anything, were playing,

(02:18:10):
just leaning over for each other, saying, no, it's it's
ma Asthma. Then it's Nocturnal, then Ritual, and then no no, no,
no no, and then it's this, so we we don't.
I kind of missed all the stage patter because you're
just frantically trying to rank these records. But that's my
favorite Black Dahli Murder record and exploding into that. I
kind of let all of that melt away, and I
was just swept up in seeing some of the best

(02:18:32):
extreme metal music of the twenty first century play, like
at my favorite festival.

Speaker 1 (02:18:38):
Yeah, and I know you were saying that Miasma and
Nocturnal are your favorite Black Darli Mede records, and I
think there was those those are the records with the
most on and they didn't even get to it. I
think they were going to do, what a horrible night
to have a curse at the end, but they ran
at a time and got pushed off the stage like
the Early which was the same, but they did. Do
you know a couple of other songs off Nocturnal and uh,
you know again not necessarily. I mean all Black Dahlia

(02:19:00):
Murder songs are great to some degree or another. I
would say maybe about half of this set was like
my like dream, you know, my favorite Black.

Speaker 2 (02:19:07):
Dahliy Murder songs.

Speaker 1 (02:19:08):
When they went into on Stirring Seas Assaulted Blood, which
I think Richard was probably my favorite Black dari Murder record,
near the end, I was like, yes, this is fucking
I mean that song so mean and heavy and nasty.

Speaker 2 (02:19:17):
It was great.

Speaker 1 (02:19:18):
Obviously, the night Bringers of this world just fucking like
killer riff, absolutely bouncing the guitarists. They've got now one
of them because obviously they've had, you know, because Brian
moved from guitar to vocals. They've got you know, various
other guys coming. I think Ryan Night is still there,
but I know that Brandon Ellis was there on the record,
and I think now was left one of the guys
they've got now as a full head of gray hair.

(02:19:38):
And I was looking at that and being like, in
nicer terms, but I was like, Black Dahliy Murder are
kind of old now, you know, And I mean that
in a great way of like they are veterans. For
a long time, they were viewed as like the young
upstarts of the Death but like all those those young kids,
you know, they weren't around to buy day A Side records,
So the Black Dahlia Murderer is like their band. And
then I was looking AT's like you've got a guy
with a fucking full gray head of hair like rocking out.

(02:20:00):
I was like, you are so cemented, you are Staples.
And that was the vibe we got going through where
I actually open with quite a lot of older material
like as well as me ASTHMHA. They played like Contagion
from the first record and stuff. But when I say,
you know, it was kind of felt like old times
to a degree. What I mean is even though Brian

(02:20:20):
as a front person, particularly I guess a vocalist even
more so, feels different to Trevor, like he has a
much more The only way I can think of to
describe it is he's more like a kind of musty, crusty,
kind of goblin gremlin guy like Trevor was doing the
real kind of vocal you know, Maverick fucking Dino shit.
And then he'd whip his shirt off and be fucking
pounding his fist and going mental. Brian feels like he

(02:20:43):
just kind of creeps around and goes, eh, you know,
he's just a bit more of a kind of like,
you know, he's got a few more sort of levels
of crust around his death growl and stuff, and I
kind of, you know, it translates obviously into the older
material as well, and it was interesting hearing it like that.
But I think probably again what we praised Black Dahlly
Murder four was like, it's really wonderful. They kind of
kept it in house to a degree. And the guy

(02:21:05):
they've got to front the band is the other guy
who's been in the band from the very very beginning,
so there's no sense of strange sort of shift, you know.
And even though I've never seen Brian doing vocals before,
because it was Brian and I know that guy, it
just felt very seamlessly naturally, like this is the Black
Dahlia Murder. You know, obviously they've had a major shift,

(02:21:27):
but they were carrying it on in you know, the
kind of most seamless way that you could feasibly do
given what happened, And that was just just again having
gone into the set with all the sort of stuff
in my head. I think we said the exact same
thing about the record really, where we were like, oh
my god, we've got so all the sort of expectation.

Speaker 2 (02:21:43):
And then it was like, oh, it's about Daarly Murder.
Still good, nice, Like It's just there was always.

Speaker 1 (02:21:48):
Casual and obviously they've been touring as you know, this
kind of version of the band for a couple of
band a couple of years now, so even though this
was our first time seeing it, it's not like it
was their first time airing it. You know, It's like
they've been doing this lineup for a while, so I
think it probably felt fairly normal and casual to them
at this point in time. And yeah, that's the most
positive thing I can say about it really is just
how like, you know, casually natural it kind of felt.

(02:22:11):
And then just watching one of the great death metal
bands of the twenty first entry play a bunch of sick,
ripping tunes.

Speaker 3 (02:22:17):
Yeah, and it kind of mirrored the way I felt
about the record in a sense where that record's servitude
is probably a gloomier Black Dahlia Murder record, but it
doesn't feel like it's trying to put this tax fully,
it doesn't feel like a particularly like retrospective record where
it's not all looking back. It's kind of just going like, yeah,
this is the next record.

Speaker 2 (02:22:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:22:38):
In the Black Darley Murder canon, similar thing with this,
where you say Brian stepping up to the vocals, Ryan
Night coming back on guitar, I think is a major
part of it as well. I think it's often overlooked,
but like getting someone who is kind of a fan
favorite guitarist to step back into that sport. It doesn't
feel that the Black Darli Murder has changed ownership in
any way, which is yeah, even on the circleans of
like changing singer like under just replacing a singer normally,

(02:23:00):
that's always a feeling you can get and just coming
out and playing. You're right, it's crusty, like Brian moves
a bit slower. He kind of he has a very
peculiar walk on stage where he sort of shuffles his
feet and croaks like he's not striding around, like you know,
he's not doing it like David Lee Roth. He kind
of he looks like he could maybe use a canetimes.

Speaker 1 (02:23:23):
It's sort of ye in a cool way. It's sort
of like he's just lurking, you know, he creeps around
in a way that suits them.

Speaker 2 (02:23:28):
Again, the horror vibes.

Speaker 3 (02:23:31):
I quite like how it juxtaposes against, especially with the
settles they've chosen. Just how fucking hard and fast they play,
like a vulgar picture. It's just so explosive, and that
into statutory ape where obviously the gorilla comes out. Yeah,
like you said, just sort of again I speak someone
who's never seen them before. It fell like business as usual,
and I sort of turned to you afterwards and say
like was that weird? Like how did that feel? And

(02:23:54):
it was kind of heartening for you to go, No,
that was that was the Black Darley Murder like kind
of new singer, the same sort of deal.

Speaker 1 (02:24:01):
Yeah, and on the new material as well, Mamma's Hand
I thought was one that stood out for it just
been like kind of a slightly slower, slight, a bit
more again, sort of a groove song in the mix
that worked well. Yeah, I'm hoping I can catch them
doing a longer set because there's even more songs that
I want to hear, you know, after all these years.
But very good and happy to have the Black daarlier
murder Back long may that continue. The next band, the

(02:24:24):
third from the Top band, on the final day of
the festal was Lord of the Lost, who I did
not see because I have seen Lord of Lost before.
They're rubbish and they were not even playing their awful covers,
which would give it some kind of more big curiosity value,
a normal Lore of the Loss set. I didn't need
to see again, and I needed some food. And I'm
very into the idea of the third from the Top band,

(02:24:46):
particularly on the Sunday the last day, being a shit
bad I don't want to see because it gives me wonderful,
wonderful Genuinely, I really needed this, like having an hour
to go and sit down and recharge because the final
you know, the sort home stretcher that we're about.

