It’s time to bring the metal back to this here blog! And what better way to do it than with a look back at a most excellent weekend of music and frivolity at Catton Hall in Derbyshire.
It started out on Thursday with a leisurely arrival on site and about an hour of sunshine and a nice glass of boxed wine by our freshly-pitched tents, before the gods frowned upon us and the heavens opened. The rain was quite something, it has to be said. That night two of our three tents were robbed and in the remaining tent, my other half was vomiting up a sausage of the apocalypse. Let’s just say, it was an inauspicious start.
But from small beginnings grow massive trees, or however the saying goes, and the weekend improved one day at time. This is some of what our ears were treated to over the three days.
Friday 13th August
On this most metal of dates, we were up bright and early and waiting expectantly in the New Blood unsigned bands tent for the first band of the weekend, Under Blackened Skies from Birmingham, who also happen to contain a good friend of ours, Mr Manu Patel on lead vocals. They kicked seven shades of crap out of the slowly awakening masses, the delicate hour of the morning no obstacle to their thundering metal juggernaut of a sound, big fat riffs and drum savagery all tied up in the most metal of bows, the guttural trachea-clenching vocals of Manu. I was rather like a proud mother it has to be said, and I was very impressed with what I saw. It was also great to see the gang from Birmingham after quite some time away. A great start to proceedings.
Over on the mainstage we caught a snippet of Black Spiders. Quite what they were doing at Bloodstock I don’t really know; they sounded like Queens of the Stone Age-lite. Repetitive and underwhelming, they really must be the most over-rated alternative band of the moment. Ross the Boss then proceeded to bring some power metal to the party, and even from the campsite we could hear him being, er, shrill.
Drafted in as last-minute replacements for Behemoth who unfortunately had to cancel due to illness, legendary British metallers Cathedral were a fine substitute. They got everyone going with their inimitable mix of stoner rock and psychedelia, their material from past and present sounding as fresh as ever.
Sonata Arctica were a funny one. We caught the majority of their set whilst waiting in the Opeth signing queue, and despite sounding like a credible option for Finland’s next foray into the Eurovision song contest, they were sort of good. The lead singer, despite wearing a WHITE hoodie (where does he think he is, the streets of Wallsend?!) was quite charming and seemed to be having a jolly nice time. Bless him. My other half pronounced that they were ‘terrible’ – so that’s both bases covered there then.
In the early evening glow, sub-headliners Meshuggah bludgeoned my tired mind with their insanely tight rhythms for an hour, during which time I felt like my brain may well have been covertly impregnated with some kind of coding which will turn me into a math metal drone the next time I hear a bar of 156/21 time. Watch this space – and nobody play me any Dillinger Escape Plan for crying out loud.
Friday’s headliners, in place of Heaven & Hell, were Sweden’s finest export, the genius that is Mikael Akerfeldt and his travelling band of musos known as Opeth. I have seen this band quite a number of times in the last couple of years but it has to be said that they were absolutely breath-taking tonight. Their sound was clear as a bell, their setlist was impeccably selected and included gems from across their back catalogue, as well as a cover of ‘Catch the Rainbow’ by Rainbow. It was a poignant and fitting tribute to the late Ronnie James Dio, and featured a rather nervous-looking Mikael shedding his guitar and facing the crowd with nothing but his voice. He did an astounding job and I salute him. He somehow manages to combine self-effacing with wry arrogance, but he always does so with an air of comedic inspiration, and I for one am a massive fan.
Saturday 14th August
The day began with a lot of trudging through a lot of mud as the heavens had officially decide to turn against the heathens overnight and had thrown down their wet fury upon us for hour upon hour. Lovely stuff. However, a ray of sunshine was threatening to peep through as the showers continued to taunt us, and we watched our first two bands of the day mostly from the sheltered edge of the Bloodstock Arms. First up for us was Leaves’ Eyes, a female-fronted Scandinavian folk-type outfit. Prizes to be awarded here, one for the most pointless band member of the weekend (and may I point out this was a weekend which included GWAR), the instrument-free bloke who basically just threw his ridiculously long dreads around and shouted ‘come on’ a lot. And secondly for most wooden lead singer of the weekend. The woman, although dressed impeccably, was either laced far too tightly into her corset, or future world peace was resting on her not putting a perfectly straight blonde hair out of place, as she didn’t move a muscle the entire show other than a theatrically raised arm here and there. She also sounded like Celine Dion. Just terrible.
