Review - Stonedead Festival 2024 continues to recapture the spirit of Monsters Of Rock

Planet Rock heads to Nottinghamshire on August 24th as a sold out Stonedead Festival continues to recapture the spirit of Monsters Of Rock.

That old ‘one day and one stage’ format continues to be something that fires the nostalgic juices of rock fans, and not just because some of us are too old to actually get through three days of this!

Stonedead Festival, staged just outside Newark in Nottinghamshire, is now into its sixth edition, and it’s fair to say that each has surpassed, or at least equalled, its predecessor in terms of the bill and the atmosphere. Stonedead was birthed by a team of like-minded souls who missed that one-day set-up of old, the annual pilgrimage for those of a certain age to Castle Donington, for the fabled Monsters Of Rock.

As Saxon will memorably sing in their headline performance tonight, “it was you that set the spirit free” (‘Denim And Leather’), so is the case with Stonedead – fans and volunteers doing it all for other fans. As has also become traditional, a small team of cyclists completed a fundraising ride from Castle Donington to Newark on the Friday, accruing some £1,500 for this year’s charity, Team Endeavour which supports children and families of the armed forces who are going through hardship, suffering and poverty.

On completion, the intrepid team were greeted by Planet Rock’s Paul Anthony and hopefully were suitably rested in time for the now traditional Friday night party which this year saw sets from chart-bothering rockers Scarlet Rebels, former Iron Maiden frontman Paul Di'Anno, and Spike’s rejuvenated barroom heroes Quireboys. High winds meant the bands performed without backdrops or screens, but to the organisers’ credit, everything that was supposed to happen did happen, and to paraphrase Saxon once again, “the bands played on”.

Our first band on Saturday is The Hot One Two who won a poll to land this slot. Make the most of it they do, throwing everything from pyro to backing dancers into their 30-minute set. The Cambridgeshire band released their full-length debut ‘Superbia’ last November, and it’s songs like ‘The Fray’, a Planet Rock track of the week, that really seal the deal. That, and rubber-faced guitarist Kev Baker’s extraordinary grimaces right up there in detail on the big screens. Closer ‘Tie Me Down’ gets the best from Simon West’s stellar voice, and The Hot One Two will consider this mission accomplished.

Tailgunner get as close to recapturing the spirit of Monsters Of Rock as any young band ever will. Quite how a band of such tender age came to love old school metal in the way they do is something only they can answer. Our job is just to enjoy, and there’s no shortage of opportunities as this high energy quintet scream through ‘Guns For Hire’ and ‘White Death’. Sure, there is also the sight of singer Craig Cairns going flat on his arse during an energetic section of ‘Beast In The Night’, but it matters not a jot as this killer band perform seamlessly, one track diving headlong into another. There are bravura performances from guitar duo Zach Salvini and Rhea Thompson, some Maiden-esque flag-waving, and even some synchro ‘gunning’ stage moves during ‘Crashdive’.

The Bites, all the way from Hollywood, have come a lot further but in truth don’t go so far. Their calling card is good humour, a touch of sleazy cheek, and a desire to have, as it were, nothing but a good time. That aim is thwarted by the fact that The Bites aren’t as good as the bands that inspired them. ‘Heather Leather’ does win friends with its infectious sense of humour, and new song ‘Fire In Hollywood’ sensibly echoes their best-known tune, ‘Do Me A Favour’, with its call and response hook. A cover of Zep classic ‘Good Times Bad Times’ is plain bad, however, and affable singer Jordan Tyler does appear to get a ticking off from the stage manager for jumping down into the pit. The Bites are a laugh, but perhaps the joke is wearing a bit thin now.

The first part of a two-band Swedish takeover arrives in the form of Malmö’s Bonafide. Overcoming some challenges with his gleaming Vintage SG, Pontus Snibb remains the focal point of this rootsy, groove-laden quartet, a band that uses classic rock as a cultured mixer in their welcome drench of AC/DC-isms. ‘Smoke And Fire’ is typical, a nifty chorus with gritty guitar work from both Snibb and fellow six-stringer Anders Rosell. ‘Loud Band’ has some ‘Highway To Hell’ in its DNA, different enough to be cool, familiar enough to be fun, while closer ‘Fill Your Head With Rock’ may have been inspired by the Sweden Rock festival, but is just as welcome here.

Eclipse may have had the misfortune to hit the stage just as black clouds disperse their unwelcome cargo, but the equally sudden lifting of the conditions ten minutes later is almost as miraculous as the celestial spectacle that inspired their name. It is in fact an apt tag for the Stockholm quartet’s consummate and expertly delivered hard rock. Today they positively radiate tunefulness, larger-than-life hooks and pro-level songwriting. They bring the eloquent structures of ‘The Downfall Of Eden’ to life, and deliver hugely muscled hooks on the likes of ‘Runaways’ and ‘The Spark’. Somewhere between Def Leppard and H.E.A.T., this relatively rare UK festival appearance will hopefully be one of many.

