Sunday at Bloodstock always carries a different kind of energy to the rest of the weekend: equal parts triumphant and battered, like a boxer who’s still standing purely out of spite. Muddy boots, questionable hygiene and a healthy dose of Sunday-scaries mixed with the giddy realisation that this is the last stretch, and the 25th anniversary edition of the festival isn’t about to let anyone coast to the finish line. From theatrical newcomers to actual metal royalty, today’s lineup is a masterclass in variety, and by the time the sun goes down over Catton Park, there’s one hell of a homecoming waiting at the very end of it.
Words: Kathryn Edwards // Photos: Ryan Hildrew
Graphic Nature
British nu-metalcore outfit Graphic Nature waste no time dragging the day into gear, Harvey Freeman prowling the front of the stage with a rawness that matches the confessional, mental-health-heavy lyrics accompanying everything they play. Pete Woolven and Matas Michailovskis’s riffs land somewhere between early-2000s metalcore and a modern electronic sheen, and there’s a real sense of a band on the way up rather than one happy to tread water. It’s an intense way to shake off the cobwebs of the night before, whether the crowd’s ready for it or not.
Castle Rat
Riley Pinkerton, in full ‘Rat Queen’ regalia, leads her medieval fantasy doom quartet through a set that’s as much theatre as it is music, complete with a rival ‘Rat Reaperess’ stalking the stage and enough Frank Frazetta-inspired imagery to make it feel like a Dungeons & Dragons campaign come to life, minus the twenty-sided dice arguments. Franco Vittore’s guitar work channels early Black Sabbath in the best way, thick and unhurried, while the crowd, half bemused and half utterly charmed, lean fully into the absurdity of it all. Underneath the swords and chainmail, the songwriting holds up on its own merits, and it’s the funniest, most purely joyful way anyone could have asked to start the day.
Kittie
Thirty (!!!) years into their career, Kittie’s return to the UK feels like a victory lap they’ve more than earned. Morgan Lander’s vocals swing effortlessly between melodic clean and full-throated scream, sister Mercedes locks the whole thing down from behind the kit, and Tara McLeod and Ivy Vujic drive the riffs with a weight that belies just how long this band has been doing this. There’s real emotion in the field, not nostalgia for its own sake, but a palpable sense that this reunion has always been about wanting to play together rather than cashing in, and the crowd responds in kind.
Orbit Culture
Sweden’s Orbit Culture bring a set that’s tight, technical and relentless. Niklas Karlsson’s vocals swing between guttural growls and soaring cleans, while Richard Hansson’s lead guitar work adds a melodic sheen to the band’s groove-laden death metal foundation. This is a band who’ve been building steadily for over a decade, and it shows in how effortlessly they command the tent, no wasted motion, no filler, just a wall of precise, punishing riffs from start to finish. Considering how far they’ve travelled to get here, they don’t waste a second of the stage time either.
Testament
Testament arrive with the kind of authority only four decades in the game can buy. Chuck Billy’s voice remains a monstrous instrument, and the twin-guitar interplay between Eric Peterson and Alex Skolnick is as sharp as it’s ever been, technical without ever losing the raw thrash urgency that made this band’s name in the first place. Steve Di Giorgio’s bass work threads through everything with real fluidity, and by the time the band launch into set staple ‘Practice What You Preach’, the whole field is one enormous, chanting mass. Bay Area thrash royalty, and they’ve still got the stamina to prove it, unlike most of the crowd by this point in the weekend.
Black Label Society
Zakk Wylde struts out looking, as ever, like he’s wandered in from the end of the world on a Harley he’s somehow also playing guitar on. Black Label Society deliver exactly the riff-heavy, blues-soaked slab of heaviness everyone came for. Guitarist Dario Lorina trades off with Wylde in a series of increasingly ridiculous guitar duels, at one point the pair playing behind their heads, Hendrix-style, while somehow staying note-perfect throughout. The biggest moment, though, belongs to ‘No More Tears’, the Ozzy Osbourne classic Wylde co-wrote and helped popularise; with Ozzy’s passing still fresh, the crowd sings every word back with real emotion before Wylde snaps the momentum straight back into gear with the enormous riff of ‘Stillborn’.
