9th August 2025
A lovely sunny day at Bloodstock. We took a walk around the arena before the bands started playing, we stopped at the Ozzy Osbourne wall to write are condolences and memories of this great singer and performer. The single ‘Paranoid’ was my second ever 45 I bought. I am not proud of my first, ‘Daydream Believer’ by the Monkeys.
Cage Fight
Cage Fight delivered an intense opening performance on the Ronnie James Dio Stage at Bloodstock 2025. The band’s metallic hardcore output was consistently aggressive, providing a rigorous start to the day for the assembled crowd.
Vocalist Rachel Aspe commanded the stage with an appreciable gravity, her presence marked by a concentrated focus. Her vocal delivery was a formidable display of control, featuring a powerful register of guttural growls and primal screams that underscored the band’s uncompromising musical foundation. The unit’s performance was notable for its sheer, unrelenting velocity.
Ba’al
Sheffield’s BA’AL delivered a set of uncompromising blackened post-metal on the Sophie Lancaster Stage at Bloodstock 2025. Known for their deeply emotive and challenging soundscapes, the quintet seamlessly blends the ferocious intensity of black metal with atmospheric, sludge-laden textures. The performance, following the release of their ambitious album The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here, showcased their complex song structures and vocalist Joe Stamps’ visceral, ranging delivery, demanding a profound emotional engagement from the audience. Their set was a testament to the band’s ascent within the UK’s extreme metal scene.
Warbringer
Californian thrash titans Warbringer delivered a masterclass in feral aggression on the Ronnie James Dio Stage. The band wasted no time, inciting massive, chaotic circle pits almost immediately with tracks like “Remain Violent.” Frontman John Kevill’s commanding stage presence was a highlight, often using his signature gasmask as a dark, unsettling prop to amplify the band’s themes of warfare and societal decay. Their high-velocity performance was a pure, unapologetic dose of old-school thrash, leaving the audience utterly drained but thoroughly satisfied. There was crowd surfing and I huge circle pit. I spotted ‘Gasmask’ in the circle pit.
Zebulon
It was mid-afternoon when we navigated our way through the ever-growing throng of metalheads and found ourselves at the New Blood Stage. This is the proving ground, the arena for emerging metal bands fiercely chasing their big break, hoping to convert a few hundred festival-goers into a dedicated following.
Zebulon took to the stage. Winners of their national ‘Metal 2 The Masses’ competition, they had sailed across the North Sea not for plunder, but to deliver a bone-crushing set of heavy, slow-burning, melodic doom.
Kristian Berge Nessa, the vocalist, immediately commanded attention. With a head of strikingly long, straight blonde hair—easily a meter in length—he was a visual spectacle. Throughout the set, as he delivered the band’s powerful, dramatic vocals and haunting melodies, he became a human whirlwind. He would spend minutes hunched over the microphone, before exploding into a flurry of motion, throwing his majestic mane back and up into the stage lights, a golden, ethereal arc against the darkness of the stage. He even confessed in a later interview to having gotten his hair snagged in an overhead spotlight—twice!—during a previous gig.
Creeper
Selina and I went to watch Creeper on the Ronnie James Dio stage, and it was easily the highlight of the weekend. The energy they brought to the main stage was incredible—the kind of set that leaves you slightly dazed and totally exhilarated. Will Gould, as always, commanded the massive crowd, and the twin guitars absolutely roared through the classic tracks. We were completely hooked, convinced we’d just seen one of the best performances of the entire festival.
The moment they finished, the decision was instant: we had to meet them. The queue for the signing tent was immense, but as a Serpants Layer ticket holders, we had priority. Everyone was buzzing. It was worth every minute of the wait just to exchange a few quick words and get those precious autographs. Now, those bold, black signatures are blue tacked to the memory wall in the loo. It’s the perfect spot—a hidden shrine that proves just how epic that hot afternoon at Bloodstock truly was.
Fear Factory
Fear Factory absolutely decimated the Bloodstock stage, delivering a high-impact, surgically precise set to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Demanufacture. Guitarist Dino Cazares, the sole original member, marshaled the industrial groove machine with characteristic ferocity. New vocalist Milo Silvestro proved his worth immediately, his dual clean and guttural delivery fitting the mechanical chaos perfectly. The band kicked off with a Terminator-style monologue before launching into an unrelenting run of classics, instantly igniting a huge circle pit. The crowd surfers kept the security at the front of the stage busy. Despite a few sound issues reported on the sides of the stage, the sheer power of tracks like “Linchpin” and the Demanufacture core turned the main arena into a churning, euphoric frenzy. A testament to the enduring power of their seminal work.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Back in the Serpants Layer, the Pop-Up Puppet Cinema presented Raiders of the Lost Ark. So along with a few drinks, we were sutibly rested to confront the final acts of the night.
Ministry
We were quite away back to see Ministry, but relentless industrial onslaught was easy to hear were ever you were. They delivered a gloriously abrasive set.
Al Jourgensen and company smashed through a politically charged, career-spanning mix of classics including “N.W.O.,” “Just One Fix,” and “Jesus Built My Hotrod.” The performance was described as one of the band’s finest festival shows, pairing ferocious industrial metal with powerful, anti-establishment visuals. It was a flawless execution of banger after banger, leaving the audience whipped into a frenzy of industrial chaos.
Machine Head
Machine Head’s headline slot at Bloodstock 2025 was nothing short of a sensory and sonic triumph. Robb Flynn commanded the Ronnie James Dio Stage, delivering a career-spanning set that blended raw fury with deep emotion. The stage production was relentless, featuring a dizzying array of sharp, kinetic lights that cut through the darkness, complementing the explosive power.
The show climaxed with magnificent blasts of fireworks and towering jets of pyro, turning Davidian into a monumental spectacle. While the crowd surge created a chaotic, bouncy atmosphere across Catton Hall, the feeling of movement was omnipresent—even without physical cubes, the sheer energy of the pit provided the bounce. A deeply personal and visually dominant masterclass in modern heavy metal.
Static-X
The final act of the night at the Sophie Lancaster Stage at Bloodstock Open Air was the industrial metal band, Static-X.
Their performance was a high-energy spectacle, full of their signature ‘evil disco’ sound, celebrating the aggressive, groove-heavy industrial metal they pioneered. The set was a party-like atmosphere, often including material from their seminal album, Wisconsin Death Trip.
A key component of the current Static-X line-up is the mysterious masked vocalist, Xer0, who performs in a striking, robotic mask and costume, honouring the late original frontman, Wayne Static (whose signature spiky hair and chin-length beard are replicated on the mask). This visual, along with the other musicians’ dark, industrial outfits, is central to the band’s current identity.
As for the specific crowd interaction you witnessed: the use of a rubber dinghy for crowd-surfing is a memorable, chaotic, and often-seen element at metal festivals like Bloodstock. While your initial thought was a connection to the social commentary of artist Banksy regarding migrants, in the context of a high-octane metal festival, the dinghy is generally a humorous, spontaneous vehicle for fan participation, intensifying the wild, party atmosphere of a closing set. It’s a common way to celebrate the energy and communal chaos of the metal crowd, often involving a band member or a highly enthusiastic fan—sometimes even a guest vocalist, as reported in reviews for one recent Bloodstock set.
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