Secondly were Evile. This was far more like it. This British thrash quartet really have stamped their mark on the metal scene and it’s clear to see why. Instantly accessible despite having some insanely complex guitar work, they combine classic heavy metal with an electric live performance, as well as being seemingly thoroughly nice blokes to boot. Bravo.
Next we had an excursion into the New Blood tent to check out a couple of very different up and coming acts. Zocalo first, a groove-laden rock band in the southern style, fronted by another female singer; the contrast couldn’t have been greater. This girl had attitude, personality and more groove than a box of LPs, and when the band realised they had gone under time and could do an encore the place went mad. Great stuff. Lithurgy were up next and couldn’t have been more different. Edgy, angsty, passionate, driven, mature, puzzling… These guys were a musical conundrum, fusing progressive and technical metal with the part-grindcore part-post-hardcore vocal stylings of the lead singer, who also brandished a saxophone at one point in the set, as well as dancing in a way that would make even his mother cringe. Interesting band, and one I shall be keeping an eye on in future years.
The Jagermeister acoustic stage was little more than a speaker on the back of a truck, and we visited it for the first time later that day to hear midlands-based gothic duo Hanging Doll, whose maudlin lyrics and haunting vocals somehow managed to distract the small crowd from the sound of Obituary’s sound check. Quite a feat. Obituary themselves held our attention for a small time and sounded damn good, the death metal legends clearly on fine form, but we were on our way to the tent again for a gander at London-based metallers Silas, who weren’t the best band of the weekend in terms of exceptional musical talent, but they were great fun to watch, and the singer was so cockney it was unreal. I’m fairly certain he offered us a pound of tomatoes half price at one point.
My lovely Finns Amorphis were next up on the Ronnie James Dio stage. They didn’t draw a huge crowd which was a shame as they delivered a really energetic, enjoyable set, featuring a few songs from their latest offering ‘Skyforger’ along with some of their older material. Lead singer Tomi Joutsen became the second man of the day with rotating dreads of over a meter long, but in comparison with the pointless bloke from Leaves’ Eyes, he could sing, and was a little barrel of dynamite at the front of the stage. A really tanned one, strangely.
The most anticipated set of the weekend was next on the list, and the excitement was palpable as a huge crowd gathered for Devin Townsend. He surprised everyone by appearing onstage during his soundcheck, dressed in a simple t-shirt and jeans, proceeding to fiddle about with gear for a while after a sheepish wave at the enthralled masses. The next half an hour involved some serious technical issues for the Canadian, but he kept the crowd entertained throughout with constant banter, general pissing about and even an interpretive dance routine. The guy is mesmeric, it’s truly impossible to tear your eyes away from him as he struts across the stage gurning and grinning like a maniac. The set he produced, although curtailed, was blinding, his soaring voice and effortless guitar-playing making grown men weep tears of molten lava. I shit you not.
Fear Factory were the first of the co-headliners for the evening and for me, they started fairly tamely, but improved throughout. The stage bravely held up despite what was surely the hugest combined weight of a single band ever to tread its boards (and again I’ll remind you, this was a festival that included GWAR, their infinity members and massive costumes included). I was as sad as my companions were amused to note that the ravages of time hadn’t done Burton C Bell’s vocals a whole heap of good, and I have to admit the tuning was off a lot of the time, but hey, they’re an industrial metal band, how important can it be? When I felt my attention waning later in the set and shouted ‘play more songs from Demanufacture!’ the metal gods must have been listening – either that or Burton C Bell has ridiculously good hearing – because almost immediately Bell proclaimed ‘the rest of the set will be made up of songs from Demanufacture!’. I was a happy bunny and it all picked up from there.
Children of Bodom were the second co-headliner and as we headed back to the tents for some food and beverages, I was really disappointed I hadn’t stayed to watch them. They sounded really good.
Sunday 14th August
Finally the rain had fully abated and we awoke to sunshine, which improved steadily throughout the day. Nice. As I’m writing this from the future and have just realised I hadn’t got as far as Sunday before being a lazy goit and forgetting about finishing this post, I’m going to keep the Sunday reviews short. Very short.