Speaker 2 (02:25:01):
To talk about, was so sick, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:25:04):
But I really needed this hour to be like, ah,
let's get ourselves together and then fucking have it.

Speaker 2 (02:25:10):
So didn't watch All the Lost.

Speaker 1 (02:25:11):
Did, of course, watch Fucking Masterdon, who were the subheadliner
on the Sunday, which is really strange because in my
head they're a blood stop headliner, you know, like they
have headlines this festival before this day is an exact
reversal of twenty sixteen where Kajira subheadlined to Masterdon. And
I think there were lots of interesting kind of callbacks

(02:25:34):
or parallels or reversals or whatever to that particular billing
and that occasion, which may be kind of strangely nostalgic
in a way, but Masterdon sub headline the festival. This
was when we were saying you get your real bang
for your buck at the top of the bill this year,
you know, of the six headliners and subheadliners on the
main stage, five of them have headlined the festival. Four

(02:25:55):
because you had Emperor and Masterdon as well. That's so
much of just again some of the all time greats
that you're getting there, you know, and going out and
it's like, you know, not even seven o'clock or something.
A Mastered On coming on felt really weird to me.
But this was the first time I'd seen Mastered on
since COVID. You know, the last time I saw them

(02:26:16):
were twenty nineteen. They had Scott Kelly with them, which
we should tell you how long ago that was. But
I was really wanting to see Mastered on. But of
course the current you know, the recent changes that have
Gone On were mastered On had me very very curious,
kind of hopeful, because I'd heard from again the Aussie
show and the Slayer shows they played out that you

(02:26:37):
were at Eliot one of those. I'd heard that the
kind of current version of mastered On people were like
it was really good, which, considering mastered On have long
been one of those bands which people complain about at
festivals and say they're not good. I was kind of
surprised to hear how positive the reports of sort of
the new look mastered On were coming out of stuff

(02:26:58):
like that Slayer show. So as someone who has you know,
never seen a math On show, they have it enjoyed,
but hearing just how into it everyone else was, I was.
I was really chomping at the bit to see mathed On.

Speaker 3 (02:27:11):
Yeah, And I sort of said this, I think I
said this when we reviewed the Slayer show. But I'd
never seen Mass before this summer, and I had I
had my ticket to the Slayer show before I think
it was before the Brent Hines stuff was revealed, and
I was sort of soured on that a little bit,
going like, fuck, you know, they've been one maybe top

(02:27:31):
five metal bands ever for me for fifteen years and
I'm not seeing the classic lineup. After that Slayer show,
the first thing I was thinking was that I want
to be at Bloodstock now. I want to see that.
I want to see this again, but longer, more songs,
because they were so good at that, they were even

(02:27:54):
better at Bloodstock, and I don't think it was just
the fact that it was more songs, it was just
that five.

Speaker 2 (02:28:01):
More on it.

Speaker 3 (02:28:03):
I feel like I've weirdly, I've gotten really lucky with
my timing here because the whole time in a Mouse
and Fan, I think exactly thing you've said, where it's like, no,
they're bad at festivals, they're inconsistent live. That's why they've
never been as big as they should have been. I'm
two for two now with Masterdon. Both times i've seen them,
they've been fucking excellent.

Speaker 1 (02:28:23):
Yeah, And going back to the twenty sixteen Bluzzdop which
we were mastered on headlined Gadjera subheadlined that is the
best Gadjeira show I've ever seen. For a start, that
show was the one where I think everyone realized they
were a headliner because they turned up the subheadline and
they just fucking tore the place to pieces and they
had a massive crowd. They had a ton of Pyro
and you know, the Magma era set list, and everyone went,

(02:28:46):
oh my god, Gadjeira are like the clearly the real
fucking deal. They next time they come back here, they'll
headline it and lo and behold they did. And Mastodon
people have often said, just could not follow that. That
was my first time seeing Masterdon and I was so
so chuffed to be seeing them, and they played a
fantastic set list and everything, and it was that thing
of to a degree people who can plain about Master

(02:29:09):
and at festivals, I've gone, well, what do you want?

Speaker 3 (02:29:12):
You know?

Speaker 1 (02:29:12):
Oh no, I'm seeing some incredible musicians play some of
the best fucking songs ever were is me because they're
not like chatting to the crowd a whole bunch all right,
fucking get over it. They're playing the Star for Fox.
Say it was amazing, But I do get it to
a degree of Mastered on shows can be insular, you
know again, you know, the whole whole Brent thing, which

(02:29:32):
again the drama of it continues on where I'm not
really bothering kind of unless anything major happens. I don't
think we're gonna bother covering every single fucking back and
forth catty comic because it's not funny in the way
the books of my Valentine Trivian.

Speaker 2 (02:29:44):
Once are funny. It's just kind of But.

Speaker 1 (02:29:48):
For whatever reason mastard On, you know, in their kind
of current era, relationships run their course and sometimes it
can be good to just kind of be free of
a little you know whatever ten may have been there
because they're just having fun and they're just clearly up
for it.

Speaker 3 (02:30:05):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:30:05):
And this was I think this was my band at
the festival, like considering it wasn't the you know, they
had a bit of pyr but it wasn't you know,
I mean, the fucking sun was out, you know, it
wasn't a massive show in the way that particularly Machine
Heading goadjear At were massive shows. But Sun's going down,
You've got a crowd of people around you and are

(02:30:26):
really like ged up. Mastard On, who I hadn't seen
in several years and I was really wanting to see,
are playing for me the hit set of the festival,
it felt. And this is before we get to the
magic moment at the very end as well. But like
it just felt unbelievably cool, where they opened with tread Lightly,
which again maybe kind of nostalgic because that was their

(02:30:49):
opening song at that Again, first time I saw mastered
on twenty sixteen Bloodstock, that was on the once More
Around the Sun era, going from there straight into the
mother Load, and I was like, this is the jam
of the festival. This is the fucking this is the
first jam moment. This is a metal festival. We've had
lots of heavy songs, we've had some singer lungs, but
we've had nothing that feels just quite as like fuck yeah,

(02:31:10):
suns out, good time as this time things will go
just fine. And from there on it was just it
was electric, wasn't it in a way that I don't
And again everyone seems to agree, people who always played
about Mastertons at festivals seem to agree that this just
had a kind of kind of zip to it.

Speaker 3 (02:31:27):
Yeah, and I don't. Again, I don't know who's fault.
I don't know who's to blame or who takes responsibility
for this, but the whole thing of Oh, they played
difficult set lists like they played Download and they closed
with Ancient Kingdom off Emperor of Sand and that song's great.
I would have been happy, but I do understand why
people might take issue with that. I actually think it's
so cool that Mastered on both times i've seen this

(02:31:49):
summer seem to have completely responded to the situation they
found themselves in, where it was like at Slayer, they
just went right twenty five to thirty minutes, let's smack
them in the face. This I was like, the sun's
going down, it's Sunday evening, Gajea is coming on later,
let's just have a fucking great time. And I completely
agree they stole the weekend for me, like because it

(02:32:11):
was the whole thing at the festival is like the
three headliners and like three of the biggest headliners I've
ever had, and it's sold out on the I think
it's sold out before mass n't even believe. And then
coming out as you and I some sort of center
facing the stage, it felt like for the first nine songs,
we just look at each other and smile over and

(02:32:33):
over and over because it's like tread lightly into the
mother load, into pushing the tides. I notice people don't
like Hushton Grim. That record's great, and when it hits hard,
if that's the thing you're complaining about it. It hits
fucking hard because Pushing the Tides and then later more
than I Could Chew, which is one of my favorite
sort of latter eho massed on songs just sounded sublime.

