With this year’s incarnation of Bloodstock Open Air rapidly approaching its time to take a brief look over the best of what this year’s festival has to offer.
The Ronnie James Dio stage offers the usual diverse range of metal acts. Twisted Sister, Mastodon and Slayer represent a solid set of headliners. Behemoth performing landmark album ‘The Satanist’ in full, Gojira promoting latest release ‘Magma’ and rare appearances for Symphony X and Venom in the live arena also promise a strong top echelon of the bill. Bloodstock always push young British bands and this year is no exception. Alongside the Young Blood stage, Heart of a Coward represent forward thinking British metal on the Sunday morning alongside fellow Brits, Cambion and Ghost Bath. The old guard are also well-represented with Vallenfyre, Memoriam and a returning Akercocke also making appearances across the weekend.
As always with Bloodstock though, there’s a huge amount of quality across all three stages. The Young Blood stage, as already mentioned, collects some of the UK’s finest local bands. Having cultivated bands such as Evile and The Defiled in the past it’s certainly the place to be to view the best of Britain’s young bands. The Sophie Stage, too, is of excellent quality as usual. US Tech-Thrashers Vektor are a strong draw, especially, while Goatwhore headlining the stage on the Sunday night after Slayer will be a suitably “Bloodstock” way to end the weekend. With The King Is Blind, Memoriam, Witchsorrow and the Norwegian Shining also playing the stage across the weekend the Sophie stage is a great alternative to the mainstage.
Even if there’s no one stand out band that draws the eye across the four stages Bloodstock, as a festival experience, is still hugely enjoyable. Whether it’s the Blodstock art gallery and museum, medieval combat tournaments or the friendliness of the average Bloodstock punter there’s a great atmosphere cultivated throughout the weekend. For those who want to party into the early hours, they can enjoy DJ sets at the New Blood stage from the likes of Evil Scarecrow (on Friday) and London’s VooDoo Rock club night (Saturday) to name just two. You can even pre-order your merch to guarantee they won’t run out of your t-shirt or other items of choice.
The last standard full weekend tickets for this years’ Bloodstock are available for £139 plus fees. Day tickets are £60 plus fees. The VIP tickets are now (unsurprisingly) completely sold out, so don’t waste any time in snapping up the last remaining tickets. Buy them now from Seetickets -> https://bloodstock.seetickets.com/event/bloodstock-2016/catton-park/902838.
Bloodstock Open Air Festival 2016 takes place at it’s usual home of Catton Park in Derbyshire and runs from the 11th to the 14th of August. Rock Sins will have our usual full coverage of the festival, so all that’s left to say is see you down the front!