Neonfly – they played in the unsigned tent. We didn't like them. We left.
Suffocation – hardcore shoutyness of the worst kind – macho and giant bollocked and full of shite. Went on about guns. Twat.
Holy Moses – the music was really quite good – almost grungy at times! But the German bird singer was not.
Doro – more German women than you can shake a stick at on the mainstage today. Doro was good – good rock vocals and really got the crowd going. Covered ‘Breaking the Law’ which was, um, an experience.
Korpiklaani – I was drunk by this point and it was fantastic. Crazy Finnish folk band, prize for line of the weekend went to the singer who before one track proclaimed ‘just follow the accordian’! When are you ever going to hear that again at a metal gig! Lots of country dancing, general bouncing around and mad cheering ensued. Fab.
GWAR – no idea what their music sounded like, and I don’t think anyone really cared, including the band. Fantastic entertainment, giant costumes, hideously unpleasant role-playing, lots of goo.
Gojira – absolutely incredible. Tight, crushing, soaring, engaging, electrifying. The surprise package of the weekend for those who weren’t fans prior to the festival. For those of us that were, Gojira delivered the goods as they always do, proving themselves once again to be one of the best live bands currently in existence. We even managed to meet them afterwards and have them sign some stuff, and jolly nice fellows they were too.
Bloodbath – the death metal ‘super-group’ composed of members of Opeth and Katatonia, Bloodbath offered us Mikael Akerfeldt in a somewhat different guise to his appearance two nights previously. They didn’t take themselves too seriously and delivered a decent set, impressive considering it was only their 8th time playing live together.
Twisted Sister – convinced we would hate them, we all went back to the campsite to enjoy the last few drinks of what had been an amazing weekend. However, deciding it was our last chance to hear some live music, we fancied a wander and plus, it was a headliner so we should probably have a look. So we trooped back into the arena and enjoyed some drunken call and response antics with the impressively-locked Dee Schneider and his band. A surprising and fun end to the weekend.
Good times had by all? Most definitely. I do have some pictures to punctuate the rather huge lump of text I’ve thrown at you but they’re not with me right now. I may or may not remember to upload some at some undisclosed point in the near or distant future. The End.
It started out on Thursday with a leisurely arrival on site and about an hour of sunshine and a nice glass of boxed wine by our freshly-pitched tents, before the gods frowned upon us and the heavens opened. The rain was quite something, it has to be said. That night two of our three tents were robbed and in the remaining tent, my other half was vomiting up a sausage of the apocalypse. Let’s just say, it was an inauspicious start.
But from small beginnings grow massive trees, or however the saying goes, and the weekend improved one day at time. This is some of what our ears were treated to over the three days.
Friday 13th August
On this most metal of dates, we were up bright and early and waiting expectantly in the New Blood unsigned bands tent for the first band of the weekend, Under Blackened Skies from Birmingham, who also happen to contain a good friend of ours, Mr Manu Patel on lead vocals. They kicked seven shades of crap out of the slowly awakening masses, the delicate hour of the morning no obstacle to their thundering metal juggernaut of a sound, big fat riffs and drum savagery all tied up in the most metal of bows, the guttural trachea-clenching vocals of Manu. I was rather like a proud mother it has to be said, and I was very impressed with what I saw. It was also great to see the gang from Birmingham after quite some time away. A great start to proceedings.
Over on the mainstage we caught a snippet of Black Spiders. Quite what they were doing at Bloodstock I don’t really know; they sounded like Queens of the Stone Age-lite. Repetitive and underwhelming, they really must be the most over-rated alternative band of the moment. Ross the Boss then proceeded to bring some power metal to the party, and even from the campsite we could hear him being, er, shrill.
Drafted in as last-minute replacements for Behemoth who unfortunately had to cancel due to illness, legendary British metallers Cathedral were a fine substitute. They got everyone going with their inimitable mix of stoner rock and psychedelia, their material from past and present sounding as fresh as ever.
Sonata Arctica were a funny one. We caught the majority of their set whilst waiting in the Opeth signing queue, and despite sounding like a credible option for Finland’s next foray into the Eurovision song contest, they were sort of good. The lead singer, despite wearing a WHITE hoodie (where does he think he is, the streets of Wallsend?!) was quite charming and seemed to be having a jolly nice time. Bless him. My other half pronounced that they were ‘terrible’ – so that’s both bases covered there then.