(02:32:54):
Crystal Skull, which I had heard before. The way everyone
seemed to.

Speaker 1 (02:33:01):
That intro, it is like the oh lock the fucking moment.
It's just it gets me every single again. I Blood
Mountain is my mass on the record. I think you
said similarly, like like it's just it gets me every
time again, because I hadn't seen them, you know, post
COVID Hushed and Grim doesn't feel like a new record
at this stage. It has been out for a while,
but this is my first time seeing anything from it,
you know, and Pushing the Tides was fucking sick. I've

(02:33:23):
always thought that song was an absolute jam that really
hits the festival spot. More Than I Can Chew was
probably the most kind of like laid back, slightly prog jam,
you know, element of the set maybe when it did
go a little bit into the but it sounded really
really strong. But when we started hitting the again, the
the run of just like masteredon Classes with Crystal Skull.
Every time I've seen them, they do this where they

(02:33:43):
just seem in the middle of nowhere every time. It
takes you off guard, seamlessly transition straight into black tongue
from something and that beon. It just absolutely fucking hits
like a ton of bricks. It was wonderful and the again,
the energy between them. There was one part if you saw,
there was one part where the new guitarist, who again
he kind of doesn't he doesn't like steal the show.

(02:34:06):
It's not like they've injected some guy who you know,
is like running around fucking sliding on his knees being
a rock star or something. He's kind of just playing,
but he just sort of like, you know, it's quite
happy and jolly to be there. But him and Bill
went up to each other during one sort of like
dual harmony bit. It might have been the sort of
thin Lizzy bit inspector like, but there was one part
where they were doing a little part and then in

(02:34:27):
between the like you know, the notes, they would play
rock paper scissors with each other just like in the middle,
and it was like, that's so fucking cool like that
as a as a bit they may have worked out
just so fun to see he's like rad guys just
knocking out something fun and sort of again like maybe
a quarter of the crowd would have noticed them doing,
but it was so so much fun.

Speaker 3 (02:34:48):
And because he kind of is so laid back and
he has that sort of guitar virtue also flare to
him again. I've only seen it twice and it's been
about a month apart, but it's become one of my
favorite bits of live music that I've ever seen, is
the transition in the middle of Megalodon where ye like nice,
like soaring sort of Stevie ray Vaughn guitar part, and

(02:35:09):
then when that's ringing out, that kicking into dick and ticket,
Dick and ticket the way the crowd fucking boots off
after that, and you got that guy was just for
a moment on the cover of Total Guitar magazine talking
about like how loveliest pickups are, and then it's all
booted off again and it's it's as like Larry as
the master on set gets that juxtaposition is the thing

(02:35:31):
that was always so cool about having rented the band,
at least on a record, Yes, And now that kind
of translates into the live environment. It's just it's the
sickest thing.

Speaker 1 (02:35:40):
Yeah, there was a lot of representation from quite quite
again once around the Sun and the Hunter heavy got
again like all the heavy lifting, which was a fun
sort of deeper pull, and specter Light went the fuck off.
I did notice in the set list they very tactfully
managed to avoid anything with a two prominent Brent singing put.

(02:36:02):
Some people have said, you know, I can't believe they
don't play kurl the Bell.

Speaker 2 (02:36:05):
They like Kurll the Bell.

Speaker 1 (02:36:05):
Fucking ever, I've never seen them play that song. That's
not a thing that they do, even in a festival
set list. They certainly won't do it now that you
know again, the guy who sings I kill the man
because he killed my goats is not there. They managed
to avoid basically everything that Brent sings. I think the
only prominent thing that was in one of the songs
is the white Well Holy Grail bit, which kind of

(02:36:26):
anyone can do because you just sort of scream it,
you know. Yeah, obviously they didn't play anything of the sky.
That's all the record they avoided. For again, a festival
set probably you know that that works just fine. But
you think maybe the oblivions of this world and stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:36:37):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:36:38):
I'm interested to see how long it takes mastard On
to reintroduce songs that Brent sings because Nick believe, I
believe the current guitarist name he didn't have a microphone,
you know. The vocal now is Troy and Bran, and
occasionally Bill will growl something the way he always has done.
But that sort of main three prong mastered on vocal

(02:36:59):
is not in the live environment. Currently it's Troy and Bran.
So again, I'm curious to see how long it takes
to get them to bring in Brent Sang songs if
they decide to. But it goes to show that even
if they're somewhat sort of hindered. Okay, however, many of
our songs that we could pick with their their decommission

(02:37:20):
for the moment because we don't have a singer for them,
their set list can still be this fucking good, you know,
with that sort of limitation placed on them, and you
almost like, if you weren't thinking about it, you wouldn't
notice it because the hits were so fucking strong. Bringing
us to the end of Mother Puncher, which is always
just the fucking craziest like pile up of riffs. How
the hell they wrote that on their like first record,

(02:37:42):
I don't know. It's utterly mental and I love they
still do it.

Speaker 2 (02:37:44):
Steam Breather with that.

Speaker 1 (02:37:47):
That was a real like suns out, you know, sons
kind of going down. We've got some sort of desert
rocky kind of vibe. And the wonderful chorus that the
fucking the absolute peace to the resistance of the festival
was ending on Blood and Thunder, which clearly again maybe
a lot of the casual fans who don't know every
word to all the heavy lifting or whatever, they know

(02:38:08):
why whal Holy Grail and the fires going and the
circle pit is going, And I was looking around me.
I was like, this is like, this is what I
want to see at a metal festival, you know, I
want to see people going mad for Blood and Thunder
then into I really hoped they were going to do
because I saw a video of them doing it at
another festival.

Speaker 2 (02:38:24):
We've got one more song.

Speaker 1 (02:38:26):
This one's for Aussie Meune, a little number they call
supernot the one two of Blood and Thunder into supernort
might be one of those all time classic blood stop
moments for me, like those ten minutes or whatever, it
was pure heavy metal elation.

Speaker 3 (02:38:45):
I could have heard Bill doing the Danner. I'm gonna
have heard him doing that for six hours. I wouldn't
care if they counsel that sound is so buoyant and jubilan.
And you know, like you say, there were Ossie and
Sauath covers and Ossie's songs played, Sabbath songs played across

(02:39:07):
the weekend. There's something about those songs which, if you're
into metal, they don't just feel like classic metal songs
almost they're almost like hymns or nursery rhymes, Like it's
just it's so ingrained in you. Playing Supernor is like
being a midnight mass when it just it touches on
something so like deep within and in that event, like

(02:39:30):
Masterdon playing you know, an all time great festival set,
having played nothing but absolute jams the whole way, and
then sort of seeing you out with maybe the most upbeat,
joyful Sabbath song, their cover of its fucking great. They
obviously they don't need to reinvent, it.

Speaker 2 (02:39:49):
Suits them so well. Brand sounds just brilliant on the
vocal line.

