Well I WAS looking forward to Hammerfall, but then Oscar went and broke his arm. So now I'm mostly looking forward to Masterplan (especially if they do a few Helloween covers, that'll be a real treat). I love Jorn Lande's voice and the lyrics are great too. Nightwish's new album is absolutely brilliant, although I'm not as familiar with their older work. Hopefully they'll be good too. I hope Blaze does a Maiden cover or two - not that I don't love his own solo work, of course, I really hope he plays Identity.
One band I'm not looking forward to is Paradise Lost, I just find them a bit, I dunno, dull. I've listened to Saxon - Heavy Metal Thunder (their recent greatest hits album, so probably a good indication of what they'll be playing at Bloodstock) quite a lot this week and they have a great style and some very cool riffs but I've just found them hard to really "get into", ya know. 747 is one of my favourite songs, though, I can't get it out of my head. Ah well, plenty of time, and they seem to be the sort of band you can enjoy even without being familiar with their work. Power Quest and DragonForce are pretty cool but seem to sound quite similar to me - anyone else having trouble remembering which one's which?
I'm also looking forward to the new emerging British bands as well, such as Fifth Man Down, if only out of curiosity. After all, some of these guys will hopefully be carrying the NWOBHM torch into the next decade.
All in all, I'm confident that this festival will still be excellent even without Hammerfall.