As tradition now dictates, Stonedead is hosted by the reliably hilarious Krusher. And, as tradition also dictates, none of the ace raconteur’s bawdy anecdotes can possibly be repeated in print. Let’s just say that it’s great to see him continuing to lead the charge as he recovers from a nasty fall recently. Oh, and if you’re unfortunate enough to be having a colonoscopy, it’s apparently better not to ask what drugs are being used in the sedative!

Was it just me, being of a certain age, or was there something in your eye too when Doro sang out the first chorus of her opener, the witchy rock classic ‘I Rule The Ruins’? This, followed by ‘Burning The Witches’, which Doro’s band Warlock played all the way back at the 1986 Monsters Of Rock. For what it’s worth, which is in fact quite a lot, her more recent material is built on precisely the same stone – 2012’s ‘Raise Your Fist In The Air’ is a typically killer anthem, Ms Pesch perma-grinning, blonde hair flying, as she continues to do what she was born to do. It’s hard to even envisage the levels of prejudice she must have overcome through these many decades – here in 2024 it is pure celebration: timeless, and yet increasingly precious.

Ugly Kid Joe’s Whitfield Crane gets his first cheer of the evening by casually unzipping his black jacket to reveal a Lemmy t-shirt beneath. Whit, it turns out, is an unusually perceptive singer, a frontman in the truest sense of the word. It’s not just about the band’s funky backbone and terse, slightly punk-tinged rock tunes – in fact it’s not even mostly about that. Impressed by the audience, he invites photographers to the side of the stage to capture the show as he sees it.

‘I’m Alright’ elicits widespread bouncing; somehow you don’t feel you can disobey Whit! He points out a passing RAF Chinook helicopter during ‘Goddamn Devil’, a song supported by bizarrely high-pitched backing vocals from drummer Cam Greenwood, and dedicates their famous cover of ‘Cats In The Cradle’ to Adele, a mother of two who he met earlier in the Planet Rock signing tent. The classic ‘Everything About You’ is of course a total riot.

There’s a sense of mission about KK’s Priest. It starts in a cacophony of wailing guitar, the fabled ex-Judas Priest axeman alone on stage, head thrown back as the thing that made him what he is does what it does. Then there’s a cacophony of pyro; a more incendiary opening has surely not been seen at Stonedead. With Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens, himself a former member of Judas Priest, leading note perfect, high voltage renditions of both old classics and newer, no less metallic tirades from KK’s two solo band records, why go high when you can go very bloody high indeed?

The old school cuts are no greatest hits parade – they’ve been curated to dig deep, the familiar mixed with the no less arresting material that Downing evidently believes should have seen more coverage. So, there’s ‘Night Crawler’ and ‘Burn In Hell’ for power, plus a beautifully considered ‘Before The Dawn’ for feels. Through much of it there’s a sense of released tension, almost anger, raw till the end – which tonight comes in the form of aptly named ‘Raise Your Fists’, and before that ‘Sinner’ and a full throttle ‘Breaking The Law’. “You don’t know what it’s like”? We’re starting to.

For headliners Saxon, Stonedead is an end-of-season bowing out parade – hopefully not a permanent one, but a last European outing of the year, according to Biff Byford. Anyone that saw this line-up do their thing opening for Priest earlier this year will know that Saxon are a band enjoying a perhaps unlikely resurgence. New songs like ‘Madame Guillotine’, ‘1066’, and ‘Hell, Fire And Damnation’, all played tonight, are worthy of the name, and tap in to Biff’s love of history in interesting and unexpected ways. With Diamond Head leader Brian Tatler now seemingly a permanent addition on guitar, Saxon are once again contenders for the ‘comeback kings’ title.

‘Never Surrender’, played tonight with the same sense of pride and grandeur as always, and sung back at the characteristically unsmiling Byford with full force, is surely their anthem – it sums up the fact that most bands who have been around as long as Saxon, and endured as much criticism, would simply have retired by now. That we have them at all is remarkable, and that we have them in this fine form is even better. Bassist Nibbs Carter, a man whose non-Saxon life must surely take place in the gym, indulges in old school headbanging through much of ‘Heavy Metal Thunder’ while the quietly spoken, underrated Doug Scarratt riffs and solos as well as anyone out there.

Byford, 73 now, is more of a gentle hair-shaker than a headbanger, but he remains an amusingly grumpy, sergeant major type presence, and somehow still finds the power and the glory to sing the song of the same name, plus such minted classics as ‘747 (Strangers In The Night)’ and ‘Wheels Of Steel’. Some of it is strangely emotional – ‘747’s tale of peril in the skies is certainly no ordinary rock song – while much of it simply salutes the gathered brethren and drinks in what it is to be alive in this friendly setting. That message that we are all in it together is not just what Saxon do so well; it is the reason that they – and we – are here at all.

Stonedead Festival 2024 in photos:

Listen to Planet Rock on DAB nationwide, on our Rayo app, online or via your smart speaker (“Play Planet Rock”).

• stonedead festival
• saxon
• kk's priest
• Judas Priest
• Iron Maiden