Speaker 3 (02:39:54):
He does and that's the other thing. I mean, not
to go too far back, but like he sounded great
the whole set, and then when he he goes into
that Super Northan like it, it's so perfect for his
voice and it's such a perfect band to play that
song like that. As the finale, it felt like if
they ended on Blood and Thunder, everybody have gone like
that was fucking sick. Like Masston smashed it, you know,

(02:40:15):
they smashed this place up. Closing on Supernort and then
leaving it felt like everyone just looked at each other
with a big smile on their face. I just thought
that was that was the best.

Speaker 2 (02:40:25):
Yeah, purely those just like good festival vibes. It was wonderful.

Speaker 1 (02:40:28):
Then, like I said, that kicked off the last three
bands of year. It was four bands to me, a
back and forth of just what did I think? Again,
the good vibes of that you know Super Noort moment
kind of just carried me through the remaining couple of
hours of the festival. Basically that was just my headspace.
So then we rushed over to the Sophie stage to

(02:40:49):
catch a band who had just started their set, Three
Inches of Blood, returning a great heavy metal band from
the two thousands and early twenty tens who I you know,
I was a fan of the first time out, but
I never got to see them because I kind of
caught them at the tail end of when they're around.
Was really excited when they were announced for this. We
did an album club on them and everything, and they're returning.

(02:41:11):
Three Inches of Blood was another of those like fun,
cool events. I was looking forward to Bloodstock and again
it was just the good vibes a fucking master, I've
just played super Or and then we get in the
tent and we find people who are just having a
great time shrieking along, and like they didn't even sound
that good, Like the tent sound was kind of shitty
for them, but we were having so much fun during

(02:41:33):
three Inches of Blood.

Speaker 2 (02:41:34):
It was ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (02:41:36):
Well, I obviously I knew they were playing, and I
was excited to see it. I was so I've been
so busy the past few weeks. I was tired before
I got to the festival. I was kind of dead
on my feet after the Master Doon and you were saying,
I'm gonna see three inches of Blood, and there was
I kind of I must have shown some resignation on
my facem going like maybe I'm just chill out and
see good you because just like you've got to see
three inches of He's right, of course, of my show.

(02:42:00):
I can't stand it. So we go over and you're right,
like the sound is bad. That the band like kind
of in the best way, that have that sort.

Speaker 2 (02:42:11):
Of old look.

Speaker 3 (02:42:12):
Now were like two inch scullets. One has got like
like completely gray hair, like they look like old lifers.
And just to say, by the way, we need to
start a revolution in bringing back the scullet, because if
you're in a heavy metal band, that's one of the
few lines of work where it's actually like an asset
to your life. Like it's better to have the skullet.

(02:42:33):
So to forego it and just shave your head is
a coward's move because three inches of blood it seems
so much more maniacal. The fact that had these like
this crazy look to them, and Campipes with his wide eyes,
I wasn't expecting them. They sound mental on record. I
was not expecting them to go that hard. I know

(02:42:54):
they were so at it.

Speaker 1 (02:42:56):
Yeah, the vocals, which is like exactly the shrill madness
you you think of when you think of three inches
of blood. But there was one point I can't what
song it was. At one point where they just went
into like the most fucking like late seventies like Stained
Class riff or something, and me and you famed Dads
looked at each other just like yeah, like it's like

(02:43:16):
that was like with the riff we were waiting for
a weekend and we didn't know it, you know, it was.

Speaker 3 (02:43:20):
Just like this is the one brilliant It was the
most like boomer guitar demo riff, and we looked each
other like that's where. Now that's something we understand that
this new fang, this is this is the source and
like not so exposure apparently. But you talk a big
game about being a maniac and you you met the moment.

(02:43:45):
I have never seen you like that, mate. Well we
got to the final even render. Like basically I'm saying
this from the beginning pretty much, you and Camp Pikes
are like matching energy. I didn't know where the shrieking
was coming.

Speaker 2 (02:44:04):
From, dude.

Speaker 3 (02:44:05):
It's fucking madness.

Speaker 1 (02:44:06):
Battles and brotherhood into Deadly Sinners was just combined like
fucking like betals. Yeah, it was so much fun, Like
I said leather Lord in the middle. I was happy
they played one off long Live Heavy Metals. That was
the record that I discovered them on, even if it
wasn't metal Woman, which was was my tune back in
the day. But yeah, it was a we need again

(02:44:29):
at this festival. There was a lot of it on
the bill. We did badly need a really fucking fun,
fist in the air, classic heavy metal show. And even
though it was a slightly newer band who have some
more twenty first century elements in their sound, we needed
something where you could fucking you know, put your fist
in the air and go enemies of metal, your death

(02:44:50):
is our reward and like that was again a perfect
moment for the festival.

Speaker 2 (02:44:54):
So that was great.

Speaker 1 (02:44:55):
Then back to the festival final headliner on the main stage,
which is of course Kadira, the heaviest I guess you
would probably say like the most extreme of the three
headliners this year. It's nice that that got left till last.
Like a band who are you know, at some point
in time you could have called described as a death
metal band, but they're also so perfectly a like Sunday Night,

(02:45:20):
bring it Home.

Speaker 2 (02:45:20):
You know they're going to crush it affair.

Speaker 1 (02:45:23):
Of the three festival sets headline sets, this is probably
the most business as usual one. Like, I don't think
there was much that was I mean again, there were
two notable additions to the sets that we will get to,
but otherwise not very much different about like the like
the arena tour they did for the Fortune Record a

(02:45:44):
couple of years ago. If you saw them then you
largely saw this. You know, all the same sort of
songs chosen, big visuals, looked fucking awesome on an outdoor
stage at night with the kind of like alien mothership
like intense laser light shows and stuff like that, like
really intense vibes that worked perfectly. But again, one of

(02:46:08):
my friends described it very summed up, very well, saying
like that was not a statement of intent in the
way that maybe the twenty sixteen or even the first
time the headlined it was a statement of a tent
that's a victory lap, like that is just yeah, good
year kind of maybe they'll have a new record next
year or something. It must be coming on at this point.
It's been a goo few years in fortitude, but it's
good year. Are kind of wrapping up a really like

(02:46:29):
big for them period that they've had, and that was
fucking awesome, particularly when they got to I mean obviously
for example Maya Kulpa, the Olympic song, which is weird
because it's kind of the least like an actual song
of all the things they play, it feels like a
weird like two minutes to sort of like ha ha,
kind of just like blast of you know, sound and light.

(02:46:49):
But watching that with them fucking firing up the blood
red streamers like they're on the bast deal and having
the image behind them of the fucking singer hold in
the head and stuff. Watching it at Bloodstock where it's
so close to home. That's something about this.

Speaker 2 (02:47:02):
Reminded me of like Gajeira have like achieved so.

Speaker 1 (02:47:06):
Much, and it's like it felt like a band who
had like gone out into the wider world and now
they've come back and they're showing us all like the
incredible treasure they've brought home.

Speaker 3 (02:47:15):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:47:15):
It's like that's a band who have gone out and
fucking won over the world and I'm just coming back
to home turf and being like that celebrate this.

Speaker 3 (02:47:25):
Yeah, because I think the first time I saw Gajera
was Bloodstock twenty thirteen when they were like fourth down
below Sabotain and Advantager, and it was that year that
they didn't have any of their own kit, so there
was no backdrop, and it just they they completely stole
the festival that year. And I saw some amazing things
that year, Like that was like it was King Diamond
and like all sorts, but Gadjeerra just swept it away.

