Rate the bands

[Tet]

Slev left me in the dust this year. Only 65 bands for me. Nothing outstanding (although Sabaton were getting there), but some solid performances. So, colour coded for clarity:

Thursday
6 - Reign Of Fury
7 - Metaprism (good, but slightly disappointing after a great show at Wacken)
6 - Red Rum
5 - Arnocorps

Friday
2 - Mortishead
4 - Silas
6 - LOFT
3 - Kryocell
1 - Raging Speedhorn
4 - XVII
7 - Armored Saint
8 - Messiah's Kiss (good to see them back in the UK after so long)
6 - Ne Obliviscaris
8 - The Mighty Wraith (a nice discovery for me)
6 - Fire Red Empress
6 - Ihsahn
6 - We Are The Catalyst
7 - Diatessaron (reminded me a bit of Nowhere Near The Garden, who played at Bloodstock back in the day)
5 - Overkill
6 - Gator Bait
6 - I Am I
8 - Sabaton (great show, band of the festival)
6 - Trivium
8 - Delain

Saturday
5 - Amethyst
6 - Savage Messiah
5 - Pist
5 - Xerath
2 - Mastiff
6 - Ethereal
7 - Martyr De Mona
6 - Korpiklaani
7 - Godsized
5 - Battalion
5 - Dark Angel
5 - Overoth
7 - Knock Out Kaine
3 - From Eden To Exile
5 - Death DTA
3 - Burgerkill
7 - Morass Of Molasses
5 - Opeth
4 - Planet Of Zeus
8 - Hanowar (utterly crap, yet brilliant at the same time!)
7 - Jett Black
7 - Within Temptation
4 - Fleshgod Apocalypse (crippled by a terrible mix)

Sunday
7 - Skarthia
8 - Triaxis (superb band)
5 - Agalloch
7 - Hell's Gazelles
8 - Wolf (vastly better than their last London show - a welcome return to form)
4 - Villainy (very sparse crowd - I felt sorry for them)
5 - Spirytus
7 - Old Rake (what can I say? I like guitar heroics)
3 - Taken By The Tide
4 - Endeavour
7 - Ensiferum (the poor mix didn't help, but they've been better in the past)
1 - Cannibal Corpse
7 - Lawnmower Deth (great fun, and they played most of the tracks I wanted)
7 - Black Label Society
4 - Onslaught (probably the worst I've seen them)
7 - Rob Zombie
6 - Ozzbourne Again

[Gandalf the Red]

Oh alright then. Not rating bands that I didn't see more than about 10 minutes of. And no band gets 10 unless it's something really special.

Thursday

Reign Of Fury - 7
Metaprism - 6
Desecration - 8
Red Rum - 6
Arnocorps - 2 . Gave them a try, but walked off after 15 minutes.


Friday

Nuclear Assault - 9
KryoCell - 6
Armored Saint - 8
Messiah's Kiss - 9
Belephegor - 8
Enslaved - 8
Ihsahn - 7 . Nice bit of chill out music for a sunny afternoon.
Overkill - 9
Sabaton - 9
Conan - 2 . Still don't know why they get so much praise.
Trivium - 3 . Sat off and watched from afar. Inoffensive background music. Nothing to entice me closer.
Delain - 9

Saturday

Savage Messiah - 7
Anihilated - 8
1349 - 8
Korpiklaani - 6 . Play better songs!
Napalm Death - 7
Dark Angel - 9
Death - 8
Opeth - 6 (8 when playing the older stuff)
Hanowar - 9 . Most fun of the weekend. Even if they did fuck up a few times.
Jettblack - 7
Within Temptation - 6 . Not in the mood for them. Walked off when the rapping started.
Fleshgod Apocalypse - 9


Sunday

Triaxis - 8
Wolf - 9
Orange Goblin - 6
Villainy - 8
Alunah - 7
Old Rake - 7. Wasn't expecting that. Nice bit of '80s style guitar wankery.
Saille - 9
Ensiferum - 6. As with Korpi, just not playing what everyone seems to want.
Cannibal Corpse - 5 . Got bored really quickly.
Lawnmower Deth - 8
Trepalium - 7
Onslaught - 9
Godflesh - 6 (going down to 3 when the tedium began to set in).

[Tet]

And no band gets 10 unless it's something really special

Good to see I'm not the only one that does this. I've been reviewing bands for decades now, and I've probably seen less than 10 shows to which I'd give full marks. But those shows are the sort of genuinely spine tingling moments that you'll never forget. They're few and far between, and I don't expect to see performances like that at a festival. If you hand out full marks left right and centre, then you have nowhere left to go when you encounter one of those truly standout performances.

