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Events and Reports - Bloodstock Open Air 2009 - Day 1 - Sodom, Saxon, Carcass
The Bloodstock Festival has grown steadily since its inception as an indoor event in 2001 through to the launch of the first Bloodstock Open Air in 2005 and is well on its way to becoming a popular part of the Metal festival calendar
This year was the biggest and most impressive yet, with over 10,000 metal heads travelling from all over the UK and overseas to be part of a excellent three day true Metal event.
My friends and I were very kindly offered a ride to the festival by a mate called Eric who we met at the 2005 Sweden Rock Festival (and every Sweden Rock since). We arrived at the campsite around 6pm on the Thursday only to be confronted with a BLOODY MASSIVE queue to get in.
Our initial dismay soon turned to joy as I spotted an England flag with the Manowar logo etched on it. Knowing that this belonged to my good friends Jim and Paul who we met at Magic Circle last year, the queue of 150+ people was soon skipped and we got to setting up the tents.
While erecting our camp I got a text from fellow RevelationZ writer Nina, who had travelled over from Denmark for the festival, saying that she had arrived. I went to find her, brought her back to the camp and the drinking commenced.
The weather, which had disappointed at Sweden Rock earlier in the year turned out to be beautiful all weekend with barely a cloud in the sky on most days. This meant that every single day of the festival (and indeed most of the nights) turned into a drinking session of epic proportions. So much so that my memory is now a bit blurry about some nights.
I do remember introducing Nina to the joys of Buckfast (a rather cheap and not so cheerful tonic wine popular in Glasgow) and she enjoyed it so much it was finished on the first night and she spend the rest of the festival complaining I didn't bring any more!
There was a fairground at the festival so on the first night we decided to try out the Ghost Train (pretty poor) and the Waltzers (pretty awesome). At one point we also discovered an ancient Bloodstock ritual of Forky Forky, but more on this later on.
Friday 14th August
Firiday started off with a nasty hangover and a nastier surprise when we headed to check out NWOBHM legends Blitzkrieg and were confronted with Glammy nobodies Million Dollar Reload.
It turned out that Million Dollar Reload had turned up late forcing Blitzkrieg to play first, I for one was not happy and spoke to many others who were annoyed at the situation.
We decided the only way to overcome this shock was to get wired into the booze, which we did in fine style. We headed back in to check out Insomnium whose brand of Melodic Death Metal was pleasing on the ear but didn't remain long in the memory afterwards.
Deciding that drinking more was more important than watch Die Apokalyptischen Reiter we headed back to the tent. We had discovered earlier in the day that the security were not letting any cans of beer into the arena but didn't have any issue with the paper cups. So we started purchasing pints at the bar, taking them to the campsite and refilling them with our own beer to take back into the arena.
This went on till the festival organisers realised that they weren't selling quite as much beer as they planned and clamped down on it on the Saturday. Still, it was nice while it lasted.
Filled to the gunnels with booze (and at only 3pm as well) we went to watch party obsessed Thrashers Municipal Waste. The band played a hard and fast set which included crossover gems like "Unleash The Bastards", the wonderfully entitled "Terror Shark" and crowd sing-along number "Sadistic Magician".
Well known for their love of crowd participation the band incited not only one large circle pit but two at the same time! And on top of this they got the crowd to split in two at one point for a Wall of Death. All great fun to watch but there was no way in hell I was taking part. I was drunk, but not that drunk!
Lead singer Tony Foresta also encouraged the crowd to break the Guinness World Record for crowd surfing during one song and had someone with a notebook and pen at the side adjudicating. He claimed the crowd had managed to break it but despite giving the security guards a good workout I doubt they really did. The set was ended by "Born To Party" which saw the crowd singing the band's mantra of "Municipal Waste is gonna fuck you up" with great gusto.
We were back in front of the main stage later that day for German Thrash titans Sodom. This was a band that despite their status in the Thrash pantheon still had something to prove to their UK fans as they hadn't played on British soil since a one off gig in London way back in 1989.
As it turns out the UK had been missing out on something special as Sodom were on absolute stunning form. Singer Tom Angelripper's voice has lost none of its range as he alternated between chilling proto black metal screams, deathly growls and mid range, high speed thrash tirades.
He was ably backed by Bobby Schotlkowski on drums and Brenemem on guitar who fired some blistering solo's out into the assembled crowd. Tracks like "Agent Orange" and "M-16" sounded like they hadn't aged a day and the band even gave us a quick snippet of their cover of "Surfing Bird". Who said German Thrash doesn't have a sense of humour?
