Bloodstock 2025: Saturday Review – Ronnie James Dio Stage
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Tim Finch
Saturday begins serenely enough, with London-based metallic hardcore hooligans Cage Fight here to blast away the last lingering affects of yesterday’s hangover and throw you bodily into today. Twenty-years ago the term ‘Female-Fronted’ was a general term for a more nuanced type of musical delivery – and I’m generalising here, you understand – but with the rise of bands like Venom Prison, Employed to Serve and Svalbard, the ladies are showing us their more aggressive sides too. Rachel provides a mixture of grunts and primal screams as the band begin with new song, Oxygen, from the forthcoming release.
There’s not been much of a change since the self-titled, rather an evolution in their songwriting. Other new songs, Guillotine, Souvenir and I Hate Your Guts arrive in the first half of the set, heavy and brutal musical muggings that beat the listener something savage. The second half of the set is given over to tracks from the debut: One Minute, Respect Ends and Eat Me Alive bring their own killer rhythms and hefty breakdowns, leaving Hope Castrated to close off the set. At one point there’s even a conga circle pit, which offers a little levity to the proceedings.
Germany’s The Spirit bring their blackened death cosmic misanthropy to Catton Park; dense and cerebral the band play long and involved tunes that spit bile and bemuse through rapid triplets and dark atmospherics. Theirs is a complex take on themes, using black metal as a stating template and benefitting from more than a casual listen.
Not long off Decapitated’s tour, LA thrashers Warbringer seem to be finally getting some of the recognition they deserve. Part of the late noughties thrash revival, the band have been releasing quality product since 2008, with this year’s Wrath and Ruin maintaining the upward trajectory.
Another band using the festival setting to give an overview of their catalogue, we get Living Weapon from the Worlds Torn Asunder record, up to newbie The Sword and the Cross, in which the band lean into a more traditional Heavy Metal feel. Crushed Beneath the Tracks and Woe to the Vanquished are pure thrash classics, and Living in a Whirlwind comes with a call for an early circle pit. One thing Bloodstock 2025 doesn’t need is an invitation to form circle pit and the crowd duly oblige; surfers coalesce in the Exodus-coloured Remain Violent even finds the mother/ son combination of Wonder Woman and a very young Spider-Man safely breaching the barrier. In the end, Warbringer her nearly 300 folks go over; not too shabby considering it had yet to reached half-past twelve.
There’s an unapologetically modern sound to Swindon’s Heriot who’ve been smashing venue and festival stages the length and breadth of the country for some years now. Debbie might be short of stature, but her stage presence is huge, her voice caustic and her delivery unignorable. The band’s move to Century Media and release of debut album, Devoured by the Mouth of Hell dominates the show, and even the early technical issue can’t derail what is one of the day’s most intense performances.
Demure is offered for Ozzy, Foul Void has an anachronistic sound, and Soul Chasm abandons the speed to be soul crushingly heavy. Enter the Flesh and New Vision come from the EP, Profound Morality, and atmospherics and a gothic vibe accompany set closer At the Fortress Gate. As a bonus for the band, the wind blowing across the front of the stage was creating a pressure inequality in some of Machine Head’s confetti cannons and was sucking out the payload, swirling over the heads of Heriot’s crowd; a happy accident, until some meanie came and covered it over with a plastic bag. Boo
I remember seeing Creeper in what would have been one of their very early shows, opening for Gallows at Sound Control in Manchester. That was back in 2015, and the intervening decade has seen the band grow into a force to be reckoned with in the field of gothic/ alt metal.
It feels a touch too warm for the dress-in-black aesthetic, more in keeping with The Damned, and the pyros cannot help but add to the temperature. It’s a live debut for Blood Magick (It’s a Ritual), from the to-be-released-on-Halloween album Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death, and the advance promo single, Headstones receives a great reception as the set winds down.
The dual vocals of Will Gould and multi-instrumentalist, Hannah Greenwood, combine to give a balanced performance, Sean Scott’s bass work adds the requisite amount of swing, and The Ballad of Spook & Mercy has a country opening and a torch song-like melancholy. The debut’s Down Below comes with a punk-vibe, adding Ramones into the sounds-like mix, and Cry to Heaven brings the curtain down on the show with a big hook and a singalong from the crowd.
Now, I’m not doubting Kublai Khan TX frontman, Matt Honeycutt’s knowledge of scripture, all I’m saying is my copy of the King James only features the previous ten commandments; the eleventh, “Thou shall not let that motherfucker close up”, is under strict adherence throughout the set these Texan metalcore/ beatdown zealots look to steal Bloodstock from beneath unsuspecting noses. Damn if they don’t almost pull it off, too.