Body Count
After ten years of asking, Bloodstock finally lands Body Count and it is every bit the event the crowd hoped for. Ice-T struts across the stage like a man half his age, spitting bars with the same fury he’s carried since the early 90’s, while Ernie C’s guitar work proves, once and for all, that this was never a novelty side project. It’s a proper, ferocious metal band that just happens to have a Law & Order star out front. The set barrels through the Slayer-referencing intro into ‘Postmortem’ and ‘Point the Finger’, pulling zero punches along the way, and by the time ‘The Purge’ arrives, the whole field is delirious. It’s one of the most electric sets of the entire weekend, and everyone in the tent knows it.
Dream State
Over on the Sophie Lancaster stage, Welsh outfit Dream State bring a welcome change of pace, with soaring post-hardcore melody and dynamic shifts rather than pure brute force. Vocalist Jessie Powell has real command of the stage, moving from delicate cleans into throat-shredding screams without ever losing control, while Aled Evans’s guitar work threads electronic textures through the heavier moments. It’s a set that rewards a closer listen than most of what’s on offer today, and there’s a devoted pocket of the crowd clearly delighted to catch them.
Mushroomhead
There’s an eerie hush as Mushroomhead’s masked, jumpsuited figures take the stage, drummer Skinny the sole ever-present member of a band who’ve made mystery and reinvention part of their whole identity since 1993 (and who’d very much like it noted that they were doing this before certain other masked bands got famous for it). The masks alone make this one of the most visually striking sets of the weekend, but it’s not just spectacle; the layered vocals, industrial textures and unpredictable structures keep the tent locked in throughout.
200 Stab Wounds
200 Stab Wounds strip death metal back to its rawest, most gleefully grotesque essentials. Steve Buhl’s vocals are a buzzsaw roar over Owen Pooley’s machine-gun drumming, and there’s no pretence of complexity here, just chugging, filthy, old-school riffs delivered with real conviction and song titles that suggest the band spent a worrying amount of time researching surgical trauma. It’s exactly the kind of shot of adrenaline the tent needs deep into a long Sunday, and it does the job perfectly.
Wrex
Tucked away on the New Blood stage, Wrex offer something a little different: a wall of sound built on electro-tinged alt-rock energy rather than straightforward metal aggression. It’s a set that leans into release and catharsis over technicality, and while the crowd here is more modest than on the main stages, there’s a real warmth to the performance, a band clearly delighted just to be playing Bloodstock at all, wristbands and all.
Judas Priest
There’s a sense of occasion in the air long before Judas Priest even take the stage. With Rob Halford having grown up barely twenty miles up the road in Walsall, this is about as close to a homecoming as the Metal Gods could get without playing the Black Country itself, and Halford knows it, striding out in a jacket bearing the Black Country flag to an eruption from the crowd that rivals anything else all weekend. The opening run is nothing short of ruthless: ‘You’ve Got Another Thing Comin”, ‘Metal Gods’ and ‘Breaking the Law’ arrive back to back, and the whole field is bellowing every word within seconds, sunburn and blisters temporarily forgotten.
From there, the ‘Faithkeepers’ set settles into a proper greatest-hits masterclass, ‘The Ripper’, ‘Turbo Lover’ and ‘Victim of Changes’ all landing with the same power they’ve carried for decades. Halford confirms, to a fresh wave of noise, that the band are already working on new material, a remarkable thought fifty-plus years into their career and roughly forty albums past the point most bands would have called it a day. The encore is where it all peaks: ‘Electric Eye’ and ‘Hell Bent for Leather’, complete with Halford’s now-iconic Harley-Davidson ride-on, before ‘Living After Midnight’ closes the night out. It’s a set that encapsulates everything Bloodstock stands for, heavy metal history delivered by the people who wrote the book on it, still performing like they’ve got everything to prove.
And that’s it. Bloodstock’s 25th anniversary is done, and what a way to close it out. From Castle Rat’s gloriously absurd theatrics first thing in the day, through Body Count finally, deservedly getting their moment, to Judas Priest bringing the whole thing home barely twenty miles from where it all started for Rob Halford, this has been a Sunday that found new gears right up until the final note. Muddy, hoarse and thoroughly worn out, the Catton Park crowds start the long walk back to their tents already talking about next year, and quietly negotiating with their necks about whether headbanging was really worth it.
