There’s an energetic first-day-of-the-main-festival kind of buzz on this sunny day in Walton on Trent. It can only mean one thing – Welcome to Bloodstock Open Air 2026. Tents have been pitched. Huge flags consisting of niche memes and references have now been hoisted (two massive flags of Patrick Bateman during his Phil Collins monologue alongside each other, with the captions ‘Black Metal Fans when the production is unlistenable’ and ‘Sleep Token fans when the song gets worse at 6:14’). Everyone also seems to be barbeceuing. That’s just the beginning – once you’ve finished your questionable looking burger, there’s a stacked lineup of bands from every possible area of the metalverse, nine of which we’ll be discussing below.
Words: Kathryn Edwarsd // Photos: Ryan Hildrew
Skynd
Nothing at Bloodstock looks quite like this. It’s the very beginning of the day, so the audience is comparatively sparse, but everyone who’s decided to start early(ish) today to see SKYND is either unsettled or utterly transfixed. Masked, anonymous performers SKYND (lead vocalist) and Father (multi-instrumentalist) turn true crime into full-blown horror theatre, each song a dramatisation of a real killer or tragedy, and they’re all named as such; standout tracks are ‘Columbine’ and ‘John Wayne Gacy’. It’s less a gig than an art exhibition with a heartbeat. These icy electronics, guttural screams and macabre visuals wouldn’t feel out of place in a slasher film. It’s not surprising that this Australian outfit frequently collaborates with Jonathan Davis of Korn. Not for everyone, but exactly the kind of left-field booking that makes this festival worth the mud.
Life of Agony
The tent’s filling out nicely by the time Life of Agony take to the stage. There’s a heaviness behind what follows not just in the riffs, but in the thirty-odd years of history that lead vocalist Caputo carries with them. Guitarist Joey Z and bassist Alan Robert, both founding members, anchor a sound that’s grunge-tinged and melodic where much of this weekend leans towards the extreme. When they dip into River Runs Red highlights like ‘This Time’ and ‘Weeds’, the emotional gut-punch of that record lands as hard now as it did in 1993. Caputo pauses between songs to thank the crowd for ‘still giving a damn’, and the response makes it clear the feeling’s mutual.
Fit for an Autopsy
FfaA don’t just do breakdowns, they do dread. Will Putney’s production nous translates into a live sound that’s crushing, yet strangely cinematic. It’s all atmosphere and tension before the floor drops out from under everyone on ‘Oh, You Think We’re Distant Now?’. This crowd already knows them well from their run supporting Lamb of God earlier in the year, and it shows; circle pits open before the first chorus of ‘Sound of Sirens’ even lands, and vocalist Joe Badolato barely needs to ask for a wall of death before he gets one.
Biohazard
Brooklyn’s finest are reunited, and it feels so good. The sound of NYHxC colliding with metal and hip-hop hits just as hard thirty-odd years on. The classic lineup of Graziadei, Hambel, Schuler, Seinfeld tear through Urban Discipline-era cuts like ‘Punishment’ and ‘Business as Usual’ as if no time has passed at all, and the tent turns into one enormous, sweaty singalong the second those old-school breakdowns kick in. Shouted phrases about persistence and struggle boom through the speakers before ‘How It Is’, and the pit obliges accordingly. History lesson and party in equal measure. Absolutely delightful.
Municipal Waste
Party thrash exists for exactly this moment. Municipal Waste don’t do subtlety. Tony Foresta bounces around the stage like a man possessed, songs like ‘Born to Party’ and ‘The Art of Partying’ blast past in under two minutes apiece, and the pit is one continuous, gleeful mess of bodies from the first note. Foresta doesn’t so much introduce songs as bark instructions at the crowd. Get down! Get up! Get insane! We’re having a blast, and happily oblige. Zombies, beer and chaos; nobody at Bloodstock is having more fun than the people currently crowd-surfing to this lot.
Neckbreakker
If you don’t know Neckbreakker yet, you will by the end of this set. The young Danes have built their reputation purely on live ferocity, and it’s easy to see why. Their hardcore-inflected breakdowns on tracks like ‘Nakkeknaekker’ collide with old-school death metal brutality, and a band barely out of their teens somehow commands the tent like seasoned headliners. Between songs, frontman Christoffer Bach Kofoed looks genuinely stunned by the size of the pit, laughing about how mental it is for being this early in the day. Easily one of the weekend’s best ‘tell your mates about this one’ discoveries. This isn’t Neckbreakker’s first time at BOA, either – they were here in 2023 on the New Blood stage, returning three years later on the Sophie Lancaster stage. If their track record is anything to go by, we’ll see them climb further up the bill over the next few years.
Sepultura
There’s no getting around what this one means. With the band’s farewell tour drawing to a close later this year, this is very likely the last time Sepultura ever play the UK, and Derrick Green makes sure everyone in the tent knows exactly what’s at stake, telling the crowd how much these final shows mean to the band, and getting the crowd to smile as they stand together and turn their backs towards us to take a massive group picture, before launching into ‘Arise’. Andreas Kisser’s riffs still sound as vital as they did decades ago, and when ‘Roots Bloody Roots’ finally arrives, the whole tent seems to detonate at once. By the closing notes of ‘Ratamahatta’, it’s hard to find anyone not singing along like they’re saying goodbye to an old friend, because, in a sense, they are.
Shining
Probably not the Shining you’re thinking of, Jørgen Munkeby and Co. are a much more joyous affair. This gloriously unclassifiable Norwegian outfit is doing things nobody else on this bill would dare, and it’s a treat to watch. Sax solos erupt out of industrial black metal riffing on ‘The One Inside’, jazz breaks down into blast beats, and the whole thing sounds like nothing so much as a fever dream soundtrack. Munkeby cracks a grin mid-set and asks if anyone brought their inflatable saxophones this time and it looks like a good chunk of the crowd, delightfully, has. A cult crowd turns out to be exactly as wonderfully weird as the band themselves.
Lamb of God
As night finally falls, Lamb of God take the Ronnie James Dio stage like the seasoned headliners they are. Randy Blythe stalks every inch of it, no signs of the two-plus decades since the band clawed their way up from the Richmond hardcore scene as Burn the Priest, and it’s obvious within the first few bars why they’re closing out the first night. The setlist itself intersperses ‘Oblivion’ cuts with classics like ‘Omerta’ and ‘Ruin” Whatever the balance, the new material sits comfortably alongside the classics, proof that a band this far into its career can still write songs that hit as hard live as the ones that made its name.
‘Vigil’, ‘Laid to Rest’ and ‘Redneck’ predictably make up the encore, Nothing all night comes close to the reaction ‘Laid to Rest’ gets. The moment those opening riffs land, the whole field seems to move as one; a mass singalong that drowns out Blythe himself for long stretches, and the biggest pit response of the entire day by some distance. It’s a communal, cathartic chaos that only a veterab headliner could conjure this at the end of such a full-on, sweaty, and tiring Friday of non-stop sets, with legs already gone and sunburn setting in. There’s nothing perfunctory about it either, nor any sense of a band coasting on nostalgia. Thirty-plus years in, Lamb of God still look and sound like they mean every second of it.
And that’s day one of Bloodstock Open Air 2026 done! From SKYND’s unsettling true-crime theatre first thing in the morning to Sepultura’s tearful farewell and Lamb of God tearing the field apart, it’s been a lineup that swung between the brutal, the bizarre and the profound, within the space of a single afternoon. We’ve all involuntarily swallowed so much dust, our ears are ringing, and we’re looking forward to a nice sit-down, but looking ahead to even more madness in store for day two, we head to our tents already buzzing.