It was a brilliantly brutal set which one would hope would herald the band coming back to UK a bit quicker next time round. After all like the song suggests, the saw is still very much the law!
After the Germans had plied there trade it was time for some good old fashioned British Steel in the form of Yorkshire men Saxon. The band pulled the largest crowd so far that day and pulled out all the stops to make sure that everyone went away with a smile on their face.
It's just impossible not to enjoy Saxon live, whether you want to headbang furiously to "Heavy Metal Thunder", jump around to "747 (Strangers In The Night)" or just have a good old community sing-along to "Denim And Leather" you won't walk away disappointed.
One of the best bits of the set was when Paul Quinn leapt up onto a speaker stack in front of the stage to solo and after jumping back down Biff Byford ripped a massive "Do Not Stand" sign from said speaker stack, held it up for the crowd to see then playfully threw it away. Still risking the strong arm of the law after all their years is our Biff!
There was only an hour available for the band this time round but they put it to good use cramming in nine hits and two newbie's into the set. Let's just hope the organisers give them longer next time round. Surely a headline slot wouldn't be out of the question for these legendary stalwarts of the British scene?
Saxon Set List:
1. Battalions Of Steel
2. Heavy Metal Thunder
3. Demon Sweeny Todd
4. 747 (Strangers In The Night)
5. Let Me Feel Your Power
6. And The Bands Played On
7. Wheels Of Steel
8. Crusader
9. Live To Rock
10. Denim & Leather
11. Princess Of The Night
The headliners that night were Arch Enemy and Carcass who shared equal hour and fifteen minute slots as did Cradle of Filth and Blind Guardian the next night.well that's what was supposed to happen but that's another story for later on.
Arch Enemy were first up and turned in a highly polished and professional set as always. I really don't think I've seen another live band that get such a consistently clean and clear sound every single time they play. Of course it helps that Michael and Chris Amott are two of the most fluid guitarists you will ever see and Daniel Erlandsson is quite frankly, a beast behind the kit.
Angela Gossow's vocals can sometimes be a weak link but certainly not tonight, every growl and scream sounded great (even if her crowd interaction is still a bit weak). Opening with a mighty "Blood On Your Hands" (a song that works so much better live than on record) that band cherry picked songs from their back catalogue before ending on "We Will Rise" and "Nemesis".
The only bad thing you can say about this gig is that it struck you as just another night of the worldwide tour in support of Rise of The Tyrant rather than a special event. In fact, the set-list and instrumentals were essentially just a cut down version of what can be seen on their Tyrants of The Rising Sun DVD.
After a quick trip to the tent to rest our aching bodies some of us headed back in to watch Carcass. We missed the first couple of songs and walked in as the band were kicking off "No Love Lost".
I had given up on the band when I saw them last time round at Sweden Rock 2008 as the sound was atrocious. Luckily this time round the sound was not an issue and I enjoyed this gig so much more than last time. I prefer the early Death/Grind to the Heartwork era stuff so the gig was at its best when the band played some of the more vicious material
Michael and Daniel didn't show any signs of fatigue from the Arch Enemy show as they aided the long shorts wearing, sardonic as ever Jeff Walker and the biggest stoner you will ever see in a death metal band Bill Steer in bringing to a close a successful first night of the festival. And toward the end of the set former drummer Ken Owen made his way up on stage to lay down some blast beats to a massive and heartfelt round of applause.
There was a bizarre moment during "Keep On Rotting In The Free World" when fireworks started exploding not too far behind the stage. This turned out to have bugger all to do with the band but looked quite nice all the same.
Upon Carcass finishing we did some more drinking then headed back to the fairground, on approaching the Waltzers we noticed a crowd of people standing in a circle staring intently at the ground. Occasionally a big cheer went up and those assembled in the circle starting dancing like maniacs.
We enquired as to what the hell was going on and were quickly given the low down on Forky Forky, the greatest game known to mankind.
Essentially the rules are that there is a courgette in the middle of the circle, you throw a fork (underarm throws only mind you) and if you hit the courgette you win. Since this is bloody impossible in the dark what you are really hoping for is to get the fork standing straight up in the ground. This will cause the chant of "Forky- Forky!, Forky-Forky!" to erupt from the crowd and everyone dances in a circle like a madman.
Its almost like stumbling across a Heavy Metal version of a scene from the Wicker Man and if you think it sounds ridiculous (and you may well be right) I can assure you if you are roaring drunk (as we certainly were) its one of the most enjoyable things you can do at 2am in a fair ground at a festival.
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| | Written by Stuart
Sunday, September 6, 2009 |
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