(02:47:47):
Twenty eighteen is still one of the best headline sets
of any festival I've ever seen. And you're right, like
I saw them on the Foresteed tour back in twenty
twenty three, not just in terms of like generally like
similar songs they chose, like kind of vibe of it
is very similar to that. I feel like the first
two times I saw Goodyear in the last two have
been kind of distinctly different, where the first two it

(02:48:07):
was like this, like you say, statements of intent, putting
the hammer down, kind of showing you like just like
we can wipe the floor with anyone, And then the
last two a bit more like meditative, a bit more
kind of maybe emotionally varied, like laid back. Even like
the guitar tone seems different now where it's a bit bouncing,
a bit more rubbery. It's it's not quite as much

(02:48:28):
like a jackhammer into your forehead, but you're exactly right.
It was that victory, that feel of them coming out
not necessarily feeling like they had to smash the place
to pieces, but kind of doing that effortlessly anyway, because
they're Gadjea and you're playing songs like Backbone and Flying
Whales and from the Sky and just and it like

(02:48:49):
you're just saying, they've got to be thinking about to
that first time I saw them in twenty thirteen and
how amazing they were, And then you look at the setlist,
it's like the amount they've changed in that time, the
amount they've brought into it. Things were, which if you'd
have told me then that in twelve years, i'd be
seeing the same band, but you'd have songs like the
chant or Amazonia, Another World, the cell A song from

(02:49:11):
when they played at the Olympic opening ceremony. It's fucking
it's nuts.

Speaker 1 (02:49:17):
Yeah, and they can really Like I was struck by
how much they can frontload a set to a degree,
Yeah no, because I mean they kind of always do it,
so I was, you know, it's not a surprise, but
it always hits me. On You're about three songs in
and you're just settling, and then they go this is
backbone and it absolutely tears your fucking head off. But
right in that open and run after that, they go,

(02:49:37):
oh yeah, his stranded by the way, like arguably are
kind of hit from I Guess to somebody with their
commercial breakout record. And then right after that Flying Whales,
which is like their most iconic song from the kind
of slightly in the first decade of their their career,
like they really just like hit it, and how classic
all of it again, from the you know the I
guess the earliest they played is from Marty Sirius, but

(02:49:59):
from that through to a fucking stranded Silver or whatever,
how classic those songs feel. Where some of those again,
like I'm sure all of us probably remember Magma being
released even long false Vage or whatever, like it's fucking yesterday,
But how cemented they are in the way that the
fucking machine Head songs the night before were you know
where Stranded is just so perfect festival kind of fair

(02:50:21):
and as we're saying, the kind of the vibe difference,
how kind of joyous for a Sunday night headliner Gajeria
could be despite how extreme they are, particularly obviously when
they're doing stuff like the chant and suddenly even like
the way the camera for the screens, it's just like
that's the song where it's like now we go over
the crowd and the front row and everyone's going, ah,
it's like this weird lit hippie circle energy like takes

(02:50:42):
over the thing for a while. Obviously they still play
like fucking maniacs, but like they have got that stateliness
about them. Speaking of maniacs. From the Sky was maybe
the most like oh kind of moment because that was
the moment where Mario, who you know, he does talk,
I've heard him talk, but he does not speak to
the crowd directly. He only communicates through written down large

(02:51:06):
signs that he like cycles through like a comedy bit.
And then the first one was like ten pound fish
and chips and he does a little comedy bit. I
was like, oh, no, that's the wrong sign. But via
the medium of like whiteboard laying down to the audience
you want more double kick.

Speaker 2 (02:51:20):
Can you handle it? For five minutes straight?

Speaker 1 (02:51:23):
And then playing from the Sky, which is like genuinely brutal,
morbid angel shit for fucking five straight minutes. It's just
like overpowering, like genuine quite suffocating, and then switching that
into another world straight after, which is very savvy because
he can just play a backbeat, you know, it's like
he's been double bass in for fucking ages, and then
we can go in like a little and it look

(02:51:43):
kind of, you know, very.

Speaker 2 (02:51:44):
Simple, more rock feel.

Speaker 1 (02:51:47):
They can now pace a set like that and Gajira again,
we're just super confident, like I said, very very like,
no one questions the idea that they are festival headliners
at least of that scale. Now just perfectly did it
the real like again new things where I would hope
that they come around with a new record and kind
of refresh things again soon. But for this being a

(02:52:09):
kind of cap on, like if twenty twenty four were
the Olympics felt like a particularly mad year for how
far good year have gone, this sort of festivalun this
year is almost like a cap on that, you know,
and having me a culpa there. But then the other
swerve moment, which obviously would not have happened again if
if Ozzie had not passed so soon.

Speaker 2 (02:52:29):
Before this, but it's a.

Speaker 1 (02:52:30):
Weird thing of like so many of these bands literally
have an Aussie cover read like waiting to Go because
they've done the fucking Back to the Beginning show and
maybe they were only going to play it that once there,
but now obviously they're going to repeatedly do it at
least this year. Is kind of a tribute thing, but
everyone like having there, Like in the Tank Sabbath cover
was kind of interesting, and it's just again when with

(02:52:53):
the Back to the Beginning show we spoke about it,
we were like the kind of deepest pull there outside
of like Johnny Blade from Metallica was like, you know,
Gajeera doing under the Sun, that's a cool, fucking hard pick.
It was weird that like the Sunday Festival headliner just
happened to line up being the band who did that
kind of like deeper poll, you know, but getting gajeeras

(02:53:13):
under the Sun at fuck it again. We just had
super like an hour before or whatever, but then we've
got this like, uh, you know again that kind of meaner,
darker Sabbath pull from that same record with another really
sort of like you know, go back to what I
was saying at the beginning about how you know, the
Aussie News kind of almost united the festival to a degree.
It was like the through line through the festival was

(02:53:35):
this kind of collective remembrance of Ossie and I don't know,
just getting under the Sun at the end of it
was another like stamping of that.

Speaker 3 (02:53:45):
Yeah, And I honestly, I think I think the master
on cover was well, I think I think I think
it's a better version. I prefer the combination of the two.
But that's one of Under the Sun is one of
my favorite Sabbath songs. And for something I think because
maybe they were headlined, I wasn't expecting go Jira to

(02:54:06):
do theirs for some reason. So when it was like
after Lone font Savage and now you're thinking, like heaviest
amount of the universe, toxic garbage and there's a few
songs I haven't played, then for them to introduce it,
just do dir dough fucking the sensation of that. Yeah,
it's such a muscular riff and Goodyear are like the

(02:54:27):
muscular metal band of their generation.

Speaker 1 (02:54:29):
It's fun that we've got songs that a lot of
the time Sabbath themselves had not been playing, you know,
like I never don't know if I saw them do
Super Ord, but I certainly would never have seen them
do under the Sun.

Speaker 3 (02:54:38):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:54:38):
But then there you are a better headline set and
you're getting it and you can just you know, throw
your neck out to that riff. It was sweet.

