“I feel like Scotland have just won the World Cup!” says Bleed From Within frontman Scott Kennedy halfway through his band’s set. Scott is happy, and so he should be; after all, his band have been grafting for 23 years and have reached a point where they can turn up at the UK’s premier metal festival and be greeted like one of the highlights of the weekend.
Two years ago at Bloodstock, Malevolence subheadlined the Ronnie James Dio stage, blew everyone away and walked off looking like shoe-ins as future headliners. Today, it’s Bleed From Within’s turn to do the very same.
With a back catalogue of seven strong albums and over two decades of hard road work behind them, BFW were never going to let an opportunity like today pass them by, and they are exceptional this afternoon, grasping the chance to stake their claim in an incredible manner. The grooves and propulsion of tracks like Levitate and God Complex sound magnificent, with Scott, rapidly growing into one of metal’s best frontmen, endlessly egging on the crowd, demanding more circle pits and more chaos. He gets his demands met, too, with at least five swirling pits being counted at one point.
The band sound fabulously tight, and the extra elements they add to their sound today with bagpipes players and vocalist Hannah Boulton pepper some glorious new textures to their meaty metallic crunch.
By the time they bid farewell with a superb run through of In Place Of Your Halo, jaws are on the floor and they’ve left headliners Slaughter to Prevail with a mighty high bar to reach. “This,” Scott tells us “is the best show this band has ever played.” It’s hard to disagree.
A John McGinn winner in the World Cup final? Sorry Scott, that sounds like pure fantasy. But Bleed From Within to headline Bloodstock? Well, that seems a much safer bet.
