Ye Olde Bloodstocke Update
Finally! The Big Bloodstock 08 update is here, although for some reason facebook is failing to upload my photos...
The return from Bloodstock, including pit stops for Tesco breakfast, running water and showers of epic proportions is one of the most contradictory experiences. It is filled with delights - such as cleanliness, comfy beds, and dry buildings - which for the past five days have been comforts known only in the vaguest of daydreams, and yet tainted with the regret of returning to the mundane; leaving behind friends, good music and the opportunity to start drinking as soon as you wake up without being thought of as an alcoholic.
This Bloodstock was particularly enjoyable, and also a different experience to every other year of Bloodstock. The major difference was the line-up, for the first time - whilst I did like some of the bands performing - I wasn’t an obsessive fan girl and thus was not constantly having to ruin my weekend rushing back from the signing tent to the stage to our tent, or anything of the like. Because of this I may not have seen quite as many bands as I usually would but at the same time had a far more sociable weekend, although was a little upset to have missed Soilwork, Moonsorrow, At The Gates and the signing for Opeth but at the time since other things (namely drinking and smoking shisha) were of elevated importance, so be it.
Of the more unfortunate parts to the weekend, the rain was definitely up there. It wasn’t really all that bad, mostly there were occasional showers although on the Friday there was simply a lot of sun. But for it to rain on our arrival, as Lucy and I were attempting to pitch our tents it seemed to spoil the first night, especially for Lucy whose tent became something of a lake. Fortunately Jess Bower had once again brought her giant mammoth tent (although I realise since I never updated LJ for BOA 07 it has not been mentioned before) in which we were able to seek refuge.
On the Friday the only bands I properly watched were Tyr, Helloween and Opeth. Tyr’s performance was fairly early in the day although they managed to pull a sizable crowd, and it was good to hear them play a longer set than the 4 song set they had been allowed on the Paganfest tour.
In the time then between Tyr and Helloween I had managed to get rather ridiculously drunk (or so I have been informed) and thus when I stumbled across to the Opeth signing queue decided I couldn’t be bothered to queue and made my way into the Helloween crowd where I found Phil, Tom and Zoe. Half way through the set I vanished to go to the loo, and somehow on my return ended up encountering the mosh pit and being pushed to the front of the crowd. Opeth were on next, and I really enjoyed their show. Undeniably this was partially because I had been sharing a couple of spliffs with the people next to me, and so whereas most people found them rather boring their whole show was just really chilled and pretty. Besides I’ve been wanting to see them for years.
The Saturday then, was the day of most bands, although upsettingly I did miss Moonsorrow’s performance because the queue for the shower took an unexpectedly long time and I missed Soilwork because I was avoiding the rain by drinking in mammoth tent. We wandered into the main arena fairly early, and saw Evile Scarecrow an unsigned band who had won their slot on mainstage and who were definitely one of the most entertaining bands of the weekend, and we were astounded by their songs Robotron, Vampyre Trousers and the like.
Eluvietie were the next band to perform, having seen them at Paganfest I knew it was going to be a good show and it was probably one of my favourite performances of the weekend. Watched a bit of Swallow the Sun but got rather bored and retreated to the tent for alcohol, emerging sometime later having had the most glorious shower, to watch Iced Earth who were good fun, and Dimmu Borgir who, despite me not being the biggest fan of their music, once again put on a really great show this time with plenty of fireworks.
The line-up for the final day was probably the worst; in fact it was obvious by lots of empty camping sites that a lot of people had left on the day rather than endure it. Went along to see Alestorm who were entertaining, but not as good as I had been hoping. By which I mean, I know they are a fairly shit band and I kind of supposed they would make up for this with a really charismatic show, but aside from them appearing to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air opening credits it was rather mundane.
Since then there was no one performing for about 6 hours, went back to the tent to drink and hide from the rain, before I finally persuaded everyone to go and smoke a shisha which made me happy because I love shisha, Katie S and I then stayed behind to try and finish it off before joining the others to see Liquid Sky, because despite having known of the band and camped with them for the last couple of years at BOA, I’ve never actually seen them live (or heard their music beyond a reaaaally old demo) so was pleasantly impressed by them.
Finally there was Nightwish, and I was by this point entirely hyped up on jagermister, and since I’m really not much of an Annette fan (seriously what on earth was she wearing?!) I spent most the time oogling between Marco and his pretty pretty voice and hair, and pretty Tuomas and his prettiness. They weren’t bad as such, I just can’t get beyond Annete trying to sing Tarja’s old material, its just like a noticeable rip and scarring in the fabric of the music, especially The Siren which pains my soul. I’m more comfortable with her versions of Wish I had an Angel and Nemo since they are more pop-esque and sugar coated which Annete’s voice suits better. However, I think I said pretty much the same thing after I saw them live in March and so I shall stop. Their ending was unfortunate, for the headlining band of a festival weekend to get 20 minutes knocked off their set is bad planning and not great publicity, I really was expecting them to get back up on stage.