[Slev]

Such performances are so rare, I usually just give them a tap-inspired 11 and have done.

I can only think of three or four such performances ever, and I've seen a LOT of bands down the years.

[Darkweasel]

Rob Zombie gets a 10 from me, but then again I'm an unashamed fanboy. Still, that said, he was quite magnificent.


Wolf - They love Maiden and they'll never change, bless 'em.
6.5/10

Orange Goblin - One of those bands who don't appear to have a bad show in them.
8/10

Pro-Pain - A pitiful crowd and a pitiful band. Lots of peculiar people in even more peculiar outfits jumping up and down to empty, repetitive hardcore nonsense delivered by musicians old enough to know that Hatebreed and Biohazard are ten times the bands they ever were/will ever be.
4/10

Sepultura - Some classics to get the place jumping and some new stuff that nobody gives a shit about. Just your typical Seps show, these days really. The only point of interest is that without any hair, Derrick now looks like an ageing Mario Balotelli.
5/10

Old Rake - Widdly widdly widdly widdle. I lasted five minutes.
3/10

Ensiferum - Lots of Finnish folk metal songs which all appeared to have the same melody. Apart from Two of Spades. Which was ace.
5/10

Cannibal Corpse - 455 crowd surfers were clocked during the Corpse's hour long set. And approximately 400 of them landed directly on my head.
Marvellous.
8/10

Black Label Society - Some great songs, and I enjoyed them a lot more than I thought I would, but nobody needs a ten minute guitar solo.
7/10

Rob Zombie - The only reason I went at all this year didn't disappoint for a second. Absolutely brilliant showmanship, a great setlist, and just a great party atmosphere. Bloodstock might make a few mistakes along the way, but they definitely know how to pick a festival closer.
10/10

[Tet]

Black Label Society - Some great songs, and I enjoyed them a lot more than I thought I would, but nobody needs a ten minute guitar solo.

Just as well you got a 15 minutes solo, then! I love fretboard wankery far more than most, but even I found it a bit much towards the end.

[DOUGAL]

A good festival, my favourites being Ne Obliviscaris (8), Godsized (9), Orange Goblin (9), Death DTA (8) and Overkill (7).

The worst was surely Within Temptation (1), not because of their technical faults (I had left in disgust by then), but because Sharon was miming the large majority of the set that I stayed for. I smelt a fish when the all-too-perfect vocals continued in the first track even when her mike slipped, but it was clear to me that no singer - however talented - can pull off technical vocals when charging around the stage. She genuinely sang for the first time on perhaps the seventh track and you could easily tell the difference as her voice had a slight screech, rather than the record-quality purity of before and after. I soberly watched the video screen in disgust.

Bloodstock should be ashamed of themselves for putting on a headline act that don't sing most of their vocals.

I agree they were miming 0/10 - anyone who still uses CDs will have experienced a scratched/damaged disc stop dead @ the same point. Ice Queen stopped dead, @ exactly the same point, @ 4 attempts ! The previous & subsequent 'tracks' played fine; it is dead easy to switch the audio feed from the live intro mic to the CD player @ the mixing desk - must think we are all dummies - disgusted by this, but then again Terry Wogan plays Within Temptation CDs that stick/stop on his Radio 2 show - apparently - !

Trivium 1/10 – just plain boring; why they are so big is strange...
Orange Goblin 3/10 - strangely didn't work for me on the main stage
Ensiferum 2/10 - twee & boring
Belphegor 9/10 - unique & fascinating
Cannibal Corpse 6/10 - entertaining !
Saille 7/10 - interesting
Enslaved 7/10 - great despite kit problems
Opeth 10/10 - excellent playing + sound.

[someone else]

I agree they were miming 0/10 - anyone who still uses CDs will have experienced a scratched/damaged disc stop dead @ the same point. Ice Queen stopped dead, @ exactly the same point, @ 4 attempts ! The previous & subsequent 'tracks' played fine; it is dead easy to switch the audio feed from the live intro mic to the CD player @ the mixing desk - must think we are all dummies - disgusted by this, but then again Terry Wogan plays Within Temptation CDs that stick/stop on his Radio 2 show - apparently - !

If it were a cd (as if band would use such a thing now, not an audio file) then they would have known that the sound had cut out at the same time as we did, but they carried on as they could still hear it on stage, so it was more like a broadcast failure.

