If you’re a fan of the metal and hard rock music scenes, there’s a good chance you’ll have heard of Halestorm by now. Hell, there’s a good chance you’ve already seen what they have to offer live if you’re a regular attendee at Download Festival, as the band have played there many a time.

Review by Jane Howkins and Photos by John Hayhurst

I’ve caught Halestorm a few times at the festival and I’ve always walked away feeling very impressed. However, seeing them headline their own arena show was a real blessing, and I encourage you to catch them next time they’re in this country! Unfortunately, due to the heavy security getting into the venue (which is a necessity, considering what happened there in 2017), we skipped the first support act Kelsey Karter and the Heroines. However, Bloodywood, the next support act, were not to be missed.

Bloodywood is an Indian metal/rock band, mixing in more traditional musical elements from the Indian region with a more western nu-metal sound. It sounds mad at first, but it really does work well, and the band have clearly managed to make the genre their own. They also added some folky moments into the mix with the use of tribal drumming and a little flute solo, making Bloodywood one band to keep an ear out for in the near future! They certainly had the crowd in the palm of their hands as they played on relentlessly, gaining many new Bloodywood fans from their small set.

Next up were Halestorm, the band we were all there to see. These shows were centred around their latest album (titled Everest), with a total of nine songs played from the record over the course of the evening. That may seem like a lot of songs for a new album tour, but it shows just how proud the band are of this record, which takes Halestorm’s classic metal sound and mixes it up in numerous palatable ways.

For example, opener Fallen Star is a modern masterpiece, displaying vocalist Lzzy Hale’s singing and songwriting skills off to the world. However, the reliance on the new material wasn’t perceived as a bad thing by the crowd, who sang along to pretty much every tune at the top of their lungs, matching Hale for energy at times. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Halestorm show without their range of huge hits, with I Miss the Misery and Freak Like Me creating vast singalongs in the pit. They even managed a cover of the song Perry Mason by Ozzy Osbourne, before going nicely into the final tune of the encore, Here’s To Us.

Everything flowed stunningly throughout Halestorm’s set, showing just how great their collective musical ability is when these amazing musicians are placed on the stage next to one another. Don’t forget that both Bloodywood and Halestorm are performing at next year’s Download Festival either – we’ll see you in the pit!