Bloodstock Festival 2019: Part 2 (10th August)

WORDS: Ross Donald

After a fun night of Power Metal thanks to the likes of Powerwolf and Sabaton, it was time to move on to my most anticipated day of the festival. This was due to one band in particular, but I’ll get to that a bit later on. This would also be the day I discovered mead, my new favourite drink. Tasty stuff...

Anyways, onto the music.

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So, if you’re feeling a bit tired after a busy Friday and nursing a bit of hangover around 11am, how do you go about curing that? You go and see hardcore punk band Cancer Bats, that's what you do! Instant antidote. Frontman Liam Cormier even said that he was suffering from a lack of sleep and a hangover himself so it sounds like the set worked wonders for him as well.

They kicked off with ‘Gatekeeper’ which did seem like a bit of a slower one to start with but as soon as they moved to ‘Pray for Darkness’ and ‘Sorceress’ we were off to the races with no time to stop until the end. ‘Lucifer’s Rocking Chair’ is an absolute stormer of a heavy song and no hangovers were going to stop the massive amounts of headbanging the crowd and I took part in. Their cover of Beastie Boys’ ‘Sabotage’ came surprisingly early as it’s normally a set closer. But as always, it brought an extra shot of energy for an already rabid crowd and you couldn’t help but sing along.

Older cuts like ‘Hail Destroyer’ and ‘Bricks and Mortar’ showed that their classic songs are timeless while newer cuts such as ‘Fear Will Kill us All’ and ‘Winterpeg’ showed that the band still have a lot left to show us in future. Even after all of this carnage, the band still had one track left in them so they decided to end things on an epic note with the Black Sabbath classic ‘War Pigs’. I can’t think of a better end to this set than having the whole crowd sing along to this classic while the band played their hearts out.

Just an outstanding set to give the right burst of energy for a weary crowd. Why they were this low on the bill I have no idea. They deserved better.

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Next up was a band that I was particularly excited to see after being disappointed that their European tour had no Scottish dates: the death-doom metallers Swallow the Sun. Their latest release When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light has yet to be beaten for my pick of album of the year so far (my review for that is over here if you want to see more of my thoughts on it). Seriously, check that album out, it’s gorgeous.

The band thankfully did play quite a few tracks from the new album and even with their quieter, more atmospheric sound, these still managed to resonate with the crowd. As I said in my review of the album, the album was all about the passing of guitarist Juha Raivios’ partner Aleah Stanbridge. This lent a fair bit of emotion to the album and you could really feel it here with cuts like ‘Upon The Water’, ‘Firelights’, and the brilliant ‘Stone Wings’. It was a short set here and I think that they should have probably been over on the Sophie stage as a headliner as their slower, doomier sound would be better appreciated here. Unfortunately the winds which had picked up throughout the day also affected the sound in a few places.

Still I can’t fault the great performance itself and this is band I’m eager to see again in a hopefully more intimate setting. As it should be for a band like this.

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And speaking of winds, this caused even more trouble as the day went on. After The Wildhearts finished their set over on the main stage, it was announced that the stage would be closing for a bit due to high winds. Everyone was a bit fearful due to the fact that this went on for some time meaning that Cradle of Filth had to be rescheduled for the next day and Batushka’s Sunday main stage slot was swapped to the Sophie stage the next day. Thankfully things could settle back down in time for one of the bigger bands of the weekend to take centre stage though…..

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That’s right, it’s the underappreciated part of the big four: Anthrax. It’s technically the second time I've seen them live but I don’t really count the time they supported Slayer on their last tour as I missed most of the set due to the people I was with not wanting to see the band. Thankfully this weekend offered me a chance to rectify that.

Due to previously mentioned winds, the band were on stage 45 minutes after they were originally scheduled and their set had to disappointingly be cut a bit shorter as a result. They were only able to play eight tracks, by my god did they make the most of it. As expected, they opened up with ‘Caught In A Mosh’ which is just such an anthem of a song and I’m so happy I’ve finally gotten to hear it performed live now. They could have left after that song and I would have left happy, but they went on to play‘Madhouse’ and 'I Am The Law' which had the crowd singing along nicely as did the classic ‘I Am the Law’. Finishing of the set with epic crowd pleasers ‘Anti-Social’ and ‘Indians’, the band managed to make a 40 minute set feel about 10 minutes long.

These guys may have aged quite a bit but I’d say they have more energy than any other of the big four, and can still thrash with the best of them. I doubt that seeing these guys will ever get old.

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And now was time for the band I had been waiting months for: Parkway Drive. For anyone aware of Bloodstock, it was no secret that this had been a controversial choice of headliner for the festival. Many ‘pure metalheads’ were bashing the organisers for booking the band and spouting the ridiculous line of “They’re not proper metal”, seemingly ignoring the fact that Sabaton and Scorpions also headlined the same festival and are arguably less 'metal' than Parkway Drive are.

Now, Parkway are a band I’ve grown especially fond of since I missed their set at last year’s Download due to Guns ‘N’ Roses playing at the same time. I’ve loved going back to listen to their material, with last year’s Reverence being a particular highlight of the year for me. I knew they had it in them to steal the weekend, and that is exactly what they did here.

The set kicked off with ‘Wishing Wells’ and I’m pretty sure that this is the point where all naysayers realised their mistake after the band just pummeled us with this heavy hitter. This then went right into ‘Prey’ which had me and most of the crowd jumping around and singing along. The band weren’t done with the catchy songs yet though as ‘Vice Grips’ followed on. Once again, they rocked the absolute fuck out of it. New album Reverence did get quite a bit of play here that night with the previously mentioned songs and other big cuts like ‘Absolute Power’ (complete with an explosion every time the chorus hit) and the brilliant ‘Shadow Boxing’. But the real highlight from this album came when the lights went down and the band played the haunting and slightly eerie track ‘Cemetery Bloom’ before bursting into the powerful ‘The Void’. I so wish I could go back and experience this again. For ‘Writings on the Wall’ the band even brought out a few violinists to add to the atmosphere for a cool effect.

My highlight of the weekend came during my favourite track of Parkway’s: ‘Crushed’. It’s already such a massive, politically and religiously charged song as it is and it went down a treat with me damaging my own vocal chords in the process. But the band also took a leaf out of Rammstein’s book by almost setting the crowd on fire in addition to this. The sheer amount of flames on display was incredible and they even had them coming out the top of the damn stage. They could have ended it there and then, but the band said hell no and brought out the harsh ‘Bottom Feeder’ to really end the night on a giant note.

I’ve seen so many gigs this year already and this was easily a top 3 for me here, up with the likes of Slipknot and Metallica. It was just that damn good. On this night, Parkway Drive proved that they deserved to be top of the bill and showed that they are one of the best live acts going today. I’m seeing a Download festival headline spot in their future. They deserve it.

This was the best day of my weekend so far and we still had one busy Sunday to go…..

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Thanks to Ross for writing up the second part of this Bloodstock review and thanks to you for reading. The first part of the Bloodstock review is over here if you missed that one and want to go check that out! The next and final part of the coverage for the festival this year will be uploaded here soon as well so keep an eye out for that over the next few days.

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Cheers!