In the early evening glow, sub-headliners Meshuggah bludgeoned my tired mind with their insanely tight rhythms for an hour, during which time I felt like my brain may well have been covertly impregnated with some kind of coding which will turn me into a math metal drone the next time I hear a bar of 156/21 time. Watch this space – and nobody play me any Dillinger Escape Plan for crying out loud.
Friday’s headliners, in place of Heaven & Hell, were Sweden’s finest export, the genius that is Mikael Akerfeldt and his travelling band of musos known as Opeth. I have seen this band quite a number of times in the last couple of years but it has to be said that they were absolutely breath-taking tonight. Their sound was clear as a bell, their setlist was impeccably selected and included gems from across their back catalogue, as well as a cover of ‘Catch the Rainbow’ by Rainbow. It was a poignant and fitting tribute to the late Ronnie James Dio, and featured a rather nervous-looking Mikael shedding his guitar and facing the crowd with nothing but his voice. He did an astounding job and I salute him. He somehow manages to combine self-effacing with wry arrogance, but he always does so with an air of comedic inspiration, and I for one am a massive fan.
Saturday 14th August
The day began with a lot of trudging through a lot of mud as the heavens had officially decide to turn against the heathens overnight and had thrown down their wet fury upon us for hour upon hour. Lovely stuff. However, a ray of sunshine was threatening to peep through as the showers continued to taunt us, and we watched our first two bands of the day mostly from the sheltered edge of the Bloodstock Arms. First up for us was Leaves’ Eyes, a female-fronted Scandinavian folk-type outfit. Prizes to be awarded here, one for the most pointless band member of the weekend (and may I point out this was a weekend which included GWAR), the instrument-free bloke who basically just threw his ridiculously long dreads around and shouted ‘come on’ a lot. And secondly for most wooden lead singer of the weekend. The woman, although dressed impeccably, was either laced far too tightly into her corset, or future world peace was resting on her not putting a perfectly straight blonde hair out of place, as she didn’t move a muscle the entire show other than a theatrically raised arm here and there. She also sounded like Celine Dion. Just terrible.
Secondly were Evile. This was far more like it. This British thrash quartet really have stamped their mark on the metal scene and it’s clear to see why. Instantly accessible despite having some insanely complex guitar work, they combine classic heavy metal with an electric live performance, as well as being seemingly thoroughly nice blokes to boot. Bravo.
Next we had an excursion into the New Blood tent to check out a couple of very different up and coming acts. Zocalo first, a groove-laden rock band in the southern style, fronted by another female singer; the contrast couldn’t have been greater. This girl had attitude, personality and more groove than a box of LPs, and when the band realised they had gone under time and could do an encore the place went mad. Great stuff. Lithurgy were up next and couldn’t have been more different. Edgy, angsty, passionate, driven, mature, puzzling… These guys were a musical conundrum, fusing progressive and technical metal with the part-grindcore part-post-hardcore vocal stylings of the lead singer, who also brandished a saxophone at one point in the set, as well as dancing in a way that would make even his mother cringe. Interesting band, and one I shall be keeping an eye on in future years.
The Jagermeister acoustic stage was little more than a speaker on the back of a truck, and we visited it for the first time later that day to hear midlands-based gothic duo Hanging Doll, whose maudlin lyrics and haunting vocals somehow managed to distract the small crowd from the sound of Obituary’s sound check. Quite a feat. Obituary themselves held our attention for a small time and sounded damn good, the death metal legends clearly on fine form, but we were on our way to the tent again for a gander at London-based metallers Silas, who weren’t the best band of the weekend in terms of exceptional musical talent, but they were great fun to watch, and the singer was so cockney it was unreal. I’m fairly certain he offered us a pound of tomatoes half price at one point.
My lovely Finns Amorphis were next up on the Ronnie James Dio stage. They didn’t draw a huge crowd which was a shame as they delivered a really energetic, enjoyable set, featuring a few songs from their latest offering ‘Skyforger’ along with some of their older material. Lead singer Tomi Joutsen became the second man of the day with rotating dreads of over a meter long, but in comparison with the pointless bloke from Leaves’ Eyes, he could sing, and was a little barrel of dynamite at the front of the stage. A really tanned one, strangely.
