Live Review: Stonedead Festival 2025
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Tim Finch
Another trip across the country and down the A1M (and they still haven’t finished those bridge repairs, after two years) – and passed the ‘Adult’ shop situated next to the petrol station, which never fails to amuse me – and it’s plain sailing down to Newark for this year’s Stonedead Festival. It’s now been five-years since they rebranded from Stonedeaf – just after the threat of the lurgy locked us up.
The event has gone from strength to strength since 2021, with the organisers now having to introduce a waiting list for tickets after the festival sells out within hours; it’s a hold-my-beer moment in the face of a huge global event like Wacken, and props need to go to the top brass for keeping the quality sky-high, year after year.
Having only recently recovered from the windburn and trench foot of the, admittedly, glorious 2024 show, it was good to see the terrible weather had made other plans this year and buggered off elsewhere for the day. Thankfully, it’s not the inferno of 2022 either, instead it’s just right for sitting outside and having a relaxing start to the August Bank Holiday weekend; a sun’s out - guns out kinda day.
Hitting the stage under bright blue skies and the biggest crowd for an opener I can remember, is South Wales’ heavyweights, King Kraken who make an audacious bid to be the band of the festival by delivering a feast for both the eyes and the ears. Following the “Release the Kraken” intro from the Clash of the Titans remake, we’re assaulted by pyros and fireworks, to go along with the band’s fat-low end and general guitar-goddery. There’re some classic NWoBHM riffs proudly displayed, as well as a more sleezy feel to some of the songs.
Older tune, Green Terror, finds some Celtic warriors battling it out on stage – I’m assuming they’re part of the show – Hero comes from this years’ March of the Gods album, and is a more laid-back bluesy groove, dedicated to all the people lost over the past year. An inflatable octopus makes an appearance as the set comes to its close, and singer, Mark Donoghue, makes the call of “We love you, Ozzy”, echoing the sentiments of not only the whole field, but the whole community, still coming to terms with losing one of its icons.
Unscripted, but announced as a Big Surprise is Stonedead’s own tribute to the great man. A Mr Crowley gives way to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, coming with a few early technical gremlins, but nothing too off-putting. Members of King Kraken and Florence Black have enlisted the vocal talents of Lydia from Crowley UK, who also lent her voice to another fallen brother, Paul Di’Anno’s Book of the Beast compilation last year. Also on offer were Children of the Grave, Supernaut and, obviously, Paranoid, which all seemed to pay a fitting homage to the influence of Ozzy.
In his introduction to Black Oak County Krusher suggested the three greatest exports from Denmark included Lars Ulrich… Don’t want to be controversial, but, No! He didn’t even mention bacon, or Lego, so he might want to go back and consider the statement. Anyhoo, the purpose was to bring out the Esjberg quartet, who blend accessibility with hard-hitting Scandinavian tunes. It’s still bright out, but the stage lights are being put through their paces with a series of gimmick-free, no-nonsense rockers.
Save Your Breath drives along with a powerful and punchy riff; we get another version of Paranoid, which does seem to take the dynamism out of the set for a moment, but normal service is restored through the dirty riffs and rock & roll heart of their day-to-day aesthetic. The customary flyover by the neighbouring airfield’s collection of classic planes happens during the set as a Spitfire circles the showground, distracting from the band momentarily. The set ends with another of last year’s third album, III’s numbers, Boom Boom Baby, which concludes the show on the highest level.
Stonedead is has been slowly introducing bands who play classic heavy metal for a couple of years now, and the first of 2025’s metallic contingent is Swedish speedsters, Enforcer, who are part of a wider Scandinavian scene featuring the likes of Grand Magus. It’s very much a change of pace after the more chilled vibes of Black Oak Country, with the Swedes ignoring subtlety in favour of a sheer brute force trauma approach.
With more than twenty-years’ experience under its belt, Enforcer confidently blend ripping speed metal with glorious gallops and a series of dual guitar harmonies that would have fit perfectly in the Eighties. There’re even power metal influences in their bombastic approach, with frontman, Olaf Wikstrand announcing the band is here to “crush some skulls and break some necks”, before launching into a mid-paced UFO-influenced number.
“Want some fast shit?” he asks as the introduction to the rip-roaring whirlwind of Live for the Night, which might just be the fastest song ever played on this stage in this location. Hell Will Follow offers options for that statement; there’s a Maiden-like bassline at the start of Take Me Out of this Nightmare and the blistering set comes to an end with Midnight Vice’s solid tribute to the great heavy metal bands of the past.
When one thinks of Germany and rock bands, one tends to go down the power metal route, with artists like Scorpions, Helloween and, yes, even Primal Fear. One thing Germany is less well known for is its hard rock, which makes Wiesbaden four-piece The New Roses even more of an anomaly. The intro tape is crawling and industrial sounding, giving way to some sharp, driving rhythms and Stonedead stapple hard-rocking beats. There’s a certain LA Strip feel to the band, though theirs’ is a more PG-13 version, than the Eighties out and out X-rated.
