Bloodstock Open Air is the UK's only dedicated Metal 3-day festival, and this years lineup
promised great things. You can see what some of the bands thought about it in our
Preview and when the day finally dawned we were really excited at the thought of three days of
proper music, in a field, with rain forecast...
So, equipped with waterproofs and wellies we headed to the site in time to catch the Black Spiders
for the 5th time this year. There really isn't a harder working band in the UK at the moment, as
these guys have popped up at almost every rock festival, and once again they showed why they are at
the forefront of the UK's current new wave of 'proper' heavy rock.
Next up on the main stage was Manowar guitarist Ross the Boss, accompanied by his one time cohort
in that band, Scott Columbus. It was good to see these two back together and as Ross took us through
40 minutes of old and new stuff it was nice to get out first taste of proper heavy metal. Ross
has a fine stage presence and Manowar classics like Hail to England and particularly Kill With Power sounded
really good and a version of Catch the Rainbow in tribute to Dio was well received by the ever-expanding
crowd. This was a fine return to form and hopefully the promised tour will materialise.
We stayed by the main stage for Finnish "heroic folk metal" band Ensiferum. To be honest we weren't
quite sure what to expect from this lot, even more so when they came on stage topless, with warpaint
on their faces and wearing Kilts. But we stuck around and were very glad that we did. Their folk
inspired metal may not be to everyone's taste but there is no denying that tracks like Twilight
Tavern and Into Battle work extremely well live.
The lineup and running order had been changed by the withdrawal of Behemoth, so at the last minute
Cathedral were brought in to fill the gap, and that they did very well. Although we're not the biggest of
fans of this band's slightly odd doom metal they managed to keep the bulk of the crowd onside as they
plodded through their set (that sounds harsh, but they did).
We left half way through to see what else was on offer, and in a perverse way were glad that we did,
as we managed to catch one of the worst experiences of our festival going life. Now we don't know if
Splintered Soul are really as bad as they sounded here or if the PA just couldn't take the high end
of the singers voice but they just sounded awful, and genuinely made the ears hurt. We lasted one song,
which is half a song more than most of the punters in the tent managed.
The corpse painted figures of Gorgoroth drew us back to the main stage for their demonstration of
Norwegian Black Metal. This was a band we were keen to finally catch live, but in the event they were
just a little disappointing. OK they looked the part and the music is as grim, dark and full of emotion
as you may expect, but here it was the performance of frontman Pest that seemed to let the side down.
The black metal growing were handled well enough but the more melodic passages (and yes, there were
some) seemed to be out of his reach. This is a band that were definitely at their best with Gaal up
front and although they still put on a show we couldn't help feeling that a change of vocalist may not
be a bad thing.
During the gap in the bands on the main stage we headed back to the unsigned tent and caught Credit to
Dementia. Setting aside the fact that has to be the worst band name for quite a while they were actually
very good. Frontman Steve certainly looked and sounded the part and from what we saw of these guys they
are certainly worthy of further attention.
We all regrouped by the main stage to see what we could make of the next band
on there, more Finnish metal in the form of Sonata Arctica who strongly divided opinion in the CackBlabbath
camp between those who quite liked their keyboardey euro-power metal, and those of us who thought that
anyone who brought a purple keytar on stage at a metal festival should be burned at the stake.
Having said that in places Sonata Arctica were very good, and it is easy to see how so many people like
them. For us there was just a bit too much keyboard wankery going on and it often seemed that they would
happily interrupt a perfectly good song for a bit of a keyboard solo.
The Sophie Stage was the scene for one of the unexpected highlights of Day 1. Sometimes you just
can't beat a nice slice of 80s heavy metal, and Swedish out-and-out metallers Enforcer supply it with
some skill. We saw the band at Sonisphere a few weeks before and were damn sure we were going to catch
them again here.
Michael Monroe-esque frontman Olof is a proper 'old school' heavy metal singer, full of energy and
making a real connection with the crowd and encouraging them to get involved. This was metal as it
should be played, fast, energetic and unrelenting.
Ok, there had been some big names on the other stages, but for us this was the best set of the day
thus far. And it was going to take something special to steal that title from Enforcer.
The Scandinavian theme on the main stage was continued by Swedish experimental metallers Meshuggah,
but we only caught a small part of their set before heading back to the Sophie tent for something
truly memorable, and a bit bizzarre.
The towering figure of Romanian frontman Attila Dorn prowls the stage as German band Powerwolf play
their compelling blend of power metal with folk influences. They certainly have an interesting stage
presence and even get the audience involved with Attila priming the crowd to participate in the 'ooh-ah'
chant in Werewolves of Armenia. They even raise an unintentional laugh when the sound man plays the
wrong intro tape for that song and the band have to stop then start again, this time with the correct intro.
For a fairly straight up power metal band Powerwolf were great fun. With tracks like St Satans Day,
Catholic in the morning.. Satanist at night, and Resurrection by Erection, how could they be anything else.
And so it fell to Opeth to bring Bloodstock Open Air 2010 day 1 to a close. Judging by the
number of their t-shirts seen around the festival site there were quite a lot of people really looking
forward to this one, and Mikael Åkerfeldt and the band did not disappoint.
They opened with Windowpane and proceeded to take us on a musical adventure through their extensive
back catalogue. Although Mikael's self depreciating comments between songs are clearly part of his overall
stage persona the fact is that for all he may claim that the band are 'rusty' they are far from it and this
was a note-perfect performance.
There was engagement with the crowd between almost every track. The changes in the running order and obligatory
technical issues meant that the band weren't sure how long they had, or as Mikael put it "We don't really know
how much time we have, so I don't know how much bullshit I can talk between songs".
Sometimes this downplaying of his and the bands talents is hopelessly misplaced. Before they played The
Moor Mikael spoke about how he hated playing it live as it was 'hard', then proceeded to deliver a faultless
rendition.
In amongst all of their own classics, Opeth also got almost the entire crowd singing along with their
tribute to Dio, Catch the Rainbow. It was a perfect festival moment on this stage named in honour of the great
man.
