26th May 2018
De Montfort Hall
with Graves, Dawn of Anubis, Diceratops, Seven Hells and Black Chapter
Tonight’s show was organised by Resin Events and Metal 2 the Masses Leicester.
Reviewed by Martin Baker
After the long road leading to this weekend, the bands competing for a place on Bloodstock’s New Blood Stage would finally find out their fate today, at Uprising.
First band to take to the main stage in our beautiful venue, De Montfort Hall, were Graves. We were blessed with an amazing crisp and clean performance and the delivery of their classic unique style was awesome.
Their involvement and movement on stage has developed and on the bigger stage it was great to engage with their performance. Their talent highlighted their set and they were absolutely perfect for this competition showing that their style was alive and still kicking everyone’s ass. Let’s hope for all our sakes that these guys will be around for a long long time.
After a great start and some extra guest bands it was time for our next competing band to take to the main stage.
Dawn of Anubis stormed on with their brutal fast paced riffs and well matched vocals. Their energy was great and they were definitely getting the crowd involved and engaged, the only slight niggle was both guitars seemed to be lost in the mix somehow and didn’t quite sound right without them.
On the other hand, the vocalists darker lyrics were absolutely on point and nailed his performance and it was great to see the whole band own the bigger stage.
Another break and some extra amazing bands later and our next band for the main stage were Diceratops.
Their usual blast of intensity was above par for the introduction to their performance this time round and you could feel their enthusiasm.
It was great to see the band being able to show their talents to such a large crowd but also a shame that they didn’t seem very engaged and were a bit static. The odd part to their time on stage though was the amount of f-words that came flying out of the singers mouth, was it down to nerves or something else?
With our usual break between competing bands it was time for Seven Hells to show us what they had in the bag for the final, and let me tell you, boy did they tear the venue up and give us something truly special.
From the moment their intro started, to the beautifully arranged lighting to match their music, the sheer energy and intensity of the band members themselves and the outstanding crowd involvement, we knew we had a performance worthy of the Bloodstock stage.
There is so much dedication to their music that comes across in the live ability that it is truly brilliant to behold, the music scene is so much better off with these guys around and a special shout out to Marc who is one hell of a front man for this special band. Their entire set was absolutely on fire.
Coming to the final section of the evening our last band in with a chance to play at Bloodstock were Black Chapter.
Taking to the bigger stage it seemed as though the band weren’t fully comfortable and some aspects of their performance seemed a bit flat, as a result the crowd didn’t really seem to engage with their performance.
There are a number of odd things about their set that as an audience some would like and also dislike, but the general feeling was that of an anti-climax considering the standard of performances by the other bands there this evening.
With all the competing bands finished for the evening it was down to Crazy Head and Bonafide to entertain us until the big announcement at the end of the night, which had a very special twist indeed!
In addition to the one band who would play on the New Blood stage, there would be another band going through to play on the Jägermeister stage aswell! It’s these special twists that we like given the talent on offer and the limited spaces going through.
Going through to play on the Jägermeister stage were Dawn of Anubis.
The grand final winners and playing on the New Blood stage were Seven Hells!
Congratulations to the bands going through and well done to all the bands that competed, and lets hope everyone tries again next year and keeps the music scene going!
Next stop Bloodstock!!!