For this is a thirteen-song smash and grab raid, the bulk of which comes from last year’s Exhibition of Power record and looks to kill from the get-go. Supreme Ruler is straight out of the blocks with a huge dirty riff and even bigger breakdown, Theory of Mind comes with filthy chugs and barked vocals, and Low Tech features a two-steppin’ rhythm.
It’s the band’s first UK festival and they’re making the most of it; the engaged crowd know every word and the melee of bodies scrambling to get over the barrier make it look like the siege of Helm’s Deep, the orange-shirted sentinels dragging bodies out of the crowd, rehydrating them and sending back into the throng. Can’t tell who has the biggest smiles on their faces: the band, the surfers or the security who genuinely seem to be enjoying it as much as everyone else.
There are one or two casualties, but nothing too serious and nothing the green uniforms of Events Medical Services can’t handle. Cannibal, Darwinism and Self-Destruct are all tunes to smash-shit-up to, ending with The Hammer and parts one and two of Antpile.
Far too soon and Kublai Khan TX have finished, leaving the walking wounded to come down from the adrenaline high and have a breather.
The last time LA Industrial Metal titans, Fear Factory played Bloodstock was in 2016 when the band were in the midst of touring a celebration of the band’s landmark album Demanufacture’s twentieth anniversary. Now, in 2025, we’re at the record’s thirtieth anniversary and get a complete run through once more, this time with Milo Silvestro voicing the dystopian tale of Man vs Machine.
Opening with the theme from The Terminator, Demanufacture, Zero Signal and Replica, all absolute nineties classic metal, sound thin. Maybe it’s the sound system not handling the heavy intricacies, or it’s the wind blowing the sound around, but it takes until New Breed and Dog Day Sunrise for things to settle.
The second half is an improvement, with Body Hammer and Pisschrist being particularly impressive. After A Therapy for Pain there’s time for one more and on-secondment with Static-X and all-round impressively bearded Tony Campos lends his backing vocals to Linchpin. I got to see the show again on the following Tuesday as the band opened for Kerry King in Manchester and, indoors, the sound was spot-on. Maybe just one of those days…
I’ll tell you who I like: Ministry and, as luck would have it, crazy Al and his industrial behemoth are on next, coming to a Bloodstock stage for the first time. I’m ignoring the screens and focusing instead on the figures on stage and am being treated to a baker’s dozen of some of the band’s best, both old and new.
Early tracks Thieves and The Missing start things off with Ministry doing what they do best, it’s big and it’s intense and it comes with the signature band’s back swirls and beats. Deity is old, but still solid and the anti-Bush Rio Grande Blood proves we all need more Ministry in our lives. LiesLiesLies ends and the first of the newer material is aired: Hopiumforthemasses’ Goddamn White Trash, in which Al leads the crowd in vitriolic singalong. From Moral Hygiene comes Alert Level, with its inescapable bass lines.
Burning Inside and Stigmata take us back to the Eighties and The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste and The Land of Rape and Honey respectively, showing that for all his personal demons, Al Jourgensen is nothing if not consistent in his ability to craft high quality industrial metal anthems.
Conspicuous by their absence to this point have been anything from the band’s Nineties mainstream breakthrough record, Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, and that over-sight is addressed in the triptych of N.W.O., Just One Fix and the song that was everywhere in 1992/93: Jesus Built My Hot-Rod, which the band omitted from their set for many years. Finishing the set with So What – from The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste, rather than a cover of Anti-Nowhere League – brings a second day’s Special Guest to a close and lays down a significant marker to the headliner.
Making a third appearance at Bloodstock, and second as bill-toppers, Machine Head were the secret special guest in the tent back in 2022 -gasp, shock, whomever would have predicted that one!?! – and hugely popular booking for the festival. Their amalgam of thrash, nu, groove and alternative metal sounds have powered the band through thirty-plus years and eleven studio albums, with 2025’s Unatoned being the latest.
This is another set where the band delves deep into its own back-catalogue, visiting ten of the eleven, overlooking only 2018’s Catharsis when crafting the set. Old favourites Imperium and Ten Ton Hammer get things going, Rob Flynn states Outsider is about toxic relationships, and he pays tribute to Michelle Kerr, a stalwart business partner and Bloodstock fixture, who sadly passed away recently. He plays Darkness Within in her honour and those confetti cannon finally get chance to blow.
It's a set filled with pyros and other on-stage accoutrement, yet it still has the humanity of a man, his craft and his fans. Rob singles out a punter dressed as Banana-Man and throws him a beer, throwing him second when he misses the first.
Earlier songs From this Day, Davidian and Halo end the set as fireworks launch into the Catton Park night. The faithful seem thoroughly satisfied and that’s all a headliner needs to do.
Photo credits: Tim Finch Photography