Opening with the title-track of last year’s seventh album, Addicted to Danger, it’s clear there are a lot of people here today primarily to see the band. Slow and bass led tunes feel harder edged, singer, Tim Rough wants to know whether Stonedead is up for a Rock & Roll Party; the general consensus is Yes, but with a few abstentions, due to health reasons or having to drive home later tonight.
1st Time for Everything feels like it’s the sort of power ballad that would have been all over the media back in the day; Tim heads into the crowd for a bit of audience interaction as the band roll out some Seventies blues-oriented vibes. He claims to have been given a banana by someone at the front, which he feels is one of the more unusual gifts bestowed upon him.
The band go back to 2016’s Dead Man’s Voice record for another bluesy number, this time Thirsty, and finish with Sweet Poison’s The Usual Suspects, which is so hook-laden that it reels folk in from all corners of the packed field.
Fellow Germans, Primal Fear were almost Bloodstock’s house band during the indoor years, with them having played half of the shows at the Assembly Rooms between 2001 and 2006, and an appearance at the 2008 Outdoor event, before going silent. They did play the ill-fated Metalfest in Dudley in 2009 and a single appearance at the 2012 Hard Rock Hell, which proved to be the band’s final UK festival show. Until today.
But, with a new album, Domination, locked, loaded and ready to release on 5 September (watch this space for that review) it seems as good a time as any for the band to reacquaint themselves with a British audience. At one time in the frame to replace Rob Halford in Judas Priest, frontman Ralf Scheepers instead formed this band with bassist Matt Sinner, both of whom are still flying the flag almost thirty-years and fifteen albums later. Some personal disruption means Thalìa Bellazecca has joined on guitar and drummer André Hilgers now keeps time.
Ready to take on Enforcer as the day’s most Metal band, the Germans waste no time in hitting the bedecked stage and intravenously inject pure metal into the veins of six-thousand people. Kicking off with Final Embrace from the sophomore Jaws of Death album, suggests Primal Fear aren’t here to sell a record, rather to sell themselves and their long commitment to the metal cause.
Old standard, Nuclear Fire – from the album of the same name, drops next, a perfect example of German-crafted power metal, complete with over-blown riffs, frenzied gallops and blistering solos; it’s followed by fellow Nuclear Fire tune, Angel in Black.
The only mention made of Domination comes in the second single from that forth-coming album, The Hunter, which seems to suggest a maturity in the songwriting, possibly due to the fresh-faces in the band, and is greeted by a sea of raised hands. Ralf admits he’s dying for a beer before King of Madness, The End is Near requires the participation of a metal choir and screams, while Fighting the Darkness is a ballad and allows for a showcase of those Halford-pipes.
The youthful abandon of the debut’s Chainbreaker and the anthemic Metal is Forever round out what feels like a short show, but which probably flew by in a flash, as most have done today in all honesty. The emblematic steel eagle that has adorned the album covers since 1998 feels ready to soar once more.
Danish band D-A-D, formerly known as Disneyland After Dark until they got their wrists slapped by the House of Mouse, flaunt the authorities and perform beneath a banner that bears the whole name. But, hey, that’s rock & roll!
The band have been at this music thing for more than forty-years now and the highs and lows of life on the road seem only to have fortified their resolve. It’s clear from the very start of the set that the quartet have their roots firmly planted in the punk scene, as the sleazy vibes of artists like Hanoi Rocks and the New York Dolls can be heard as influences. Those bands are familiar with the gritty-side of the glam rock scene, and their music is less chart-friendly than would first appear.
They might not be the day’s most aggressive sounding collective at Stonedead this year, but for sheer rock & roll attitude, D-A-D take some beating; from the classic rock sounds of Everything Glows, through the thunderous Bad Craziness, to the band-stapple, Sleeping My Day Away from the band’s 1989 break-through third album, No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims. It’s big and infectious and brings the day’s most chaotic set to a big crash ending.
Krusher is keen to point out that any attempt to categorize Sweet as some Seventies pop band is utter folly, and the band’s set is barely a few minutes old, with Action launching the show, that the Showgrounds are almost to body on its feet and dancing. The same thing happened last year, as Ugly Kid Joe took the stage, as somehow Stonedead seem to book a third-on-the-bill band who rev up the festival for the final couple of artists.
Even if you haven’t actively been listening to Sweet for years, it’s a guarantee you know most of the set from sheer cultural osmosis. Hell Raiser takes you back to when Glam was King – or Queen – not sure how this works now – big, squealing guitars on Circus and a headlong dive back to the Seventies with The Six Teens.
