Recapping my entire Bloodstock experience and the journey to England is surely no easy task since the whole experience was one big sensory overload of pure bliss even if there was some confusion and hard times at the onset of this adventure. This was my first visit to England as well as Europe in general and my first time attending a massive metal festival like Bloodstock. You might ask yourself why I've never been to a huge metal festival before, but the simple answer is simply because no such thing exists in America. We used to have the Milwaukee Metalfest where I lived, but it was unfortunately laid to rest five years ago, and besides I'd hardly describe that fest as being massive. The whole idea for visiting Bloodstock was very random and only occurred to us in late June while drinking and enjoying some live music and as such we had to plan quickly. Unfortunately neither me nor my friend Mike were able to get a decent amount of time off, in fact I was only able to get seven days and Mike had only five days off. So, that meant it was more or less to England, enjoy Bloodstock and head back home. This aspect of the journey is a little disappointing to me because once we did the research we discovered that there was much to do and see in both London and Birmingham as well as the small town we stayed in named Lichfield. However we both had such an amazing experience with Bloodstock that we both plan to attend once again, but obviously get more days off from work and absorb much more of what England has to offer.
My friend Mike and I arrived in London, England a little after 6AM on August 12th and arriving so early was somewhat weird because for one thing we couldn't check into our hotel in Lichfield (about 3 hours from London) until 2PM and we were also right smack in the middle of the early morning rush hour. We had also just got off of an exhausting eight hour flight and while I'm sure some people can sleep on an uncomfortable air plane we surely could not (even though we tried).
When we were still back home and planning we had thought about exploring London before hoping the trains out to Lichfield, but since we really didn't want to carry our luggage all over London we decided to just take the rails out to London right away in the morning. I don't know about you, but we initially found the London rail system to be quite confusing and somewhat overwhelmed at how gigantic the whole thing was, but perhaps its just because there isn't anything like this back home. So, after all the confusion we rode the rails to a certain point in London we had to hop another train that would take us to Lichfield, which was roughly a two hour ride. Before even riding the train we realized it was quite cold and rainy outside, which is something we not only didn't expect but also hardly packed for either.
Well, after finally hoping a number of trains we were on our way to Lichfield. I must admit along the way it was really cool running into other metal heads that were going to Bloodstock and they have my eternal gratitude since they were kind and helped us out a lot with the questions we had. So, once we were in Lichfield we decided it was time to find our hotel, which unfortunately was not as close to the train station as we had originally thought it to be. Instead of just hoping in a cab and having one of them show us where the hotel was we decided to walk it, which turned out to not work so well since we didn't know exactly where we were going and along the way we got completely soaked by the on and off morning showers. After searching (but not finding) we decided to walk back and do what we should have originally done and that was take a cab out to the hotel. Turns out it was fairly easy to find, but it was at least a mile or more up the road, which is a bit much when its cold and the skies are pissing down on us. Thankfully we were able to check into our hotel a little early when we arrived at noon and getting unpacked and cleaning ourselves up a bit we just decided to take a little nap since we were both pretty damn worn out.
A few hours later we decided to go and explore Lichfield and at least find some sort of store where we could buy a jacket or hoodie to keep us warm since neither of us thought to bring one along. I have to admit I was absolutely impressed with Lichfield, because it was such a beautiful city and I really thought all the buildings and just the way everything was laid out was just so nice. The city had a very old timey feel to it, which I love, and everything was so artsy and creative looking plus it was such a clean and friendly city, which is quite different from where I come from where most everything is worn down and generally quite dirty and poorly maintained. It was sort of like I was in a dream world of sorts since it was just so different from my home of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The rest of our day more or less just consisted of exploring Lichfield and getting all the proper info we needed for the rest of our journey. After a while we got some beer and decided to head back to the hotel and call it a day and get ready to rise early and enjoy Bloodstock.
