LIVE REVIEW: Halestorm, Bloodywood, Kelsey Karter & The Heroines, OVO Hydro, Glasgow, 21/11/2025
Photo Credit: Jimmy Fontaine
This was a night to remember. A night of rock n’ roll royalty with three bands which shredded into our heart, left their sonic boot-prints in our soul and left a packed to the rafters arena begging for more.
Take a big dollop of Pennsylvania’s finest musical export, mix with a generous coating of Indian spice and mix together with a band with hits, tunes and voice which is surely ready for the rocket ship to send them flying up the card to arenas of their own – sooner rather than later.
Top of the bill were of course Halestorm but they were backed up by Bloodywood and Kelsy Karter on a triple threat of musical magic at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro.
Opening the night was Kelsey Karter & The Heroines — a band we had caught at a festival in the past and a reason we arrived at the venue so early. Karter has an unmistakable voice and an undeniable frontperson charisma. Her range can soar from haunting, acapella intro to low and scratchy delivery. A brilliantly unexpected cover of Aerosmith classic Cryin’ had the fans surging forward and the band nailed it. Enough Tyler to do it justice but more than enough Karter to make it her own. She twisted it, made it her own: sultry, gravel-toned, and raw. We saw people around me look at each other and nod and grin. Her voice carried power but also vulnerability: half swagger, half soul.
Then she worked through a fistful of her original tracks. One — Lightning in a Bottle — was spine-chilling: soaring highs, gritty lows, theatrical crescendos, and it is an absolute banger. And when she hit the groove with Liquor Store on Mars, the crowd woke up. Thousands were singing along. By the end of their set, people weren’t politely checking her out, they were fully converted fans.
Karter and The Heroines were electric, the kind of wild card opening you rarely get and sets a both a tone and a benchmark for the rest of the bill to follow. Karter is definitely already strapped in and preparing for bigger venues, bigger crowds, bigger everything. If this night was any indication, there’s no limit to how high she can go.
The support slot from Bloodywood was brilliant. The band are something of a curveball on paper and an explosion in reality. With a potent mix of heavy riffs, ethnic undercurrents and raw energy, they hit the stage with ferocity. Gaddaar, Dana Dan, Nu Delhi, Machi Bhasad — forty minutes of wall-to-wall intensity, the pit opening the moment the first notes rang out.
For some, it will have been their first taste of Indian-influenced metal and we’ve no doubt they will have left the arena bruised, buzzing, and thoroughly converted to the Bloodywood cause. The humour, the intensity, the crowd interaction, Bloodywood proved they belong on big bills.
We’d travelled down specifically for the show. A busy week at work dictated we could only travel on show day which meant a 5am start, three hour ferry crossing then eight hundred mile round trip by endless miles of tarmac and average speed cameras. But by the time the very first thunderclap of guitar as You Are Here ripped through the PA, we were in our element and reminded ourselves exactly why we made the journey south.
Frontwoman Lzzy Hale prowled the stage like a predator, leather-clad, razor-focused, every inch the queen of arena-rock. They ripped through a setlist heavy with both new and classic material: safe-to-say half the night was given over to fresh tracks from the new album, and the other half to the songs that turned this band into one of our top five on Spotify Wrapped for yet another year.
Among the standouts were fan favourites I Miss the Misery and Love Bites (So Do I), both delivered with ferocious intensity but it was the new stuff that showed how far they’ve come since their early days. The tone shifted dramatically when they dropped in WATCH OUT!, a brutal, riff-heavy assault that had a toe in thrash metal camps and a sign they’re not afraid to push their sound into darker territory.
When they got to Freak Like Me and later Mz. Hyde, the energy came roaring back. For the encore, they came on strong. I Am The Fire lit the stage, literally, flames licking the air, heat pulsing through the crowd. Here’s to Us wrapped things up with a communal roar, thousands of voices singing every word. But the night didn’t end there.
As the final chords of Everest (the title track and centrepiece of the tour) faded, the band launched a confetti-canon shower, sending tissue and glitter raining down on the crowd. It was a chaotic, beautiful mess that felt like the perfect full stop to a blazing night.
If you want a rock show that rips your throat out, sets your hair on fire, and then hands you a tissue canon to pick the pieces up afterwards then Halestorm at the Hydro delivered exactly that.
8/10
Written By: Eric Mackinnon
