Bloodstock 2018 was fucking brilliant! We spent four days in the company of some of the best bands in metal, getting sunburnt, smashing beers and showing-off our best leather-cowboy-hat-and-cargo-short combos. Aside from the catastrophic bangover, we had a few other take-aways worth musing over, too...

NIGHTWISH ARE DEAD-SET ON DELIVERING THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

Despite utter continental European dominance, Finnish maestros Nightwish seem to have found themselves straining against something of a glass ceiling in the UK. If there’s one lesson from their Sunday-night headline, though, it’s that there’s absolutely no lack of effort on their part. Whether filling-out the symphonic grandeur of Nemo and I Wish I Had An Angel or having fun with the more playful vocal lines of Amaranthe, incredible frontwoman Floor Jansen is more than capable of filling the esteemed shoes of Tarja Turunen and Anette Olzon. Moreover, performing tracks like The Greatest Show On Earth amongst a huge visual production (copious pyro, CO2, video displays that are equal parts dazzling and fascinating), she has forged a creative partnership with keyboardist/bandleader Tuomas Holopainen that could carry them on to even greater exploits yet.

ALESTORM CONFIRMED THAT THERE AIN’T NO PARTY LIKE A PIRATE-METAL PARTY

“OH WOW!” reads much of Alestorm’s stage gear and merch. They’re also the words on the lips of body in the mammoth crowd who turn up to catch their show-stealing set on Saturday afternoon. Sure, the Perthshire pirate-metallers are basically a living meme at this point of proceedings, but the sheer exuberant silliness with which they deliver songs like Keelhauled and No Grave But The Sea is utterly infectious. Opening with their audience beneath a sea of approximately five-fundred inflatable toys (mountable giant ducks, crabs, seagulls, swords, bunny-hoppers…) and only getting madder from there we get most of the crowd sitting down for a mammoth rock-the-boat row-along, a cover of Taio Cruz’s Hangover, muktiple crowd-control stoppages following a wall of death during Captain Morgan’s Revenge and a raft of near-naked crowdsurfers as the set climaxes with Drink pouring into the charmingly-titled F*cked With An Anchor. Oh wow, indeed...

FEED THE RHINO CONTINUE TO BE ONE OF THE MOST UNDERRATED ACTS IN BRITISH METAL…

“We’ve asked to play this festival each of the last five years,” bellows Feed The Rhino frontman Lee Tobin as the Kent quintet open Bloodstock’s mainstage on Friday morning. “It’s a real honour to finally be here...” Drawing in an relatively sprawling crowd purely by dent of their ear-punching songcraft, charismatic aggression and simple fearlessness there are more than a few confused looks from those who’d somehow not been exposed to their fearless sludgecore before now. Now four albums in – this year’s excellent The Silence perhaps the best of the bunch – it’s really about time these lads didn’t have to fight for their place on line-ups like these.

Feed The Rhino doing what they do best...

DEVILDRIVER ARE STILL THE CIRCLE-PIT KINGS

Over the years, a raft of pretenders have come and gone. Some like to think they’ve got a chance of whipping up bigger pits than Dez Fafara and the boys. Others live in hope of just getting close. The mid-sized scale of Bloodstock means that the big Double-D logistically simply don’t have enough punters at the disposal to whip up a bigger pit than they managed on vintage occasions like Download 2006, but the sheer severity that meets songs like Not All Who Wander Are Lost (surely still the munchiest piece of music influenced by JRR Tolkein), Clouds Over California and The Mountain – including one punter who gets spectacularly knocked out cold and has to be handed over to security – remains the benchmark against which all others should be measured.

WE WISH WE HAD FRIENDS LIKE JAMEY JASTA

It’s hardly surprising that Jamey Jasta has a bit of an impressive social group, is it? As frontman of New Haven, CT legends Hatebreed he was at the forefront of a bloody-knuckled revolution; as presenter of MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball – and numerous other outlets since – he’s developed a sort of genre-transcendent ubiquity; on side-projects like Kingdom Of Sorrow (sludgy), Icepick (punchy) and today’s billed act Jasta, he’s found himself in close proximity to all sorts of legends. Even still, his ability to roll-out a cast of “guest performers” including Crowbar/Down legend Kirk Windstein, Fear Factory founder Dino Cazares and Killswitch Engage/Light The Torch singer Howard Jones is a little bit mental. Their closing cover of Down’s Bury Me In Smoke (with Jamey spending most of the song taking selfies before taking over drums) is a thing of chest-crushing beauty.