All in all I had a really good time, with only limited annoyances, so thanks to everyone who helped make it so.
The return from Bloodstock, including pit stops for Tesco breakfast, running water and showers of epic proportions is one of the most contradictory experiences. It is filled with delights - such as cleanliness, comfy beds, and dry buildings - which for the past five days have been comforts known only in the vaguest of daydreams, and yet tainted with the regret of returning to the mundane; leaving behind friends, good music and the opportunity to start drinking as soon as you wake up without being thought of as an alcoholic.
This Bloodstock was particularly enjoyable, and also a different experience to every other year of Bloodstock. The major difference was the line-up, for the first time - whilst I did like some of the bands performing - I wasn’t an obsessive fan girl and thus was not constantly having to ruin my weekend rushing back from the signing tent to the stage to our tent, or anything of the like. Because of this I may not have seen quite as many bands as I usually would but at the same time had a far more sociable weekend, although was a little upset to have missed Soilwork, Moonsorrow, At The Gates and the signing for Opeth but at the time since other things (namely drinking and smoking shisha) were of elevated importance, so be it.
Of the more unfortunate parts to the weekend, the rain was definitely up there. It wasn’t really all that bad, mostly there were occasional showers although on the Friday there was simply a lot of sun. But for it to rain on our arrival, as Lucy and I were attempting to pitch our tents it seemed to spoil the first night, especially for Lucy whose tent became something of a lake. Fortunately Jess Bower had once again brought her giant mammoth tent (although I realise since I never updated LJ for BOA 07 it has not been mentioned before) in which we were able to seek refuge.
On the Friday the only bands I properly watched were Tyr, Helloween and Opeth. Tyr’s performance was fairly early in the day although they managed to pull a sizable crowd, and it was good to hear them play a longer set than the 4 song set they had been allowed on the Paganfest tour.
In the time then between Tyr and Helloween I had managed to get rather ridiculously drunk (or so I have been informed) and thus when I stumbled across to the Opeth signing queue decided I couldn’t be bothered to queue and made my way into the Helloween crowd where I found Phil, Tom and Zoe. Half way through the set I vanished to go to the loo, and somehow on my return ended up encountering the mosh pit and being pushed to the front of the crowd. Opeth were on next, and I really enjoyed their show. Undeniably this was partially because I had been sharing a couple of spliffs with the people next to me, and so whereas most people found them rather boring their whole show was just really chilled and pretty. Besides I’ve been wanting to see them for years.
The Saturday then, was the day of most bands, although upsettingly I did miss Moonsorrow’s performance because the queue for the shower took an unexpectedly long time and I missed Soilwork because I was avoiding the rain by drinking in mammoth tent. We wandered into the main arena fairly early, and saw Evile Scarecrow an unsigned band who had won their slot on mainstage and who were definitely one of the most entertaining bands of the weekend, and we were astounded by their songs Robotron, Vampyre Trousers and the like.
Eluvietie were the next band to perform, having seen them at Paganfest I knew it was going to be a good show and it was probably one of my favourite performances of the weekend. Watched a bit of Swallow the Sun but got rather bored and retreated to the tent for alcohol, emerging sometime later having had the most glorious shower, to watch Iced Earth who were good fun, and Dimmu Borgir who, despite me not being the biggest fan of their music, once again put on a really great show this time with plenty of fireworks.
The line-up for the final day was probably the worst; in fact it was obvious by lots of empty camping sites that a lot of people had left on the day rather than endure it. Went along to see Alestorm who were entertaining, but not as good as I had been hoping. By which I mean, I know they are a fairly shit band and I kind of supposed they would make up for this with a really charismatic show, but aside from them appearing to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air opening credits it was rather mundane.
Since then there was no one performing for about 6 hours, went back to the tent to drink and hide from the rain, before I finally persuaded everyone to go and smoke a shisha which made me happy because I love shisha, Katie S and I then stayed behind to try and finish it off before joining the others to see Liquid Sky, because despite having known of the band and camped with them for the last couple of years at BOA, I’ve never actually seen them live (or heard their music beyond a reaaaally old demo) so was pleasantly impressed by them.
Finally there was Nightwish, and I was by this point entirely hyped up on jagermister, and since I’m really not much of an Annette fan (seriously what on earth was she wearing?!) I spent most the time oogling between Marco and his pretty pretty voice and hair, and pretty Tuomas and his prettiness. They weren’t bad as such, I just can’t get beyond Annete trying to sing Tarja’s old material, its just like a noticeable rip and scarring in the fabric of the music, especially The Siren which pains my soul. I’m more comfortable with her versions of Wish I had an Angel and Nemo since they are more pop-esque and sugar coated which Annete’s voice suits better. However, I think I said pretty much the same thing after I saw them live in March and so I shall stop. Their ending was unfortunate, for the headlining band of a festival weekend to get 20 minutes knocked off their set is bad planning and not great publicity, I really was expecting them to get back up on stage.
All in all I had a really good time, with only limited annoyances, so thanks to everyone who helped make it so.