There are few places quite like Catton Park when Bloodstock rolls into town. For four days every August, this otherwise peaceful corner of Derbyshire is transformed into a headbanging utopia, a gathering point for the faithful where riffs replace the normal soundtrack of the countryside and thousands of Metalheads descend upon the fields to celebrate everything from the darkest depths of extreme Metal to the great anthems that have defined generations.
This year there was an added sense of occasion. Bloodstock 2026 marked the festival’s 25th anniversary and, for the first time, the Ronnie James Dio Stage was opened on a Thursday, effectively giving the festival an extra full day of Metal mayhem. The decision felt entirely appropriate for such a landmark year, particularly with the legendary Saxon chosen to close the inaugural Thursday proceedings. Saxon have a particularly fitting relationship with Bloodstock, having headlined the original indoor festival back in 2001, making their return for the 25th anniversary feel like a suitably circular piece of heavy metal history.
With the Sophie Lancaster Stage also offering a formidable collection of heavier fare, the opening day promised to be anything but a gentle introduction. My Thursday was therefore spent bouncing between the two stages, taking in everything from prehistoric Power Metal and theatrical lunacy to hard-hitting Rock, classic British Heavy Metal and the beautifully violent technical Death Metal of Cryptopsy. With the gates open and the Bloodstock machine finally firing on all cylinders, it was time to get this 25th anniversary party properly started.
What better way to begin Bloodstock than with dinosaurs? Yes, dinosaurs.
Heavysaurus arrived on the Ronnie James Dio Stage in a blaze of colour, costumes and unapologetically joyful Heavy Metal, and from the moment they appeared it was obvious that subtlety was not going to be on the agenda. This was Metal as a celebration rather than a brooding art form, a glorious collision of enormous riffs, cartoonish characters and enough theatricality to make the early afternoon feel like the world’s loudest children’s party.
Yet underneath all of the costumes and spectacle was a band that understood exactly how to construct a live show. The riffs were big, the choruses were immediate and the whole performance was designed to pull the audience into the experience. There was something wonderfully infectious about watching a field full of Metalheads, many of them accompanied by children, embracing the silliness while simultaneously being hit with proper Heavy Metal.
The musicianship was solid, but it was the entertainment factor that made Heavysaurus such an effective festival opener. Every gesture was oversized, every moment felt designed for the audience and the whole performance possessed an infectious sense of fun.
Bloodstock has always been a festival where generations can stand shoulder to shoulder, and Heavysaurus perhaps demonstrated that better than anybody could have done. They brought the smiles, the spectacle and the riffs, and suddenly the 25th anniversary celebrations were properly underway.
From prehistoric Metal to something considerably more ferocious.
The Hell brought a very different kind of energy to the Sophie Lancaster Stage, delivering the sort of abrasive, confrontational performance that makes the tent feel considerably smaller than it actually is.
There was very little polish to the attack and that was precisely the point. The Hell are built around chaos, aggression and an attitude that felt deliberately designed to kick against the conventions of the more traditional Metal festival experience. The vocals came across with venom, while the guitars and rhythm section provided the necessary sonic wrecking ball underneath them.
The Sophie tent seemed to absorb the violence and throw it straight back at the stage, with the audience responding to every barrage with increasing enthusiasm. This wasn’t about standing politely and appreciating technical musicianship from a distance; this was about getting involved.
The Hell have always possessed that ability to make their live shows feel like an event rather than simply another band playing another set, and here they once again demonstrated why they remain such a compelling presence on a Bloodstock bill. Short, sharp and gloriously hostile, this was a welcome reminder that Thursday wasn’t going to be all about nostalgia and spectacle.
If The Hell had brought the violence, Evil Scarecrow brought the madness.
There are bands who take themselves seriously, bands who don’t take themselves seriously and then there is Evil Scarecrow, who appear to have taken the entire concept of Heavy Metal, put it through a blender and decided that the resulting chaos should be accompanied by inflatable objects, theatrical nonsense and an audience encouraged to embrace the ridiculous.
The Bloodstock crowd was more than willing. From the opening moments the field began to move, and Evil Scarecrow’s combination of crushing riffs, humour and visual absurdity proved irresistible. There was an impressive amount of craft beneath the silliness, though. The band knew exactly when to deploy a gag, when to unleash the riff and when to give the crowd something to sing back.
The performance possessed that wonderfully British ability to be completely ridiculous while still being musically convincing, and then there were the inflatables.
Balls, spiders and assorted pieces of theatrical madness joined the party, while the band continued to hammer away beneath it all. Pyrotechnics added another layer to the spectacle and the crowd responded with the sort of enthusiasm that has made Evil Scarecrow such enduring Bloodstock favourites. It was mad, it was loud and it was exactly what a Bloodstock afternoon should be.