Speaker 3 (02:54:48):
Yeah, And then like kind of because you know, them
playing these Sabbath songs, it's a slightly bittersweet thing because
the whole time you're kind of constant of why they're
playing it. I don't know how intentional this was, but
that kind of feeling that I had listening to them
play that song at the end of the festival, you're
kind of like it's coming to a close. You're kind
of pensive. Anyway, as far as that songs, I know

(02:55:10):
you went to see a bit here afterwards, you didn't
have this experience as far as songs for me to
sort of walk away from the festival listening to back
to my cars, through the drive back to reading Big
Gift of Guilt, I was. I was walking away just
thinking like, this is Heavy Metals the fucking best. I
don't know why I missed this festival some years, it

(02:55:31):
doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1 (02:55:33):
Yeah, So yeah, predictably, but Again very you know, rewardingly
great and actually should well have mentioned Kajira at the
beginning before going on, they had like an Aussie tribute
on the screen and they played the entirety of the
song No More Tears, and that being the kind of
intro music for.

Speaker 2 (02:55:53):
Again is like.

Speaker 1 (02:55:53):
Final you know, the final headlines out of the festival
really set the mood as well. I did go and
see your bituary and I you know that heavy metal
is the best feeling you're describing to end the festival.
Abituary did not puncture that Abituary in a much more
you know, kind of just like disgusting sort of way.
But you know, I'm normally fucking shattered by the time

(02:56:15):
I get over to the Sunday headliner, but Abituary is
so just like elementally, you know, in your guts kind
of physically. You get there and you know, they open
the fucking red neck Stomp and by the time they're
into whatever the following song is, you're just locked into
nodding your head for the next hour and there's no
there's nothing that's going to drag you out of that.
It's just so satisfying. And they sounded great, and they

(02:56:39):
do supposed beking about sort of songs to end a
festival on. Obviously, with Abituary they were playing a lot
of course of death material because they've been doing that, uh,
sort of the headline tour of in US they were
doing it. And that record has a cover of Circle
of the Tyrants by Celtic Frost on it that they
normally play anyway, But hearing that was like, right now
we've ended the weekend, We've heard loads of Sabbath covers,

(02:57:00):
now we've got some frost, the weekend is officially completed.
That like remaining one percent that could have been there
has been added in by Obituary's stinkin cover. Fucking and
I mean that in the best way of Circle of
the Tyrants I did hear. I don't know if this
is true or not. Again, I'm just hearing reports.

Speaker 3 (02:57:17):
I was told that.

Speaker 1 (02:57:18):
Vacum they covered Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath, which, oh my god,
I can only imagine sounding in fuckingsane. I think I
had they. I think they did a very sneak tribute
where during the beginning sort of like bass kind of
creepy build up of slowly rot which they always close on.

Speaker 2 (02:57:38):
I think they.

Speaker 1 (02:57:39):
Snuck in a lit of like down New Neil before
going into like the Boo Doo do do. So I
think it was there in stealth. I don't know if
that meant they did more than that, but Abituary again
a perfect Sunday night ending of kind of now I'm
going into my tent, you know, stinking of the rot
of the grave, and that's how I prefer to to
smell when I'm in my tent.

Speaker 2 (02:58:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:58:00):
Like I said, that last run of four, going back
and forth between the Sophie stage and the main stage
really did feel like one of those great sort of
like ending Bloodstock evenings that was wonderful. So yeah, props there.
Let's rewind the clock a moment too, just after Lacuna
Coil on the Friday, when they announced on the main

(02:58:20):
stage on the videos a whole lot of bands for
next year's festival. They have kind of increasingly led into
this tactic again. We saw how well it worked this
year with the big announcement of Trivia and Gajira and
machine Head that immediately went everyone go, oh my god,
Bloodstock is the place to be next year. I think
they're increasingly trying to do that if they can, because
it's a big hype moment, they can drop like this.

(02:58:43):
So we got three headliners for Bloodstock next year, and
also a bunch of other bands as well. The reaction
to this has been interesting. The reaction in the field
was interesting for various reasons. I mean the fact that
at the beginning the VT was entirely working and they
start with the smaller bands and build their way up
to the big ones. And the very first thing being

(02:59:05):
announced for Bloodstock with a video that did not have
any music playing attached to it, being heavy Saurus and
then like the hell I heard but with no music,
and I heard like one person about two rows behind
me just go douche.

Speaker 2 (02:59:18):
And that was about that.

Speaker 1 (02:59:19):
But that was an alarming sort of proposition. But let's
talk about the Bloodstock announcement for next year. At first,
let's circle background to the Grizzly Bear in the room,
starting from sort of the lower down areas. What are
your general kind of feelings towards what was being announced

(02:59:42):
for Bloodstir next year.

Speaker 3 (02:59:44):
I think that the Sophie Lancaster stage is looking very
strong already. I think as far as foe Head, I mean,
I'm not a Wednesday thirteen fan. I don't know if
that surprises you or not. But the other three being
Kryptopsy on the thirtieth years thirty years of Vile, the
greatest death metal album of all time, that's pretty promising,
Leprous and Carpeter Brute and you know, fucking Throwing Wednesday thirteen.

(03:00:07):
The amount of variety has captured across those bands and
also a very high standard of the thing they do.
I think that's a very strong set. Just below that
two hundred stab wounds two hundred stab wounds shining and
surprisingly low, I think, but never more. Like that's quite
get But I would have thought that would be bigger news.

(03:00:29):
I thought i'd be up there with like, you know,
the likes of at least like Orbit Culture.

Speaker 1 (03:00:33):
Yeah, I actually I agree. I think it's bizarrely the
inverse of this year. I thought this year the Sophie
Lancaster stage was quite weak, to be honest, I thought
only one headliner that I was like, really excited for,
which was a bitchery and again a couple of like
you know, good highest lots as well like your Nail
Barman and three inches of Blood. But when it came
to earlier in the day, I didn't think there was

(03:00:55):
like a lot of great stuff there. Really, I agree
the most immediately if you just looked at the Sophie
Anka stage on this announcement, you go fucking ill, that's
really fucking good because that is a really strong set
of headliners. And then you add in again to two
hundred stab Wounds, the hell of course, Norwegian Shining coming
back and never More, which never More I said on
last week's show of all things that announced for VACAN,

(03:01:17):
I was like, the whole thing that I really want
to see will be never More, and I am I'm
surprised that not on the main stage. I imagine they
would be. And again the nail one three inches of
Blood like you know, first band down below the headliner slot,
but like never More for me again, I think it's
probably because they are like a three inches of blood.
They're a band that a certain generation now remember because
they haven't really don anything after twenty ten. But like

(03:01:37):
that's a really exciting get. I think the Sophie Anker
stage of what they've announced here looks fucking great. Like genuinely,
let's move up through what's on the main stages. So
we've got Lamb of God slot to Prevail and Julius
Priest headlining. Lower down, we've got Sepultura coming around for
I swore they must have play Bloodtoff for the last time,
but I guess, you know, coming around for what could

(03:01:58):
be a final UK show or something beliefing within Orbit
Culture Bayer has a Municipal Waste of mice and men,
North Lane, Death Angel, Vended Life of Agony, Imperial Age
and the Scratch Again, let's get to the headliners in
a moment. I think that's sort of all right, like it.
The sophol Likeicis stage announcement looks genuinely great. The main

(03:02:19):
stage announcement looks because it's a combination of stuff that
is really good, you know, and really goes down well
at Bloodstock, but in a very old, reliable sort of way,
like municipal waste always fucking crush it a bloodsot. They're
probably one of the most exciting things on this announcement
just for how great minipual waste Bloodstock will inevitably be.

