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Blog: "Why we need positive boosts like Bloodstock Open Air"
Do you know that feeling when close friends have a baby – then life gets in the way and you don’t see your friends as much – and then one day, perhaps 10 years later you see that baby again, they’ve grown up and instantly you’re taken back to when they were born and boom..it’s a time capsule.
I had that feeling at Bloodstock Festival 2015.
This past weekend I returned to Bloodstock Open Air, 10 years on from its birth – with me older, wiser (I think) and amazed to see how the festival had grown and flourished since it’s debut in 2005. Instead this time, I wasn’t on stage – I was working behind the scene for one of my bands playing this years event .
A few things struck me on my return. Aside from the obvious growth of the festival, what really hit home was the comradery . Whether it was the fans, the bands playing the event, the press/media or Bloodstock staff working the event – you couldn’t miss the fact that this is a very special festival which brings music lovers together. Now this isn’t new to me BUT sometimes you need a “kick up the arse” to remember why you connected with music in the first place.
Playing Bloodstock is a feeling I remember well, from the Assembly Rooms in 2004 and again at BOA’s debut at Catton Hall in 2005 (nervously perfroming in the first band to ever play BOA). Another thing that caught my attention was the organisers. I always remember to this day, back in early 2004 – playing a showcase gig in Boston, Lincolnshire, there was literally a handful of people at the show (and even they were a rugby team watching a match on tv) but in that dimly lit room with practically one man and his dog watching, there were two people who would help change the course of our careers – enter Vince and Lee from Bloodstock. If there was ever any doubt that Bloodstock isn’t true to its word about supporting the rock/metal scene, I can 100% confidently blow naysayers out the water right now.
Those two guys watched that band play to nobody – practically a few people anyway. And we must have done something right, because later that year we were placed on the main stage at Bloodstock and things just snowballed from there. I guess what I’m trying to say is, Bloodstock and much like Download and Hard Rock Hell as well, Bloodstock gives new bands a chance. Now don’t be under any illusion that it happens overnight – all bands that played Bloodstock Festival 2015 have grafted hard and walked a long road to get to perform. BUT if you get out on the road, cut your teeth playing live and hone your skills online and offline, you just never know who will be watching you.
We need festivals like Bloodstock and the Music 2 The Masses to help us find the bands of tomorrow, and without them, our music scene will flounder. Off the back of this years event, I discovered and rediscovered so many bands. Bands that I’m now checking out and looking at their gig listings. Bloodstock makes a difference.
To summarise – Bloodstock was a blast. It’s hard work behind the scenes but we’re all in this together – All the Bloodstock team, the Gregory’s and notably Simon Hall are proof of this. Lots of fantastic awe inspiring moments, seeing lots of friends old and new, working hard, lots of fun – Bloodstock’s exactly the kind of positive boost we all need.
“Make Your Music Matter.”
Rob – Stampede Press UK (August 2015)
Photo credit: Mark Latham Photography – www.marklatham.co.uk