The history of Bloodstock

What the actual heck? Have we just moshed our way through the nineteenth (count ’em) instalment of the best and most metallic festival on this here planet? Why yes indeed, headbanger, it’s going to be 20 up for Bloodstock Open Air next year, and if you’re not down in the pit at 10am sharp on day one, we’ll want to know why! (PS If it so happens that Mr. Orange in the White House has started a nuclear war by then, we’ll accept that as a reasonable excuse. Stay at home and put Slayer on.)

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s raise a horn of mead to this year’s killer event, where our three headliners – Sabaton, Parkway Drive and the none-more-mighty Scorpions – brought over such a massive production that we actually had to increase our stage size to accomodate the mayhem. Don’t thank us, it’s what we do – and in any case we we were totally in battle mode this year, having booked a truly, relentlessly heavy roster of bands to kick us into touch.

 You came, you saw and you banged your head to Raging Speedhorn, Soulfly, Anthrax, Xentrix, Death Angel, Cradle Of Filth, Taake, Dimmu Borgir, Hypocrisy, Powerwolf, Cancer Bats, Thy Art Is Murder, Grand Magus, Queensryche, Ross The Boss and an absolute ton of masters and mistresses of metal. And that was just for starters...

Of course, BOA isn’t just about listening to music, it’s about a whole, inclusive realm of heavy metal philosophy. Did you see Harley Davidson this year? They were exhibiting some of the finest motorcycle machinery anywhere on the planet, even though they didn’t let us take one home (damn!). We also brought back the RAM Gallery for the artistically-minded among us, because art is metal, and we’ll fight anyone who says otherwise (as long as they’re not bigger than we are).

 So what were the high points? Well, we got our minds blown by the planet-sized riffs exuded by Blind River, Footprints In The Custard and Ten Ton Slug, not to mention the Greek black metallers Rotting Christ, all of whom ensured that the Sophie Lancaster stage was packed to the gills by the end of the first night. Let’s also give a shout-out to Zealot Cult, whose excellent homage to the old-school death metal that our great-grandfathers enjoyed so much back in the day was wholly welcome. 

 What else floated our boat? Well, bearing in mind how many killer bands were around – including (deeeeeep breath) Xentrix, Children Of Bodom, Powerwolf, Tesseract, Dee Snider, Def Con One, Metal Church, The Parallax Method, Karybdis, Powerwolf, Krysthla, Swallow The Sun, Evil Scarecrow, Red Method, The Wildhearts, 3 Headed Snake, Boss Keloid, Hypocrisy, The Master's Call, Taake, Witch Tripper, Soilwork, Voidlurker and Divine Chaos – we could go on about this all day!

 But we’ll point to a few moments that were truly special, including Soulfly singer Max Cavalera getting us all to sing Bob Marley’s ‘Get Up, Stand Up’ and Sabaton’s massive power metal assault. Then there was Death Angel playing warp-speed thrash from the golden age of hi-tops and skinny jeans, Cancer Bats levelling the entire venue with their monstrous hardcore, and Thy Art Is Murder dedicating their song ‘Make America Hate Again’ to “that c**t Trump”. Of course, you can never argue with the all-time classic setlist that Anthrax brought us (‘Caught In A Mosh’, ‘Got The Time’, ‘I Am The Law’ for starters!), the none-more-emotional whistlefest of the Scorps’ ‘Wind Of Change’ and the amazing sight and sound of Parkway Drive, who brought us their own, particular recipe for mayhem all the way from Orstrilia. Goddamn, our ears are still trembling!

One more thing. Now that we’ve reached the point where BOA is established and well-known for being loud, proud and generally awesome, we want to be known for our climate-friendly policies too. After all, if the planet goes to hell in a handcart, where are we going to get our metal? With that in mind, we launched our Bloodstock Goes Greener Campaign, with the aim of reducing our on-site waste – and thanks to all your help, we reduced it from over 65 tonnes in 2018 to under nine tonnes this year, the rest being safely recycled. That’s around 80 percent less junk for the environment to deal with – and that’s really something to shout about.

All this adds up to a hell of a festival, as it is every year, and a run-up to the 2020 event that will be truly spectacular. Will BOA’s 20th anniversary be the best yet? There’s only one way to find out... we’ll see you there!