The most anticipated set of the weekend was next on the list, and the excitement was palpable as a huge crowd gathered for Devin Townsend. He surprised everyone by appearing onstage during his soundcheck, dressed in a simple t-shirt and jeans, proceeding to fiddle about with gear for a while after a sheepish wave at the enthralled masses. The next half an hour involved some serious technical issues for the Canadian, but he kept the crowd entertained throughout with constant banter, general pissing about and even an interpretive dance routine. The guy is mesmeric, it’s truly impossible to tear your eyes away from him as he struts across the stage gurning and grinning like a maniac. The set he produced, although curtailed, was blinding, his soaring voice and effortless guitar-playing making grown men weep tears of molten lava. I shit you not.
Fear Factory were the first of the co-headliners for the evening and for me, they started fairly tamely, but improved throughout. The stage bravely held up despite what was surely the hugest combined weight of a single band ever to tread its boards (and again I’ll remind you, this was a festival that included GWAR, their infinity members and massive costumes included). I was as sad as my companions were amused to note that the ravages of time hadn’t done Burton C Bell’s vocals a whole heap of good, and I have to admit the tuning was off a lot of the time, but hey, they’re an industrial metal band, how important can it be? When I felt my attention waning later in the set and shouted ‘play more songs from Demanufacture!’ the metal gods must have been listening – either that or Burton C Bell has ridiculously good hearing – because almost immediately Bell proclaimed ‘the rest of the set will be made up of songs from Demanufacture!’. I was a happy bunny and it all picked up from there.
Children of Bodom were the second co-headliner and as we headed back to the tents for some food and beverages, I was really disappointed I hadn’t stayed to watch them. They sounded really good.
Sunday 14th August
Finally the rain had fully abated and we awoke to sunshine, which improved steadily throughout the day. Nice. As I’m writing this from the future and have just realised I hadn’t got as far as Sunday before being a lazy goit and forgetting about finishing this post, I’m going to keep the Sunday reviews short. Very short.
Neonfly – they played in the unsigned tent. We didn't like them. We left.
Suffocation – hardcore shoutyness of the worst kind – macho and giant bollocked and full of shite. Went on about guns. Twat.
Holy Moses – the music was really quite good – almost grungy at times! But the German bird singer was not.
Doro – more German women than you can shake a stick at on the mainstage today. Doro was good – good rock vocals and really got the crowd going. Covered ‘Breaking the Law’ which was, um, an experience.
Korpiklaani – I was drunk by this point and it was fantastic. Crazy Finnish folk band, prize for line of the weekend went to the singer who before one track proclaimed ‘just follow the accordian’! When are you ever going to hear that again at a metal gig! Lots of country dancing, general bouncing around and mad cheering ensued. Fab.
GWAR – no idea what their music sounded like, and I don’t think anyone really cared, including the band. Fantastic entertainment, giant costumes, hideously unpleasant role-playing, lots of goo.
Gojira – absolutely incredible. Tight, crushing, soaring, engaging, electrifying. The surprise package of the weekend for those who weren’t fans prior to the festival. For those of us that were, Gojira delivered the goods as they always do, proving themselves once again to be one of the best live bands currently in existence. We even managed to meet them afterwards and have them sign some stuff, and jolly nice fellows they were too.
Bloodbath – the death metal ‘super-group’ composed of members of Opeth and Katatonia, Bloodbath offered us Mikael Akerfeldt in a somewhat different guise to his appearance two nights previously. They didn’t take themselves too seriously and delivered a decent set, impressive considering it was only their 8th time playing live together.
Twisted Sister – convinced we would hate them, we all went back to the campsite to enjoy the last few drinks of what had been an amazing weekend. However, deciding it was our last chance to hear some live music, we fancied a wander and plus, it was a headliner so we should probably have a look. So we trooped back into the arena and enjoyed some drunken call and response antics with the impressively-locked Dee Schneider and his band. A surprising and fun end to the weekend.
Good times had by all? Most definitely. I do have some pictures to punctuate the rather huge lump of text I’ve thrown at you but they’re not with me right now. I may or may not remember to upload some at some undisclosed point in the near or distant future. The End.
