Day one review – HERE

Review and photos – Rob and Danni Wilkins.

The mornings are a favourite time at a festival, as there are smaller crowds and room to move about and find new bands, so after a lunch of pie and sweet potato chips, in a food village absolutely immaculate with no litter whatsoever, we headed down to MainStage One for our first band of the day.

We got there just as Wings of Steel were finishing their set, but briefly enjoyed harmonious guitars, soaring solos and old-school metal anthems with high-pitched vocals and big hair!

Our first true set was Brothers of Metal. Viking warriors with three singers and two guitarists that were both tuneful and incredibly fun. Mixing two male singers (Joakim and Mats) with a female singer, Yiva (with a gorgeous, haunting voice), there were often vocal harmonies that were more like chanting. Mats’ humour and engaging personality added to the set, both teaching “seal” instead of “Santé” and introducing one band member as: “He taught me how to masturbate,” then at the end of the set “I think we have two songs left,” then wandering around to find a setlist, “Oh yes, this one’s good!” Great start to the day.

We then paid our first visit to the Warzone (surrounded by barbed wire and lookout towers and glowered over by Lemmy) for Die Spitz, and a set of high-energy punk from the quite scarily young Austin quartet. For reasons we haven’t yet worked out, they were welcomed with the crowd throwing leeks but then rampaged through a set which featured handstands, attempted headstands and a tiny child’s xylophone alongside immense energy and frenetic pace.

We decided to head away from the madness of the main festival to the Savage Lands stall, a charity encouraging reforestation and environmental issues, to catch a quietly advertised acoustic set by Alissa White-Gluz and Dirk Verbeuren (Megadeth). We were far from the only ones in on the secret, and it was rammed, but we still got glimpses of a large sun hat and sunglasses, and more importantly, to hear that sublime vocal in such an intimate setting.

We only caught the very end of Queensryche but were blown away by the insane vocal heroics of Todd La Torre.

The reason for heading to MainStage Two again was to catch a band that blew me away last time out, supporting Halestorm, – Bloodywood. Lining up across the stage, they bludgeoned the crowd with what was, for my note-taking reviewer partner, the set of the day! The striking aspect of their set is the way in which they talk about their fight. To come from New Delhi (love the transformation to “Nu” Delhi) where metal isn’t a thing has been a fight, but holy crap are they winning!

The crowd response was amazing, with a sea of crowd surfers and pits opening constantly. The mix of ethnic undertones and modern metal is sublime. It’s fresh. It’s unique. It’s groundbreaking. It’s really, really fucking awesome!

At the other end of the metal timeline, Accept have been around the block more than once but still put on a great show. With a back line of amps and lights, it’s choreographed and full of head-down old-school metal. The new album reimagines many old songs, and they are joined on stage by Todd La Torre for “Run If You Can” and by Opeth’s Frederick Akesson for “Fast as a Shark”. It’s great to watch and finishing (of course) with “Balls to the Wall” leaves the crowd ecstatic.

Next on MainStage One were Helloween with their two singers and pumpkin head imagery. I have never caught the band live before and enjoyed a few songs before finally succumbing to the heat and heading for something completely different.

Hellcity is a brasserie on site 365 days a year now, but for the festival, it also has an acoustic stage. It is shady, cool, and has great beer (I mean REALLY good beer), and is a wonderful place to visit outside festival time as the food is stunning and you are surrounded by rock memorabilia. So we spent half an hour with Vibrant Varnish (and I really hope they see that someone reviewing BMTH and Alice Cooper LOVED their set!)

Their set demonstrated the joy of the new venue. You are hot and tired, so you can escape and find a set like two friends playing in a bedroom, but one plays subtle and gently introspective guitar, and the other has a voice that draws you in and holds your rapt attention. Every song in their set was a rock classic. Not one was performed how I expected, and I was a little bit entranced. Thank you, Vibrant Varnish.

Finally: Iron Maiden. Confession – I have never actually watched a whole Iron Maiden set, but tonight I broke that cherry! I was expecting a big intro, but suddenly there they were, and we were blasted by “Murders in the Rue Morgue”. I have never really been a Maiden fan and at Download gave up and left early, so was surprised that this wasn’t a huge production with big stage set or fancy videos. More a band just playing on a stage – weirdly that impressed me! Bruce Dickinson speaking in French to introduce ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ did so too, and I left my preconceptions behind and simply enjoyed the show!

Sabaton, on the other hand, I HAVE enjoyed on numerous occasions. First at Download in 2014 where I thought “wow”, then a pub in Plymouth where they only got half a tank through the door, to the last UK tour. I adore that they seem such genuine humans, telling the crowd “I’ve got goose pimples – waiting watching Iron Maiden play” and ‘thank you for making us less nervous,” let alone answering Napoleon Bonaparte’s challenge “Do you speak French?” with “Yes!……. Baguette!”

It’s a show of fireworks, pyro, a flying tank, humour, sing-alongs and, at one point, fire raining from the sky. It’s utterly OTT but glorious.

We still have two days to go, but how Hellfest will beat that I have no idea!

Hellfest 2026 Friday

74 photos