Speaker 2 (03:02:39):
Sepulturer. I actually thought, like you know.

Speaker 1 (03:02:41):
Consei, I just saw them headline in Poland at Mystic
If that's like a final UK Sepulturer show, I thought
surely this would be the point where they could headline it,
you know, and the idea again, I don't know who
they're subbing to, but the idea of Sepulturer subbing to
Slough to Prevail or something sounds fucking bizarre. But like,
it feels weird to be saying this about you know, Sepulturer,

(03:03:02):
who have been around for fucking ages and kind of
been taking for granted for long time. To be saying
feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. But like
I feel like, you know, a headlining Sepultura show for
the last UK show could have been a moment that
doesn't feel like it's quite going to go that way.
There's a lot of metalcore in there, yeah, some of
it's pretty good, like you know, bleed them within. I

(03:03:24):
think they're going to subheadline actually, and that's that would
be a big moment for them. They're probably trying to
follow what bands like Malevolence have done, stepping up to
those things. But you know, stuff like of Myce and
Men and north Lane and you know, Orbit Culture are
you know, maybe slightly more extreme metal adjacent, so they
sort of fit. But like that it's a combination on
the main stage of like old Bloodstock reliables, but not

(03:03:45):
a lot of wow and a lot of you know
what people sometimes might describe as sort of download light
about what has appeared on Bloodstock bills.

Speaker 3 (03:03:56):
Yeah, I think I basically echo everything you're so in
there because Sepultour, I think will be great. And if
they are going a subheadline, I think you're having a
sepulturer into Lama God, that's a pretty good night.

Speaker 2 (03:04:07):
I think that's what happens bleed from within.

Speaker 3 (03:04:10):
I don't know who they'll be sobbing to on one
of the other days. I think it's I'm not a
huge fan of theirs, but I think it's cool that
they've sort of been given the opportunity to step up
in a way that Malevolence have had a similar thing.
If that's where they land themselves, I'm inclined to agree
in the rest of it, in the sense that the
stuff that I'm excited about I've seen a bloodstock before

(03:04:32):
and I kind of know what it's going to be,
and the stuff that I haven't seen a bloodstock before
feels like the thing is with the festival, like bloodsok
it's always the coolest. Stuff is always stuff for you.
This could only happen here, Like three Inches of Blood
getting a long set on the second stage late in
the night, that's not happening anywhere else at like a
major UK rock and metal festival. Judas Priest get into

(03:04:55):
headline and close the whole thing feels like that that's bloodstock,
you know, Emo, that's something they've got. As we'll get
to in a moment, a lot of these bands vended
north Lane orbit culture, even like bio Hazard and Life
of Agony of Mice and Men especially, it kind of

(03:05:17):
feels like, you know, bloodstalks about the same size as
the download second stage. But I don't want that bloodog
to be the download second stage, even if it's stuff
I don't like as much. I quite like that there's
a festival in the UK that I like to go
to where I might see.

Speaker 1 (03:05:32):
Something like Ord and Ogan Fire Schwan's exactly yeah, yeah,
And I do agree because I think, you know, I
don't want to the stuff that's kind of so regular bloodock.
I don't want to criticize them for booking yet, because
I think they should book municipal based and I would
count bio Hazard, a band who happily do bloodock and
they fit and I think they should book SEPULTURER and

(03:05:52):
they should book fucking Death Angel and all this stuff.
But that being kind of like the old reliable stuff,
and then the new stuff is as with saying North
Lane of Mice and Men, that just kind of does
feel like it's you know, skewing in a different direction.
Doesn't sing to me in a great way personally. And
then we got to the headliners, which Lamb of God's

(03:06:14):
headlined it in twenty two, and they were fucking brilliant.
That was really strong Lamb of God set, and again
they are a perfect reliable Lamb of God headliner. I
guess four years between appearances reasonable. I would say it's
likely to be the same album cycle, right, like, unless
Lamb of God sneak out a record at the start

(03:06:35):
of twenty six, which seems unlikely. They started, you know,
the beginning of the album cycle will basically be what
they are ending, you know, their next Bloostock appearance on.
So it's kind of it feels like it's basically going
to be the same sort of Lamb of God, you know,
era and material and stuff, unless they really try and
mix it up, which would be cool, but it's the
same cycle of Lamb of God that they last headlined
it on.

Speaker 2 (03:06:55):
Judas Priest is the again.

Speaker 1 (03:06:57):
It's kind of mad that they've become like an old
reliable headliner now because they were one they were gunning
for for a long time. For me, of the three,
that's the most exciting proposition personally. I haven't been able
to see them on the Invincible Shield runs because they
haven't come to my area, so I would be bang
up for seeing Judus Priest with again some new material
that I haven't seen. And also I think that's like

(03:07:17):
five years between their appearances. That's perfectly reasonable. You just
proved perfect a headliner. A good time for them to
do it, as far as I'm concerned, slots to prevail
in a middle there a brand new headliner. You know,
we can't accuse them of being a all reliable bloodstock
kind of fallback, But this kind of seems like there's

(03:07:39):
a lot we don't normally talk about slots for real,
We haven't really discussed a lot of this stuff because
we have purposefully avoided slot to prevail generally. But obviously
as a band who are coming through and have been
thrust into this position of you know, high significance.

Speaker 3 (03:07:52):
On this.

Speaker 1 (03:07:54):
On the one hand, it's the kind of thing that
we want to encourage, right, you know, we want bound
to be bringing a new headlin. As we've always said
this about Boodstock, whether it be when Kajira were brought
up or or Sabotam were brought up, or like, you know,
I'm still wanting them to bring up the likes of
Power Wo or even Malevolence. I can imagine doing it
in a couple of years or stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (03:08:12):
Good.

Speaker 1 (03:08:13):
But there's something about Slots Reveil that seems musically it's
in line with the again the kind of newer generation
of like core bands that very much seem to have
been popping off in the twenty twenties, you know, where
there's this group of bands that have come through that
kind of feel like they've sort of like leapfrogged their
way into this position of extreme significance very very quickly

(03:08:35):
in a way that had been quite jarring.

Speaker 2 (03:08:36):
And I think this.

Speaker 1 (03:08:39):
Divides generationally big time the Bloodstock audience in a way
that are like certainly only architects of previous headliners, but
I think there's something about sort of revail and how
like quickly their rise to you know, fame has been
combined with everything else around them that really like, this
is a major divide. And you heard it on the
announcement when genuine lee for the first there were cheers.

(03:09:02):
I can definitely say that it wasn't a blanket thing.
But the first time I can remember being in the
field watching the Bloodoal announcement and hearing loud booze all
around me when a band comes up, particularly a headliner,
that was a new experience.