Back into the Sophie tent and things became considerably more Rock ‘n’ Roll. Black Spiders brought a swaggering, riff-heavy presence to the stage, delivering their Hard Rock with the sort of confidence that immediately makes a band feel at home in a festival environment. The guitars were thick and muscular without becoming needlessly cumbersome, while the rhythm section gave everything a strong sense of momentum. There was groove here as well as weight, and that made the set particularly effective after the theatrical chaos that had preceded it.
Black Spiders are one of those bands who understand that sometimes the best way to win a festival audience is simply to play good songs loudly and with conviction. There was no shortage of attitude, but it never overwhelmed the music. The Sophie tent responded accordingly.
By this stage the opening-day atmosphere had really begun to settle in. People were moving between the stages, the bars were filling, the field was becoming increasingly populated and the sound of metal was permanently hanging over Catton Park. Black Spiders fitted perfectly into that environment, delivering a set that was earthy, swaggering and full of the kind of riffs that make you instinctively move your head even when you’re trying not to.
And then it was time for the history lesson. Except this was no dusty museum piece.
Saxon took to the Ronnie James Dio Stage with five decades of British Heavy Metal behind them and proceeded to demonstrate that longevity means very little unless you can still deliver the goods in front of a festival crowd. They could.
Biff Byford remains an imposing frontman, possessing that rare ability to make a field full of people feel like one enormous room. The band around him were equally formidable, providing the muscular framework required for songs that have been part of the British Metal vocabulary for decades, and what songs they are.
The atmosphere became increasingly celebratory as the set progressed, with the audience singing along to the anthems and a steady stream of crowd surfers making their way towards the front. This was a celebration of the songs that have soundtracked generations of Metal fans, delivered with the confidence of a band that knows exactly what it has achieved.
The set drew heavily upon the classics, with staples such as ‘Strong Arm Of The Law’, ‘Wheels Of Steel’, ‘747 (Strangers in the Night)’, ‘Dallas 1 PM’ and ‘Princess Of The Night’ providing exactly the sort of communal heavy metal moments that Bloodstock was built for. But this was more than simply a greatest-hits exercise.
Saxon were celebrating their own history while simultaneously celebrating Bloodstock’s. Their connection to the festival stretches right back to its first incarnation, so seeing them standing on the main stage on the opening Thursday of the 25th anniversary edition felt entirely appropriate. There was pride in the performance, but there was also joy. The crowd sang, punched the air and celebrated every riff with the sort of affection reserved for bands who have become part of the soundtrack to people’s lives.
Saxon didn’t simply headline Thursday. They embodied it. If Saxon represented the past and present of British Heavy Metal, Cryptopsy represented the point where technical ability and sheer extremity collide. And after the enormous celebration outside, walking into the Sophie Lancaster tent for Cryptopsy felt like stepping through a portal into another dimension.
The Canadians have been pushing the boundaries of technical Death Metal since emerging from Montreal in the early 1990s, and their Bloodstock appearance carried additional significance: this was a special celebration of ‘None So Vile’, the landmark 1996 album that helped establish their reputation as one of extreme Metal’s most technically formidable acts. Bloodstock billed the performance as a 30th anniversary ‘None So Vile’ set.
What followed was an absolute maelstrom. The guitars were impossibly intricate, the drums sounded like they were attempting to dismantle the laws of physics and the vocals emerged from somewhere considerably darker than Catton Park. Yet the defining feature was not simply speed or brutality; it was control. Every blastbeat, every guitar run and every monstrous vocal was delivered with a precision that made the whole thing feel almost surgical.
Almost. Because there was nothing clinical about the atmosphere inside the tent. The crowd were utterly absorbed, with the pit providing a constant whirlpool of movement beneath the stage. Cryptopsy’s ability to switch from machine-gun violence to passages of intricate musicianship and then plunge straight back into the abyss made for a suitably devastating conclusion to my Thursday.
There was something wonderfully appropriate about ending the opening day this way. Outside, Saxon had reminded us where heavy metal came from. Inside the Sophie tent, Cryptopsy showed us just how far it could go. With the final notes disappearing into the night, the first day of Bloodstock’s 25th anniversary was complete. The festival had managed to encompass dinosaurs, comedy, Hard Rock, British Metal royalty and some of the most technically punishing Death Metal imaginable, all within the space of a single day.
And that, ultimately, is Bloodstock. It’s a place where the ridiculous can stand beside the revered, where a dinosaur can share a bill with Saxon and nobody bats an eyelid, and where a band like Cryptopsy can close out the night by turning a tent into an industrial-scale assault on the senses.
Thursday had set the bar, and judging by what was still waiting across Catton Park, the weekend was only just getting started.