[Powerslave]

oh, all the band were miming now? of course.....

video of the first track
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twLWor4hm3A

it's so obviously live

[Hypo199]

I agree they were miming 0/10 - anyone who still uses CDs will have experienced a scratched/damaged disc stop dead @ the same point. Ice Queen stopped dead, @ exactly the same point, @ 4 attempts ! The previous & subsequent 'tracks' played fine; it is dead easy to switch the audio feed from the live intro mic to the CD player @ the mixing desk - must think we are all dummies - disgusted by this, but then again Terry Wogan plays Within Temptation CDs that stick/stop on his Radio 2 show - apparently - !

If it were a cd (as if band would use such a thing now, not an audio file) then they would have known that the sound had cut out at the same time as we did, but they carried on as they could still hear it on stage, so it was more like a broadcast failure.

Ahh, this old chestnut again. No, she doesn't mime, yes they use backing tapes for orchestral stuff, backing vocals and guest vocals but Sharon doesn't and never has mimed her own lead vocals. So yes, she really *is* that good a singer. Sure, she has her 'off nights' from time to time where she is a bit over strained and wobbly but Bloodstock was one of her better vocal performances.

So how do I know she wasn't miming? Because she forgets the lyrics constantly and ad libs here and there, it's one of her trademarks, so if they used backing tapes they'd need to make a new one for every single gig. Her main vocal howler at Bloodstock was the vocal intro to What Have You Done - she forgot the whole damn thing and was 'la la la la' all the way through it. That's not the sort of stuff you put on a backing tape!

[houston4044]

To be honest I never gave it a thought that the singer used a tape, I know some of the atmospheric (can't think of another way of putting it) instrumentation and the "guest" vocals were taped.

[DOUGAL]

I agree they were miming 0/10 - anyone who still uses CDs will have experienced a scratched/damaged disc stop dead @ the same point. Ice Queen stopped dead, @ exactly the same point, @ 4 attempts ! The previous & subsequent 'tracks' played fine; it is dead easy to switch the audio feed from the live intro mic to the CD player @ the mixing desk - must think we are all dummies - disgusted by this, but then again Terry Wogan plays Within Temptation CDs that stick/stop on his Radio 2 show - apparently - !

If it were a cd (as if band would use such a thing now, not an audio file) then they would have known that the sound had cut out at the same time as we did, but they carried on as they could still hear it on stage, so it was more like a broadcast failure.

A broadcast failure would not affect just 1 song at exactly the same point in time when repeated 4 times in succession . I still believe that 'some digital media' which held a recording of the whole arrangement crashed out because of an unrecoverable data corruption/error. In such a situation a band would continue 'performing' in the hope that the error was just a short glitch.

This was not simply a case of a 'backing tape' failure. The previous/following tracks were 'perfomed' without problems so why not this one if the band were truly performing 'live' ?

The fact that the track was not, indeed could not be 'played' beyond that early point & was completely abandoned, proves my point.

[Hypo199]

I agree they were miming 0/10 - anyone who still uses CDs will have experienced a scratched/damaged disc stop dead @ the same point. Ice Queen stopped dead, @ exactly the same point, @ 4 attempts ! The previous & subsequent 'tracks' played fine; it is dead easy to switch the audio feed from the live intro mic to the CD player @ the mixing desk - must think we are all dummies - disgusted by this, but then again Terry Wogan plays Within Temptation CDs that stick/stop on his Radio 2 show - apparently - !

If it were a cd (as if band would use such a thing now, not an audio file) then they would have known that the sound had cut out at the same time as we did, but they carried on as they could still hear it on stage, so it was more like a broadcast failure.

A broadcast failure would not affect just 1 song at exactly the same point in time when repeated 4 times in succession . I still believe that 'some media' which held a recording of the whole arrangement crashed out because of an unrecoverable data corruption/error. In such a situation a band would continue 'performing' in the hope that the error was just a short glitch.

No, the problem is their timing is too perfect. With that particular track you have two guitars, bass, drums, keys, and backing orchestral track all coming in together in the exact same 1/10th of a second. They overloaded the safety trip on the front of house PA, that's the long and the short of it.

[DOUGAL]

I would be interested in your source of information ?

Timing can never be too perfect & 1/10th second is a relatively long time; even old amps were designed to cope with full power demands within microseconds.

Are you seriously telling me that Within Temptation are too much for the Bloodstock PA to cope with ? It didn't strike me as that powerful at the point of failure & it never happened otherwise all weekend as far as I know ?

[Tet]

I would be interested in your source of information ?

I too have complained about Within Temptation's overuse of backing tracks. But I have it direct from the horse's mouth from people working at the festival that Sharon's main vocals are sung not mimed (even if she does have vocal harmonies on backing tape to give added depth).