The first day of Bloodstock was somewhat discouraging, at first, because once again it was cold, rainy and the entire field where Bloodstock was held was nothing but mud (good thing I didn't buy those new shoes). Honestly I somehow expected to be severely sick by the end of the weekend, but fortunately things turned out quite the opposite. While walking around both myself and my friend were quite impressed with the Bloodstock area and we really enjoyed visiting all the vendors and supported their cause by purchasing t-shirts and patches. The first band we actually saw on Friday was a Sheffield, England based band known collectively as, 'Black Spiders.' These guys played a type of catchy hard/stoner rock, which really surprised me and left me wanting tons more. Unfortunately we only caught their last two songs, but I do know I'll be hunting down this bands releases soon enough. Next we headed over to the New Blood Stage where we caught a band named, 'Betraeus.' These guys played some sort of thrash hardcore crossover stuff, which much to my surprise was fairly good. I was also instantly amazed by how good the lighting was for this considerably smaller stage. It's funny to think, but the lighting is actually better than our local venue, The Rave. Back to the Ronnie James Dio stage we caught, 'Ross the Boss.' This band is a relatively new (formed in '06) band lead by Ross Friedman who is best remembered as the guitarist of Manowar between '80-'88. Much like Manowar this was straight forward power/heavy metal, and although I'm not a Manowar fan I'd have to admit Ross' performance at Bloodstock was fairly engaging. Next was the long running German heavy/speed metal band Rage, who I have just a little bit of past listening experience with. We watched most of their set and I did find the whole thing to be quite good and it really started to make me wonder why I never followed the band closer.
Following Rage was the Finnish viking/folk metal heroes of Ensiferum. Naturally these guys grew quite the crowd for them and I personally was excited to witness their live show once again. The band played songs like, 'Twilight Tavern,' 'Stone Cold Metal,' 'One More Magic Potion,' 'Iron,' 'Into Battle,' and 'Token of Time.' Each song was played with much conviction and I really enjoyed seeing these guys again. Moving on it was time to see Cathedral who had stepped in at the last minute to replace Behemoth who had to cancel due to lead guitarist/vocalist Nergal being ill. It was sort of funny to be able to see Cathedral since just a few days before we left I was saying to a friend of mine how I wished Cathedral would tour the USA, because I really don't think they ever have. I've been listening to Cathedral for about eight years now and I'm fond of almost all of their albums. Therefore, I had something of a, 'moment' while they were playing. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about though as we all have these moments when we see our favorite bands perform. Anyway, Cathedral played songs like, 'Vampire Sun,' 'Utopian Blaster,' 'Funeral of Dreams,' 'Cosmic Funeral' and of course, 'Hopkins.' It was an incredible moment for me. Gorgoroth was next and they came out as fierce as you'd expect them to be and complete with corpsepaint, blood and lots of spikes. The band ripped through some new stuff, which was great to hear, but personally for me it was much cooler to hear classics like, 'Destroyer' & 'Katharinas Bortgang.' We decided to venture around a bit from this point on an caught, 'Sonata Arctica' from a distance, but my freakin' god is that band ever wanky.
A bit later we again watched, 'Meshuggah' from a distance and although the band pulled in a huge crowd I just couldn't get into their sound at all. Somewhere around that same time we caught bands like, 'Enforcer' & 'Power Wolf' on the Sophie Lancaster Stage, and although I don't really remember Enforcer I must admit Power Wolf's utter corniness was just great to witness. Also back on the New Blood Stage we saw Credit to Dementia briefly, but they didn't make much of an impression on us. The final act for the evening was Opeth, but their was one minor problem. Our shuttle back to Lichfield left at 10:30, which meant we were only able to catch a small portion of Opeth's set (four songs). However some Opeth is definitely better than no Opeth. My digital camera also decided to go and die on me right before Opeth hit the stage too. Anyway, it was enjoyable seeing the guys again, this being the fourth, errr, I guess three and a half times I've seen them now. The band played the songs, 'Windowpane,' 'The Grand Conjuration,' 'The Drapery Falls,' and one of the songs from, 'Watershed,' but the name is eluding me at the moment. I'm sure the rest of their set was stunning though I'm somewhat baffled by Mikael's strange stage behavior. I guess I'll never understand why he always feels the need to rant on and on about the most pointless topics, but talking about how he used to be a, 'fat bitch' or joking about both him and Martin double fisting each others assholes is a bit much, I think. Weird.
