666 : Bloodstock - Moving with the Times

Bloodstock 2025 selling out a full ten months before the event may have caught some off-guard, but if you stand back and view the linear progression of the festival, it’s really no surprise. Since its inception as an outdoor event twenty years ago, it has operated on a firmly upward trajectory, slowly but surely building in size and stature. When I first started attending in the late noughties, the site felt roomy and almost luxurious in the amount of space it provided us punters. The 25,000 capacity felt an inconceivable and unachievable number as we stood amongst 10,000 of our peers watching Europe, Children of Bodom and Immortal headline. But it is now obvious there was a masterplan. Paul and, subsequently Adam, Vicki and Rachael had a vision, and this year’s early sell-out is a testament to that vision.

666Author : Stewart Lucas17 June 2025Bloodstock Open AirBloodstock, Festival, 2025, Machine Head, Trivium, Gojira, Paleface Swiss, Kublai Khan, Heriot, UndeathComment

666 : View From The Cheap Seats

We here at Rockflesh.com make a virtue of not talking about other lives outside being writers or photographers. After all you, our discerning readers are interested in the bands we watch as opposed to our relationship woes, job statuses and health struggles. That self-enforced anonymity will mean that you will be unaware that I had a major bicycle accident two and a half years ago involving an articulated lorry and a safety fence that robbed me of a substantial part of my mobility. Pre-September 2022 I was a bit of a pit troll if all told. I liked nothing more than to be stood in a heaving mass of people feeling the swell of the crowd melee around me. I was the one in the middle drinking it all in.

666Author : Stewart Lucas11 January 2025RebellionAccessibility, 2025, 666, Article, MetalComment