Lost Angels hits hard and Set Me Free is based around a proto-heavy metal riff; Teenage Rampage bristles with youthful rebellion and Andy Scott introduces Love is Like Oxygen with the gratitude of finally getting booked for UK festivals, rather than just European ones. I saw the band at Rebellion last year and they were good, but not this good, with the closing trio of Fox on the Run – which I mostly know from the Girlschool cover, back in 1988, Blockbuster – which I mostly know from The Macc Lads’ reimagining as Fat Bastard, and Ballroom Blitz, which I largely know as I still have the twelve-inch single of Tia Carrera’s – schwing – Wayne’s World soundtrack cover.
The whole field was up and bopping to these classics and Sweet were a superb addition to the bill; in fact, If I didn’t love The Almighty so much, I might suggest they were the band of the day!
What a way to finish off their current UK tour, The Dead Daisies hit the Stonedead stage as through trying to exorcise the memory of Sweet’s show. The dictionary definition of Supergroup, a band featuring ex-members of Black Sabbath and Whitesnake and, let’s not beat around the bush with this one, the best vocalist Mötley Crüe ever had, are custom-made to deliver a spectacular rock performance.
It's a bold move to use Led Zeppelin’s Rock & Roll as your intro tape, but there’re enough miles in the feet of this four-piece to know what the score is. Light ‘Em Up shows the band have arena-sized anthems, as do Rise Up, Last Time I Saw the Sun and Dead and Gone. There’s a snippet of Helter Skelter but the overall vibe is one of incomparable hooks and a consummate performance of slithering, sleezy rock & roll. Heck, even the sun played its part and set to allow the band’s lightshow to take full effect.
The Almighty have been a part of my musical development since first hearing them on a Kerrang sampler back in 1989, getting hold of Blood, Fire and Love and catching the band in the bar of the Preston Guildhall in early 1990. I’m not just talking metaphorically either, as the first tattoo I got was the winged-skull design on my right shoulder, so many, many moons ago.
These last few years have been manna for an Almighty fan, with the reappearance of the band for mini tours around St Andrew’s Day and I’ve caught their shows at Manchester and Wolverhampton before this Stonedead headliner.
The last time I saw them outdoors was at Milton Keynes Bowl with Metallica and Megadeth, waaaayy back in 1993, on ‘tallica’s Nowhere Else to Roam tour, but the power and precision of Messrs Warwick, Monroe, London and Tantrum has not diminished with the passing years.
The stage is set by having a wall of Marshall amps wheeled into place, offering a fair suggestion that a full-blooded rock show was about to ensue, and of all the Stonedead headliners I’ve seen this is the one I’ve looked forward to the most. Might be well into double-figures now, but you can’t see too many shows, in the same way – as I told Mrs B – you can’t have too many Almighty T-shirts.
It’s a fan-requested show and they open with the one-two-three of the debut’s Power, Destroyed and Full-Force Lovin‘ Machine. All of which remind you of the punch of that album and why it still holds up to this day.
Ricky was here with the Black Star Riders a couple of years back, yet the raw energy of The Al-Fuckin’-Mighty makes that show a distant memory. Whose Side Are You On? and Welcome to Defiance takes us into Addiction’s grinding riff – first debuted at Donington back in 1992, of which there are a surprising number of shirts here today.
The shirt comes off for Praying to the Red Light, Mr Warwick admits to being 103 years old after he suggest a youngster wasn’t even born when Soul Destruction was release; Little Lost Sometimes is dedicated to the fallen, both personally and in a wider community context, and the latter Jonestown Mind reminds us The Almighty always had a foot in the punk camp.
Over the Edge, Takin’ Hold, The Unreal Thing all come and go; an anecdote as to his parent’s reaction when trying to come up with lyrics for Devil’s Toy is an amusing peek into the creative process, Jesus Loves You… But I Don’t takes aim squarely at organised religion and the closing section of Wild and Wonderful and Free and Easy bring the curtain down on the performance.
Stonedead 2025 is another raging success, with a capacity crowd in good spirits, all enjoying nine and the highest quality bands, and an impromptu tribute to Mr Osbourne.
Kudos must go to the organisers for repeatedly staging a show that manages to outdo the previous year and making it staunchly family friendly. I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon beside a couple and their young daughter – I’m fully CRB’d, by the way – and seeing how everyone enjoyed the day, including building a large Ice Cream van playset. A younger, gatekeeper, me might have silently passed comment, but festivals are about having fun as much as the music, and this family appeared to be managing both.
It’s a long drive back, especially when you observe the speed limits, but it will give me a chance to come up with an answer when She Who Must Be Obeyed asks me if that’s a new Almighty shirt. I’ll blag her that it’s an old one, in the hope she doesn’t notice yesterday’s date on the back.
Photo credits: Tim Finch Photography