So, in the end day one turned out to be colossal for us, and of course it was cold and on and off rain all day/night long. Nevertheless once I got the music in me I was just flying the whole time. Fortunately the next two days would prove to be even further enjoyment for us. Unfortunately on the way home that evening we did something really stupid, but I'll save that for another time.
While riding the bus Saturday morning we met a really nice guy from Spain named, Paulo and had a really interesting chat. We also exchanged contact info and hopefully if we go to Bloodstock next year will be able to meet up with this great guy again. Anyway, after stepping off the bus Saturday morning we were once again greeted by plenty of mud and literally it started raining soon as we walked off the bus. Great.
When we walked in Saturday morning we were taken aback by some sort of medieval battle going on, which was quite fun and amusing to witness. While doing so we unfortunately missed Evile and only saw their last song, which kind of sucks since they are quite enjoyable on stage. Shortly thereafter we caught bands like Onslaught and Obituary, which are of course stunning, and we also saw Edguy, which is super corny, but somehow still fun to watch. I can't help but think that Tobias Sammet (Edguy vocalist) really, really wishes he was Bon Jovi, but I suppose he'll probably never hit it that big. A bit later we saw Amorphis and having been a fan for ten years now it was just amazing to finally see them, though their short forty minute set was more of a tease than experiencing the real thing. At any rate I had another one of, 'moments' while they were playing. They played, 'Silver Bride,' 'Against Widows,' 'Sky is Mine,' The Castaway,' 'House of Sleep,' 'The Smoke' and 'My Kantele.' A tease indeed, but absolute bliss for a long time fan such as myself. Hopefully a USA tour is in the works, because I really need to experience the full thing soon.
After Amorphis was Devin Townsend and I've always thought that absolutely everything Devin has done to be completely boring. Therefore we quickly moved on. It was somewhere around here where I made my little Bloodstock tour video and accidentally walked right past my buddy Joe that I was hoping to meet there. Unfortunately we never found each other, but perhaps next year we will. We also watched a band called, 'Regardless of Me,' which was fairly straight forward female fronted melodic metal from Italy and we also saw English death metal legends, 'Benediction' shortly after that on the Sophie stage. The night concluded with Fear Factory, which is a band I've known about since I was a kid, but they never did much for me, but seeing them did bring back some memories of listening to their records back in the day. Children of Bodom was the headliner for Saturday, although again our bus was leaving around 10:30, so we just decided to call it a day after FF since an evil dark cloud was brooding on the horizon and it looked as if a nasty storm was coming once again. No idea if it did, but I honestly couldn't care about missing an overrated band like Children of Bodom.
On the third day we made it a little late to Bloodstock since we had to take care of our laundry , but we caught interesting bands like Korpiklaani, Gojira and the mighty Bloodbath, which again was another one of those special, 'moment' moments for me, haha. We also witnessed an interesting band on the New Blood stage named, 'Orestea,' which was more female fronted melodic metal and quite good too. Finally we saw Cannibal Corpse and more or less called it a day again. Twisted Sister was the headliner for Sunday, but I'm really not much of a fan, although I heard it was quite an amazing experience for those that stuck around the whole time. Unfortunately though we had to get up early on Monday and get back to London to catch our airplane, which left at 12:20, and due to some delays on the train ride back we just barely made it. I seem to remember arriving at the gate around 11:50.
All in all, Bloodstock was a tremendous experience for me and England in general was just breathtaking as well. We really hope to return next year for Bloodstock again, but we hope to be able to get more days off from work so we can enjoy England a bit more and see some of the amazing sights in London, Birmingham and Lichfield too.
Lastly I apologize for having this review take so long to post, but when I returned home Monday evening I was informed of some unfortunate events that were taking place at work and I was forced to make several calls these past two days to rectify the situation. Of course besides that I was also going through all my photos and videos I took at Bloodstock as well as emailing friends and letting them know about my wonderful English adventure.
In the end I absolutely recommend going to this festival, because it was just such an incredible time that I really can't even put it all into words, but if your a long time metal head like me than I can clearly tell you that this was metal heaven, my friends. So, start saving that money and join my buddy Mike ad me next year for Bloodstock 2011. Will see you there!
Go here to see lots of photos from Bloodstock
Go here to see some videos from Bloodstock, which I'll be continuing to upload for the next couple of days.
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