CANNIBAL CORPSE ARE MAJOR-LEAGUE ACE VENTUTRA FANS

Even as twilight arrives and the heavens open on Saturday night there are a conspicuous number of punters wandering about having eschewed the traditional black-on-black aesthetic in favour of eye-bleeding Hawaiian shirts. There’s a shop tucked away somewhere in the metal market selling them that’s doing roaring business. Hell, there even seem to be a swarm of photographers wearing them tucked in the photo pit just before New York death metal legends Cannibal Corpse take the stage. But why? Turns out that (alongside frontman Corpsegrinder’s obsession with World Of Warcraft) the band also remain major fans of 90s Jim Carrey comedy Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (in which they had an infamous cameo) and Bloodstock has decided to celebrate with a mass conga-line for Hammer Smashed Face. Aaaaall-righty then...

Check out our feature on all the battlevests of Bloodstock here.

GOJIRA'S TIME AS HEADLINERS HAS COME

That heavy rain has people on tenterhooks before Gojira’s debut headline set. Their last appearance at the festival – utterly crushing a sunny late afternoon slot in 2016 – was utterly incredible. Is it possible to top that in front of this tired, worn-out throng? Is it fuck! Laughing in the face of the deluge as an army of inflatable whales appears over the heads of the crowd, the French heavyweights plow through Only Pain and headlong into The Heaviest Matter In The Universe. Performing in front of a tastefully monochrome video display – with a scorching pyro display – any doubt over whether they could command enough force, drama and simple adulation to carry top-line is quickly dispelled. Flying Whales is a goosebump-raising joy. Silvera threatens to wreck our necks. By the churning Vacuity all resistance is futile.

LOVEBITES CONFIRMED THAT THE NWOJHM [NEW WAVE OF JAPANESE HEAVY METAL] SHOWS NO SIGN OF SLOWING DOWN

Suicidal Tendencies are running late on Friday afternoon, which opens up a coveted slot on the main stage. When all-female Tokyo power-metallers Lovebites – promoted from the SOPHIE tent – are announced as the replacement, more than a few eyebrows are raised. It’s not long before a sea of horns go up too, though. Marrying a sort of Dragonforce-style fret-melting virtuosity to an utterly bizarre aesthetic (blue contact-lenses, all-white dresses, a howling-wolf backdrop that really might be taking the piss) they’re certainly not to the traditionalists’ taste, but the ability to force tracks like Above The Black Sky into the conversation ensure that alongside the likes of Crossfaith and Babymetal, metal’s most exotic subgenre continues in rude health.

Still got it.

THE CHANCE TO CATCH JUDAS PRIEST IS UTTERLY UNMISSABLE – EVEN IF YOU’RE EMPEROR!

Judas Priest are the Metal Gods. Their hit-filled Friday-night headline was a thing of utter beauty. From new tracks like Firepower and Lightning Strike through classics like Turbo Lover, You’ve Got Another Thing Coming and Painkiller bolstered by the addition of legendary Sabbat/Hell guitarist (and producer) Andy Sneap to the untouchable encore (Metal Gods. Breaking The Law. Living After Midnight.) featuring original six-stringer Glenn Tipton it was impossible not to have a tear in our eye as we raised our horns for what could well be one of Priest’s last-ever UK shows. Such was the occasion that even Norwegian black metal royalty (and Bloodstock sub-headliners) Emperor were spotted out in the crowd joining in with the ultimate metal party.

WATAIN MIGHT JUST BE THE NEXT BEST THING TO HELL ON EARTH

You want fire? You’ve got it. Swedish nightmares Watain close the festival wreathed in flame, with the familiar stench of rotting-flesh (at least one misguided punter is openly puking in the corner) rippling through the tent along with the promise that no-one but the true hardcore (and a minority of posturing edgelords) remain in attendance. All daubed-on corpse-paint and wiry energy, frontman Erik Danielsson commands the space with impish fervour. Tracks like Sacred Damnation and On Horns Impaled stoke the maelstrom. All red light and pain it’s a hell of a way to spend a Sunday night – but better for Bloodstock 2018 to burn out than fade away...

Words: Sam Law