Bloodstock 2025 // The Ronnie James Dio Stage // Friday August 8th

Review: Joseph Mitchell

Once that heat & sun start to shine in July, we know it’s time yet again for the biggest & best summer festival showcasing just what the metal genre has to offer, Bloodstock 2025.

This lineup has some of the biggest & newest bands within its ranks & were here to give you the down low on what happened on the main “Ronnie James Dio” stage over the weekend.

1. Opening up this afternoon is Norwich-based thrashing metalcore outfit Shrapnel. Kicking things off in the best way possible, the guys bring the energy & keep it high right until the end of their set. With a wall of death & circle pits aplenty. Mixing that speed of thrash with the bounce of metal core, these guys have something for everyone & are a great band to wipe the sleep from your eyes & have the first pint of the festival too!

2 . Slowing things down & giving us a heavy & doomy slab of riff Canterbury’s Famyne. Merging the swagger of Black Sabbath & Cathedral with a nice side of fantasy, these guys grabbed me straight away. Great songs that had you headbanging all the way through & at moments had me in a trance. A tonal shift, but their huge sound echoed through the area & left me wanting to hear more.

3. Denmark’s Konvent was a real surprise. Bringing their unique style of death doom to the main stage, frontwoman Rikke Emilie List’s vocal delivery is deep, guttural & took me by surprise. Their heavy tones & hypnotic moments make the festival something to sink their teeth into. Dark & brooding, gotta love it.

4. Drawing a huge crowd & packed arena, a Paleface Swiss brings that mid-afternoon boost we all need. Their heavy stomping deathcore tracks have the pit going throughout the whole set, while frontman Marc “Zelli” Zellweger’s banter & performance keep you engaged & captivated. These guys are showing the UK just why right now they are the hot thing & it’s rightly deserved. A huge stage presence from the whole band & a sound mix that made every breakdown sound like a wrecking ball? Yeah, I can get down with that…

5. Next up are London stoner metal OGs Orange Goblin. Now this set was bittersweet as it would be their last ever festival performance, as after thirty years, they are calling it a day. Delving deep into their back catalogue, the band made sure to make it a memorable one. Giving everything they could to their performance, guitarist Joe Hoare & vocalist Ben Ward are having the time of their life & look like a new band still having fun & playing tunes they love. And it’s a fantastic set & huge crowd in their home country to finish out on… Thanks for the years of heavy riffs, boys.

6 . Norway’s legends of black metal Emperor give us a truly breathtaking performance. Kicking off their set with the epic “Into the Infinity of Thoughts” gets the crowd rowdy & has everyone hooked & all eyes on the stage. Emperor is one of those rare bands that, no matter what style of metal you prefer, they have something for you. Whether it be the shrill yet beautiful black metal riff riffs of the soaring & phenomenal piano/keyboard sections, they just ooze that epic quality & tonight feels like a very special electrifying set. It made my appreciation for the legacy of the band even greater.

7. Closing out Friday night are the first of our headliners, the monumental Trivium. Bringing one of their biggest stage productions & giving us a very special night filled with a few familiar faces. Ripping straight into “Rain” & “Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr” was already a knockout blow. As the band’s tribute to the late great Ozzy Osbourne, the band joined forces with Machine Head frontman Rob Flynn for a very touching rendition of “Symptom of the Universe”.

A back-to-back surprise of the modern classic In Waves with Ihsahn of Emperor & The Deceived, with Josh Baines of Malveolence, kept the mindset energy high. The band are firing on all cylinders tonight & it might just be their best festival headline show to date. And closing out the show with a first-time closer “The Sin and the Sentence” shows that Trivium have become one of the great metal bands of the 00s who have had the staying power & even now, ow this far into their career, they are not slowing down. A beautiful way to cap off the first night of Bloodstock 2025.

Review: Joseph Mitchell

Photography: Artur Tarczewski