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Events and Reports - Bloodstock Open Air 2010 - Day 2 - Onslaught, Benediction, Children Of Bodom
Saturday
First band of the day for me on Saturday were Glasgow boys Achren, who had won the Scottish Metal To The Masses competition, which means they got a slot on the unsigned stage. Unfortunately there was a massive queue to get in and we only saw their last three songs.
Still, we enjoyed them with commanding frontman/guitarist Scott Anderson being on fine arm waving, shrieking form. The band play blood metal, which to you and I is melodic thrash/black metal not a million miles away from Destroyer 666.
After Achren finished we watched the end of Evile's set on the main stage. We caught the tail end of "Thrasher" and listened as Matt Drake gave a moving speech dedicated to all the fallen brothers of metal over the past couple of years including Evile member Mike Alexander.
The band then played "Metamorphosis" off the new album, which didn't really sound anything great but finished on a strong version of "Enter The Grave". This was my first time seeing them without Mike and it was a little strange but new boy Joel Graham certainly sounded up to the task of taking over bass duties.
More thrash was the order of the day with British legends Onslaught. Their performance was probably the finest I've seen them play to date. They opened up with "Killing Peace", its clarion call of "Spitting blood in the face of God" letting any punters who were unaware of the band know what they were in for.
They put on a tight set that reminded people that they are still a force to be reckoned with and that UK thrash can match its American counterparts for levels of intensity. "Planting Seeds Of Hate" got the crowd moving with it's rather catchy chorus but it was "The Power, Power, Power, Power From Hell!" that brought the house down. The band informed us that they were off to Denmark to record their new album the day after. I look forward to hearing it and seeing them on tour again.
Onslaught Set-list:
Killing Peace
Let There Be Death
Destroyer of Worlds
Metal Forces
Fight With The Beast
Planting Seeds of Hate
Burn
Power From Hell
I was shattered already at this point so headed into the backstage area for a seat and a chat while Edguy were on then headed back out to watch Obituary.
I think the poor weather and copious amounts of alcohol the day before had taken its toll on me as I was struggling to stay upright during Obituary's set. I was still recovering from a cracked rib that I had sustained while drunk in Dublin the week before (don't ask) and it was giving me all kinds of grief during the set.
Add to this that Obituary are not the most engaging of live acts (John Tardy has been doing this for years and still seems terrified to say anything between songs) and some twats directly in front of me pissing about with their flags, I didn't really enjoy them that much. They sounded good, in their own sludgy, swampy death metal way but I just couldn't get into them.
On my way back to the tent, not the easiest thing to achieve as by this point the main walkways had turned into sticky mires of mud due to the rain, the most curious of things happened, the sun came out. This was typically timed as I crawled back into my tent to get some sleep and conserve some energy for the remaining bands. This meant not only did I miss the good weather but also I missed Amorphis who I have heard put on a really good show.
I emerged from the tent later that evening feeling a lot better, grabbed a beer and headed off on my own to see British death metal crew Benediction, who were playing a local gig as they hail from just up the road in Birmingham.
I made my way in and grabbed a spot at the barrier (cracked rib be damned!), the place was quite empty as the band took the stage but soon filled up as Devin Townsend finished up on the main stage.
The band whipped up a malevolent storm pretty quickly with some short, sharp blasts of single-minded, old school death/grind. Current frontman Dave Hunt (also known for vomiting up vocals for Anaal Nathrakh) is a force of nature on stage, bounding from side to side, spitting out lyrics and enticing bigger and bigger circle pits from the crowd.
Yet again the sound was a little off as everything was turned up so damn loud that parts of songs were lost in the mix. But hey, its death metal, it doesn't need to sound pretty, it just needs to make you bang your head like a maniac and Benediction certainly had me doing that.
Feeling rejuvenated after a straight up metal injection I headed back to the campsite to have a few beers before Children Of Bodom.
Craig, Del and I made our way back the main area, grabbed yet another beer and found a decent spot to watch Bodom from. The band came onstage to a pretty amusing intro tape, a collection of all the times everyone says "Fuck" in movie The Big Lebowski (if you haven't seen this film, you need to check it out), this while not being particularly big or clever, made me laugh.
To be honest I wasn't looking forward to COB as I think that the band lost it around the release of "Are You Dead Yet" and I was worried that the set would be packed with newer numbers.
Thankfully the band chose a pretty decent set list with some classics including opener "Follow The Reaper" and "Silent Night, Bodom Night". The sound for the band was good and they had the lighting rig turned up to 11 as they blasted the crowd with strobe and spotlights.
Unfortunately they are just not as tight as they should be with Alexi Laiho noticeably being a tad loose with some of his soloing. His voice is not quite what it once was and sounds a lot raspier than it used to.
They also have an irritating habit of talking to each other for protracted lengths of time in the breaks between songs. At points Laiho and keyboard player Janne Wirman were spouting shit back and forth for what seemed like ages.
This would be ok if the guys were blessed with the gift of stand up comedy but alas most of their banter was pretty unfunny. Although I did like Janne's obvious bullshitting of "You know Bloodstock, we played in Germany last night, Rome before that and uh...Russia at that start of the week and you guys have been the "best crowd yet""
Best moments of the set for me were a storming "Needled 24/7" and the swear-along fan favourite "Hate Me". There was also a moment when the band threatened to break into a rendition of "Runaway" by Bon Jovi but sadly apart from the intro it didn't materialize.
All in all a competent show but yet again not an all conquering gig by an act with the charm and crowd rapport needed to convince 10,000 people that they need to stay and rock the night with them.
Children Of Bodom Set-list:
Follow the Reaper
Hate Crew Deathroll
Needled 24/7
Everytime I Die
Living Dead Beat
Sixpounder
Blooddrunk
In Your Face
Angels Don't Kill
Kissing the Shadows
Hate Me
---------------------------
Silent Night, Bodom Night
Downfall
· Day 1
· Day 2
· Day 3
| | Written by Stuart
Thursday, October 14, 2010 |
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