Live Review : Bloodstock Festival 2021 - Day 5
By day 5 it has all become a bit of a chore. Our hangovers have melded into one, our backs all hurt, and we are all thoroughly sick and tired of being asked if we are overjoyed to have live music back. Look we have had live music back for five whole continuous days, is it home time yet? It is starting to feel less like a music festival and more like an endurance event and there is an increasing hope that when we go through the exits tomorrow morning there will be well-wishers awaiting us with silver foil blankets and medals. But before we dream dreams of flushing toilets, full English’s, and comfy beds, we have Sunday to contend with.
Authentic dark Nordic folk has become a thing over the last five years. It was initially championed by Myrkur’s Amalie Bruun, whose day job is to collect and preserve pre-Christian folk songs from across Scandinavia, and then taken forward by both Heilung and Wardruna. Seidrblot are very much bandwagon jumpers (the Nordic ascents are part of their stage personas; they are actually from the not very Viking town of Reading) but they do what they do really well. The instruments they use are faithful authentic representations of the ones used in pe-Christian Nordic folk and the whole approach is equally hypnotic and mesmeric. They are joined for the majority of their short set by scantily clad fire dancers, which to be honest severely dents the level of authenticity, as any Viking maiden parading around in nothing but a leather bikini is likely to very quicky die of hypothermia. Whilst obviously following a trend, they turn out to be a highly invigorative and a rather enjoyable experience. Just give those two poor lasses a coat, will ya!!
It’s Bloodshot Dawn round 2, as this is essentially exactly the same band that Josh McMorran used for his Forlorn World set on Thursday. We get what we expect, big high production melodic death, solos a plenty and massive choruses. What else would you wish for? Nowadays Diamond Head is essentially Brian Tatler’s Diamond Head, as he is the only one that was around in the days when it looked like they would rule the world. We get a mix of classics from their time as the chosen ones in the early eighties and also tracks from their two most recent releases (though nothing from the sublime, but underrated “Canterbury”). The latter songs get a gentle but reserved reception, as really we are here to scream along with ‘It’s Electric’, ‘Helpless’ and ‘Am I Evil?’. The latter of course closes the set. We are left with a feeling that this band never had its due and that in some alternative universe Diamond Head are headlining tonight, not Judas Priest.
I watch a bit of Bleed from Within and they too seem to have found Devin’s secret pyro stash. They start with the swagger of a headliner and from what I hear from others they continue in that trajectory, but I have an appointment back in the Sophie tent with my beloved Pist. I have made no secret in telling everyone and anyone that will listen, that Pist seem to have exited lockdown as one of the most if not the most exciting heavy rock band around. At their seated show in Manchester, back in June they were simply and utterly extraordinary. Focused, composed and utterly compelling. At Bloodstock they are, to be brutally frank, a bit more free form and freewheeling. They are still a mighty riff machine, with virtuoso John Nicholson bleaching out scuzzy guitar line after scuzzy line, but that disciplined self-focus that made the show in June such a joy, seems to have been left somewhere on the M6. They are not bad by any stretch of the imagination and a hefty crowd bounces along in all the right places. It is just that a mere two months ago they were well beyond good and heading for god darn perfect.
Orange Goblin are veritable veterans of both Bloodstock itself and the whole entire scene. They have made a career of imagining what Black Sabbath would have sounded like if Ozzy hadn’t been kicked out for being a precocious prick. We get a track from each album (apart from 2000’s “The Big Black” and 2012’s superb “A Eulogy For The Dammed” where we get two). This frolic through their extensive black catalogue shows that Orange Goblin have found a groove and stuck with it. There have been no left turns into progressive dance or fleeting flirtations with prog jazz. ‘Saruman’s Wish’ from their 1997 debut sounds like it could have quite happily held its own on 2018’s “The Wolf Bites Back”. And that is the beauty of Orange Goblin summed up there and then. They do what they do remarkably well and that leaves no reason not to do it.
I had planned to head off to Wolf Jaw, however the curiosity in me decides to stick around and see what Therapy? Circa 2021 sounds like. My last tangle with them was Donington Park in 1994 when they owned the bloody place. They were young, they were blessed with an album full of outstanding tunes (“Troublegum”) and they steadfastly believed their own press. They were magnificent and stuck two fingers up at the old guard. Twenty-seven years later, it is like the intervening decades haven’t happened. Therapy? burn onto the stage with ‘Potato Junkie’ and I swear I could be back at the Monsters of Rock. I was going to watch one song, but stay for the whole set as they still have that same level of intensity and disruption. They know that they don’t quite fit in with the rest of the day and revel in the disorder that this brings. As Andy Cairns quips with a sly look in his eyes “Are you ready for some classic joke?”. They raid “Troublegum” repeatedly, essentially because it is the British “Nevermind”. A record that managed to unify the tribes and ascend all genres. They tear through tracks at an alarming rate. Reverential Joy Division cover ‘Isolation’ into ‘Teethgrinder’, then (by way of recent number ‘Success? Success is Survival) into ‘Nowhere’ and straight into Screamager. Ten thousand souls that should know better, all bounce up and down together and scream along “I've got nothing to do, but hang around and get screwed up on you”. Nostalgia does not get any more life affirming than this.
