Bloodstock 2019 – Thursday

Once again I’m back at a place that feels like home – Catton Hall, or to be precise, Bloodstock festival. It’s my 11th year here and every year it just feels like it’s not been a year since I last left. The Thursday is always a fun night of catching up with friends, many of whom I havent seen for months (or in some cases since last year’s event).

The Thursday night has grown though – it used to be just two or three bands, but now it’s 5 bands, and they’re no longer just new-blood bands making a step up, there’s a proper headliner too, this year in the form of Rotting Christ.

Barbarian hermit got the weekend off to a good start. The Manchester band played the New blood stage last time and have stepped up to the Sophie Lancaster stage. It’s a tough slot being the first band on – on the one hand they’re the only band on but on the other people arent drunk (well some are) and they have to work hard to get people having fun but do a great job.

Blind river came next, a hard rock band from Guildford, and again it’s an impressive performance from a thursday night band and just shows the calibre of bands that Bloodstock is booking not just for the main three days, but for the Thursday too.

Long before Footprints in the custard took to the stage their fans were flooding into the tent – easily spotted as half of them seemed to be carrying inflatables of various types (mainly giant inflatable penises though). Needless to say these were flying around the tent throughout their set and the first of many crowd surfers also came over to keep security busy. What can I say? It’s rude, crude and funny and is just what a crowd of pissed up metalheads wanted to hear.

Ten Ton Slug took things up a notch with their sludgy sound. This Irish band look and sound polished from lots of gigging and they seem to be out to prove that they should be

Rotting Christ may have been the headliners but in my view they simply couldn’t follow the awesome set from Ten Ton Slug and it just felt a bit monotonous. Yes they may be Greek black metal legends but while they started strongly the set seemed to lack energy.

A great first day at Bloodstock 2019.