Live Review : Rockin The Bowl (Forged In Fire & Steel) – Saturday September 11th at Don Valley Bowl, Sheffield

It’s an early start after a late night as we trundle along the M62 in the campervan. The weather is looking promising, and we arrive in plenty of time to get settled in before the bands start. This event has expanded from one day to 3 this year, to make up for having to roll over from 2020, and the campsite is busy but well-organised. You can pitch your tent next to your car (which is handy) and those of us in vans just park them up in an available space. Everything is compact, it’s a very short walk to the arena, in fact there are several places where you can sit outside your tent, car or van and both see and hear the main stage pretty well.

Live Review : Slam Dunk Festival (North), Leeds Temple Newsham Park on September 4th 2021

There’ve been times that Slam Dunk looked like it may have shot its final 3-pointer, what with the date changes close to four times across the pandemic. But the determined promoters kept at it and managed to get the festival, together with a still fantastic line-up to the masses of Leeds and Hatfield. I’m off to the North date, and start by navigating the intricate shuttle bus queuing system in the centre of Leeds (have I just entered Alton towers?). Pleasingly I can see loads of people are ensuring they get there for opening at Slam Dunk 2021.

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.

Live Review : Bloodstock Festival 2021 - Day 4

Well it’s day 4 of the festival that never ends. I am already becoming delusional that my permeant home is in fact a canvas shelter in a field and that my adopted family are those people surrounding me. I am struggling to imagine what life was like before I entered the gates on Wednesday. My day beginning with the sludge-tastic Horse called War. With distorted guitars and murky melodies, they manage to blow away the most stubborn of hangovers. Netherhall are progtastic and sound like Marillion fronted by Francis Dunnery (formally of It Bites). Back in the New Blood stage Black Atlas are deftly combining grunge and stoner rock. The result is remarkably danceable, laced with filthy riffs and scuzzy beats. My first visit to the main stage is next for the much lauded Conjurer.

Live Review : Bloodstock Festival 2021 - Day 3

Friday morning finally sees the main stage splutter into life. By this point we have already had two nights under canvas and are beginning to feel like we are in some Kafkaesque nightmare where we are perpetually doomed to roam the wastes of Catton Hall. It may well be quarter to eleven, but Foetal Juice are determined to make as much nasty primal noise as humanly possible. This is metal at its most puerile and putrefied, and they do a grand job of sending all those hangovers packing.

Live Review : Bloodstock Festival 2021 - Day 2

And so onto the extra day, essentially a heavy metal take on the leap year. Thursday is a full additional twenty four hours of metal on all stages bar the main one. The lack of big big draws means that the day is one of exploration as we are given the opportunity to try and test many of the exceptional home grown talent that haunt small venues across the breadth of the country. Sophie Lancaster tent opener Mother Vulture turn out not to be Mother Vulture at all and instead much fancied West Midlander’s Fury (though not the Chris and Luke Appleton fronted Fury UK).

Live Review : Bloodstock Festival 2021 - Day 1

I am not a hugger. At best I find it intrusive and at worst it makes my skin crawl. However over the bloodstock weekend I hugged, I hugged and I hugged. I hugged people that I consider life-long friends, I hugged people I have only ever seen at a distance and I hugged complete strangers. And it wasn’t just me, everyone was hugging. It was like some well-behaved orgy, where everyone kept their clothes on. Bloodstock was emotional and a celebration, but it was also normal. By about band three it felt no different to other years at Catton Park and the idea of not being able to be near people seemed preposterous. Though the one evident difference was the length. Five days of unrepentant Metal at the start sounded like manor from heaven but by the end it felt like you were jogging through custard to get to the finishing line. In fact, I was expecting silver blankets and a medal as I exited the site, like I had finished some endurance event. However, we need to start at the beginning….

FleshtivalsAuthor : Stewart Lucas18 August 2021Bloodstock 2021, Amakim, Ward XVI, Beholder, Onslaught, Raised By OwlsComment

Live Review : Steelhouse Festival 2021 - Day 3

Much to everyone’s surprise, Sunday at Steelhouse actually did dawn bright and sunny, and the mood as we trooped into the arena for the final day was very definitely on the up. We scatter onto the grass to bask in the sub and soak up the atmospheric sound of our opening band Empyre.

Live Review : Steelhouse Festival 2021 - Day 2

Saturday dawned bright and…… nah. This is Wales. The wind got up a bit overnight, the rain came in and Saturday morning was wet and blustery. Much re-pegging and such was done on the various campsites as people woke and surveyed the havoc wreaked by the unforecast gales. Thankfully casualties seemed to be minor, and it was soon time to head into the arena to see what the second day would bring.

Live Review : Steelhouse Festival 2021 - Day 1

It’s been a long 18 months, hasn’t it? Since Covid kicked us all in the face in March 2020 our lives have changed so much, possibly forever. For those of us who love our live music our hearts have been torn out as we have watched gig after gig, festival after festival fall to the dreaded “Covid Rules”. There have been glimmers of hope here and there with a smattering of socially-distanced and sanitised events and some online streams, but they have been few and far between and, while better than nothing, they haven’t really been able to replace what we have lost.

Why Bloodstock 2021 will be super special!

Yes, Bloodstock is always special. It’s Christmas for metalheads for Lemmy’s sake. But this year it will be extra special sauce special. This year will be the Metal party to meet all Metal party. And here are the reasons why..

FleshtivalsAuthor : Stewart Lucas23 July 2021Bloodstock 2021Comment

Bloodstock 2021 Countdown : 30 Bands not to Miss

It’s just 30 messily days until we are reunited on the hallowed ground of Catton Hall. Thirty days until Bloodstock 2021 is go. Here at ROCKFLESH towers we are always delighted to tell you about the bands we are excited about and this year is no exception. So, as we enter the thirty-day final countdown expect lots of Bloodstock related stuff as we all get very over-excited about five days of beer, rum and heavy bleeding Metal (even his satanic majesty has cracked a sort of semi smile). Did we mention how excited we are? Let’s start with our 30 “to watch” list.

FleshtivalsAuthor : Stewart Lucas12 July 2021Bloodstock 2021Comment

Download Festival : Why do I love Download?

It is sometimes hard to actually discern why we all hold Download in such high regard. Its infrastructure has on numerous occasions left a lot to be desired (putting the second stage in a car park in 2008, those bloody one way systems, last year’s bar queues from hell, I could go on…). It has made a number of questionable headliner decisions (Lost Prophets in ’08, Biffy Clyro in both ’12 and ’17)

Download Festival : Top 10 Performances

The big story of 2010 was of course meant to be the fact that AC/DC were headlining. A band that had seemed to have become far too big for mere festivals, was lowering themselves to join the rank and file of Aerosmith and Rage Against the Machine. The actual story turned out to be the disruption that the Aussie juggernaut appearance brought to the festival. They refused to be listed …

Download Festival – Top 10 Sets

By Sarah Cummings – Download veteran and well-known idiot.

If you are looking for in depth critiques of musical brilliance, this list isn’t for you. This piece flows from a place of emotion and memory, and I would struggle to define my love of Download any other way. Download has always been about the experience as a whole for me and I wanted to take the time to reflect on that with my Top 10 Download sets.

Download 2020 : The Review of The Festival That Never Was

In some parallel universe I am currently taking my tent out of storage. I am pensively looking at the weather forecast and I am getting stressed out about the number of senseless crossovers there are on Clashfinder. You see somewhere in the vast multiverse Download 2020 is actually happening. Somewhere out there in the quantum world they have just released the timetable and we all, with cries …