Back in the Sophie tent Black Tongue are not Black Tongue. They are shifted New Blood headliners Ghost of Atlantis and god they are good. This is their debut performance (damn you Covid) but most of their distinguished members have played Bloodstock before in some shape or form. Theirs is a wonderful combination of goth and symphonic death. It is grandiose and luxurious to the touch. Everything is dialled up to eleven and the whole thing comes across as majestic and mysterious. Not bad for the first time out of the traps.
Given recent revelations I am not sure whether I should be saying anything about Gloryhammer, so I will simply recite my esteemed colleague Jo’s summarisation of them, Poundland Powerwolf, and move on. Back in the tent Green Lung are taking the metal rulebook and burning it in the name of whatever pagan goddess takes their fancy. This is Jethro Tull does punk, psychedelia poured through a prism of venomous anger. Essentially what the hippies would have sounded like on speed as opposed to LSD.
Saxon’s 40th anniversary celebrations ground to a halt at the Mitsubishi Electric Halle in Düsseldorf Germany on March 7th 2020. They were already a year behind schedule due to Biff’s open heart surgery in 2019 . 526 days and one global pandemic later, the boys are back in town and the show is back on the road. Saxon are such seasoned roadhogs that you can positively hear the collective sigh of relief as they return to what they do best. ‘Motorcycle Man’ starts us as we mean to go on. Strident, bold, and hard as nails. They have a two-hour set to squeeze into a hour and a quarter slot, so the bizarre fake sound check before ‘Wheels of Steel’ feels like a rather bizarre waste of time. Aside from that, it is a foot to the floor race to the end sprint through every good song Saxon ever made; ‘Strong Arm of the Law’, ‘And the Bands Played On’, ‘Never Surrender’, ‘Power and the Glory’, ‘The Eagle Has Landed’ and ‘747 (Strangers in the Night)’ all make appearances before their time is up. Sadly, the clock does beat us, and we are offered the choice of ‘Heavy Metal Thunder’ or ‘Princess of the Night’ as the final track. We, of course, as one plumb for the latter. The most beautiful thing about watching Saxon was watching five master craftsmen return to their lives work. As the dust settled and the bows were taken it was unclear who enjoyed and needed that more, the band or the audience. What was clear is that 42 years later not only is there life in the old dog, but it is in its best form yet!!
It’s straight to the Sophie tent for another miraculous Lazarus like return. In many ways the Black Spiders were the unluckiest band in the business. For many years they ploughed the furrow of blues based hard rock to essentially general indifference. However as soon as they called it a day, the bloody new wave of British classic rock happens and the style that they could not get arrested for suddenly becomes the toast of the bloody town! Well good bands never die, they just go on hiatus, as the Black Spiders are back to claim their crown as the hardest blues rockers in town. The reunion may have happened over a year ago, but due once again to that pesky Corona, this is only their second show since their resurrection. The band are on incendiary form as they have five years to make up for. They are also determined that this is not just a nostalgia fest and we get at least seven tracks from their recently monikered self-titled record. Die-hards should though rest assured, they haven’t suddenly discovered Drill or Mongolian beaver folk. It sounds exactly like the rest of their stuff. Hard rocking, blues driven and imminently sing along able.
The crowd begins to thin as people drift off to secure their spots for Judas Priest, but this is not enough to damn this rock n’roll machine. The band are obviously enjoying being back together and the stalwart fans that kept the faith during the lean years are lapping it up at the front. However, all good things must come to an end and having tossed out their calling card of ‘KISS Tried to Kill Me’ earlier on in the set, they bring their dramatic return to a close with a fantastic one two of ‘Teenage Knife Gang’ and ‘Blood of the Kings’. Whoever said you can’t go home is bloody wrong as that was bloody fantastic.
And so, to the Crème de la Crème. The only show anywhere in the entire world in 2021 by Judas Priest. Essentially, we are getting a sneak peak of the 50 year of heavy metal tour (now actually 52 years but who is counting) that they plan to take to every bi-way and highway next year. Hats off to Priest though, they could have easily said, let’s do Bloodstock next year in line with every other show. But no, Priest are men that keep their word and they promised that they would be here. After the obligatory intros they crash into ‘One Shot at Glory’ from “Painkiller”. It takes supreme confidence to start a festival show with a never before played track, but hell this is Judas Priest, they have been doing this for 52 years, they are not going to comprise now. It takes a while to fathom the stage setting, but essentially, they are playing in a black country steel workers circa the mid-sixties (the exact geographical location is given away by the wolves sticker on the supervisors door).