Speaker 2 (03:09:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:09:19):
I try, you know, I'm really try to resist being
a little lord funtleroy with stuff where I got Like,
if you'd have told me a few years ago that
Bloodstock would announce a new headliner who'd be on the
same tier as Lamb of God and Judas Priest and
it would be a new up and coming fucking like
deathcore band who take Dying Fetus out on tour, and

(03:09:39):
there'll be the Saturday headliner. I'd be going amazing, amazing.
And if you've got a festival where you've got Lama
God and Judas Priest, you have the freedom to really
roll the dice on something in the middle and take
a punt on something. And I want to give Bloodstock
credit for that, because it's cool that the band that
the festival is willing to take a risk in that sense. Unfortunately,

(03:10:01):
I don't think, having heard some of their music and
that this is purely subjective, I don't think they're very
good as far as they think. You say about Architects,
the kind of I wasn't that excited by Architects headlining Bloodstock,
and it kind of sound me maybe on going to
the festival that year, which is maybe slightly harsh reaction,

(03:10:22):
but I'd at least clock it in the sense where
there will be people at that festival who got into
that music through Architects, who'd be like, oh, I used
to love that band, or maybe they still do, and
it's like they got in through you know, it started
Lost Rever Lost together and now they like Opeth and
now you're seeing those two things together. Great Slaughter for

(03:10:42):
Vale's rise has been so fast that it's not that
you're going to have people going I got into slaughter
Rail and now I'm into this, that and the other,
because I just I don't know if that time has
passed yet. So I wonder if there's gonna be a
real split of people going I'm here for Slaughter for
Vail and any of the maybe younger band and everything else. Yeah,
familiar with it, which is fine, but it kind of

(03:11:06):
I think it speaks that jarring effects you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (03:11:08):
Yeah, I mean it'll be again the people who turned
up for Pelfe Swiss this year, right, like, that'll be
the same guy who largely comes for Travail. And I think,
certainly it feels like sleep token a download this year.
This is kind of their equivalent, right of like, oh,
you know, we've brought up a really new like one
of our real current success stories which we should all

(03:11:29):
be championing as like a band breaking through some glass
ceilings or whatever. Let's bring a band up. And this
feels like bloodstocks equipment. And you know, in a similar way,
I could totally see Lorna Shaw doing it, you know,
in a couple of years or something, right, you know,
they're playing fucking beginning to touch into arena shows and
stuff like that, Like Lorna Shaw in a similar sort
of position could work. But slots of Avail, like I said,

(03:11:52):
I think there will be a major generational split which
I think to a degree I would even accept, you know, yeah,
if if it wasn't, then for what else comes with
Slot to Prevail And the reason we have tactically, tactically
kind of avoided talking about them for the most part,
which is that I think Slot to Prevail are bad
fucking news. Like I think, not only are there a

(03:12:15):
band I personally don't like their music, but this is
the first time I think, generally, as you know, I'm
a fan of most things that have gotten to the
size where they could feasibly headline a festival at Bloodstock, right,
like be it power metal or fucking metalcore or death
metal or whatever, like I see some merit in the
majority of those bands. This is the first time a

(03:12:36):
band I would describe as a stain on the face
of metal have headlined this festival. And it's a weird feeling,
you know. It's a weird feeling to have a festival
where I can normally rely on all three of the
headliners at least putting on a show i'd want to see,
you know, to then have a band that I feel
so opposed to both on a again a musical level,

(03:12:58):
but we then have to get into a lot of
what has you know, criticisms that have now again maybe
what half of those people booing were booing about, right,
Criticisms are now being leveled at Bloodstock over booking someone
likes Lord to Prevail, who, like I said, I would
describe as bad news. You can go and look up
the things that exist around mister Alex Terrible from Slot

(03:13:21):
to Prevail, and there are things from his past that
he has maybe disavowed. You can look into the I
don't know how legitimate you feel or how honest you
feel those disavowments are. Make your own judgments, but at
the very least, he is a guy who has put
some energy out there and some statements out there that

(03:13:43):
are not what you would describe as inclusive. You could
describe statements that he has made as possibly transphobic, homophobic,
bigoted in some way. And for a festival like Bloodstock
who have had let's call them slips before right then
them following up and booking about it's sort of prevail.

(03:14:04):
There's a lot of people who are going to be
upset about that, and I, you know, I have to
sympathize with that. And uh, the fact that a festival
that seems to put this message really at the forefront
about kind of acceptance of everyone, and the Sophie Lancaster

(03:14:25):
Foundation is such like it's such a core integral part
of what the kind of the aura of Bloodstock is,
I suppose, and you have that stamping out prejudice and
tolerance and hatred everywhere, mantra everywhere on site, there is
an undeniable incongruousness about that kind of uh you know,

(03:14:47):
ethos that then comes with putting a band like s
Lotter Reveil, who have fucking shaky track record, man like
like shaky, putting them up on the highest ped and
a combination of generational split which is one thing. You
combine that with then ethical splits, and there are a

(03:15:08):
number of people who will just go, I do not
want to be aut blood Start next year because I
do not agree with the platforming of people who have
kind of put these these kind of statement and these
sort of attitudes out there in the world. And I
can't blame those people one fucking bit, Like that's a

(03:15:29):
completely legitimate response to.

Speaker 2 (03:15:31):
Have to to this. I think it.

Speaker 1 (03:15:35):
It puts a bad vibe around next years Bloodstock in
a way that I can't remember ever happening, you know,
And I know that obviously they have had, you know,
times when people have pointed out how Foust from Emperor
is playing all this kind of thing, but coming like,
you know, straight from the get go. We are announcing
our three headliners for next year, and one of them
is a seemingly unrepentant transfob with sketchy fucking in tattoos

(03:16:01):
like it just it put a bad vibe around it
in a way that I wish. We've been talking so
positively for a few hours now about what a great
weekend we had, and it's easy for us to do so,
as you know, white straight guys who aren't part of
you know, being kind of marginalized in the same way.
But I can't look at that announcement next year and

(03:16:22):
not talk about how how unfucking pleasant it just looks
from afar.

Speaker 2 (03:16:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:16:29):
So again, I'm sure it will sell well because you'll
have your fucking army as lots of prevail fans will
come in, and plenty of the Blood are all faithful
will be there as well. But I think it is
it's it's unfortunate. And again I look at it and
I go, that's not it's not the vibe I want
to be going into a bloods Took announcement with, particularly
after we've just done a great, big, you know, glowing

(03:16:50):
review of the festival. But at the very least twenty
twenty five, we can end it here and say, from
what we saw it was pretty pretty fucking amazing. I
think the only thing that we could have asked for
more is Trivium playing Betrayer and bringing out Moose on
the drums as an extra guest. That would be pretty perfect,
wasn't it. But other than that blust at twenty twenty five,

(03:17:12):
I hope that everybody who went had as fun of
time as we did. So cheers everybody for listening, Thank
you for being with us, Thank you for your support.
As ever, thank you to everyone who was at Bloodstock,
be you a listener, be you a member of staff, whoever,
who was pleasant to us, who was nice to us,
who chatted, et cetera. It really does make these things,

(03:17:34):
you know, It gives them the extra edge of just
good vibes that we that we really want to be
talking about with stuff like this when we have the opportunity.
So yeah, thanks everybody.

Speaker 2 (03:17:43):
We will be back next week.

Speaker 1 (03:17:46):
We have to immediately go and really lay ourselves into
the special that we have kind of been like, I
feel like we've been teasing in strange droplets of conversation
for a while now. It's happened over the course of
this episode, but that's our next thing that we're going
to go and do this this weekend. It's going to
be a vibe. Otherwise, we will be back following through
with you know, the rest of the summer here on TNM.

(03:18:07):
We've got reviews coming up with a fucking death Tones
album in a couple of weeks in there, that big,
so we'll be talking about all that. But yeah, we
hope to see there for all of that, and we
will be back.

Speaker 2 (03:18:15):
Bye bye everyone,

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