Tonight, Rob Halford proves beyond doubt that he is by far the most charismatic and magnetic frontman in metal. He forgoes the comic tomfoolery of Devin and sullen demented ringmaster of Millie and instead he goes for the hyperactive grandmaster approach, Lord of everything that surveys. His look is half uncle Albert from only fools and horses and half Beyonce as he goes through around fifteen odd costume changes, all variants of flowing coats and colourful metallic leather. He just burns from the stage both through personality and vibrance, you just can’t take your eyes off him. He has the whole audience (stretching all the way back to the food vendors and Rock Society tent) eating out of his hand.
Set wise, this is a comprehensive ramble through their back catalogue, however rather than just be a cut and dry greatest hits set they have unearthed hordes of hidden gems either never played (in the case of ‘Invader’ from “Stained Class”) or at least side-lined for a good while. ‘Blood Red Skies’ from the much maligned (rightfully because it’s shit) “Ram it Down” is utterly incredible and see’s mammoth inflatable smokestacks rise on each side of the stage. ‘Exciter’ and ‘A Touch of Evil’ are also welcomed back into the fold after a sixteen-year absence. It really is a show that keeps on giving. The choice of tracks is inventive and refreshing and the band are on utterly top form. I know there are still those that bemoan the absence of KK Downing, but after a decade Richie Faulkner now feels such a fundamental and driving force within the band. Whilst I am gushing, the other point to make is that there are no solos, just 21 nuggets of pure metal. There seems to have been a unanimous decision within the band that this tour is not celebrating about individual levels of musicianship, but instead showcasing the musical riches that a 50 year plus career has brought.
There is no time or inclination to stop for the pantomime of an encore, we just hurtle into the final furlong with the appearance of that bike and that song. We all know it’s coming, but Halford screaming onto the stage on a gleaming steel charger for ‘Hell bent for Leather’ still makes the hairs on the back of our collective necks stand to attention. We also get the now inevitable bittersweet appearance of Glenn Tipton. Sweet because it is amazing to see him once more launch into ‘Metal Gods’ but bitter because it is unavoidable how ill and debilitated he has become. With Tipton being obviously and quite tragically supported to participate, we reach the final jabs of ‘Breaking the Law’ and ‘Living after midnight’. For the latter, the absurdness of the staging reaches a crescendo with a massive inflatable manifestation of the bull statue from the centre of Birmingham’s bullring. Wonderfully camp and winner of most obscure stage prop that I have ever come across. It is then all bows and thank you’s and it’s all over. Quite simply one of the greatest celebrations and demonstrations of the power, range, and dynamism of heavy metal. Yes, it was an OTT show that revelled in his own ludicrousness, but at the heart it was all about the songs and the performance and both were utterly magnificent.
One more band, one more band and it is all over and we can all be released back into the real world and that is Comic metal geniuses Evil Scarecrow. Whatever fee they are getting for headlining the Sophie Tent on the final night has most evidently been spent on a whole new stage set. Gone are the blue peter-esque sticky back plastic specials and instead we have LCD screens and slick production! Essentially who are you and what have you done with Evil Scarecrow? Well actually in truth two fifths of the band have (namely Brother Paine and Princess Luxurious) have gone off to have boring normal grown up lives, so tonight they have new members Count Gravediga and Alice Babylon to baptise in the ways of the scarecrow. Evil scarecrow are never going to reinvent metal and (shhhh) on record they are really rather dull, but in a packed tent full of slightly tiddly people there is not a more appropriate way to round off the weekend.
So, five (FIVE, FIVE, FIVE…. I still have the scars) days of metal is over and the festival that at some points felt never ending has reached is crescendo. It was a tale of resilience against the odds, a tale of bands pulling out all the stops to appear, a tale of multiple last minute shifts in billing and a tale of hundreds of musicians getting obviously emotional about getting back to the one thing in their lives that they are really damn good at. However, the overarching crux of the tale of Bloodstock 2021 isn’t about the music at all. It is about friends reunited. It is about the hugs, tears and handshakes shared by a melting pot of twenty thousand people seeing each other for the first time in two years. It was about the smiles of recognition, that feeling of euphoria and release, that unbridled joy of reconnecting. That my friends is the story of Bloodstock 2021.
I just love Metal. I love it all. The bombastity of symphonic, the brutality of death, the rousing choruses of power, the nihilistic evil of black, the pounding atmospherics of doom, the whirling time changes of prog, the faithful familiarity of trad, the other worldlyness of post, the sheer unrefined power of thrash. I love it all!