Bloodstock

The BLOODSTOCK festival took place at Catton Park, Derbyshire UK on 8th-11th August 2024.

By arrangement with Motörhead management, the legendary, late, great Lemmy Kilmister will be permanently memorialised at the heavy metal festival. Some of Lemmy’s ashes will be housed at BLOODSTOCK – one of only a few places globally – in a unique urn, with the festival commissioning a Bust of Lemmy to incorporate the ashes.

Motörhead’s manager, Todd Singerman comments: “BLOODSTOCK has always been a special place for Motörhead and for Lemmy. The people and the energy matched Lemmy’s values perfectly. Alan and Vicky were also great friends, and basically family of Lemmy, as he was the reason that they originally got together. This is definitely a fitting honor in the continuing series of enshrinements of Lemmy’s ashes in his most loved places.”

The opening and closing of the festival was marked with a sounding of the famous Motörhead air raid siren. BLOODSTOCK also welcomed Phil Campbell who led the ceremony.

Bloodstock Festival Director Vicky Hungerford is married to Lemmy’s former PA and security guard, Alan Hungerford, who she met in 2010 at Derby’s Assembly Rooms when watching Motörhead. “So I was literally booking Motörhead [for Bloodstock] and the rest is history. Without Lemmy and Motörhead, we would have never got together,” she said.

Mr. Hungerford said: “We painstakingly did this to exactly as it used to be when we went on tour.”
He added: “When management first approached us to do this, I was blown away because [of] Lemmy being such a big part of mine and Vicky’s life. “I miss him every day. I genuinely believed that when I was 70, I would still be hanging around with him.”

As part of the tribute to Lemmy, there is also the Lancaster BOMBER at the festival, which was suspended above the stage during the 1979 Bomber tour and subsequent others, through 2015.

Fans were be able to view the installation and pay tribute to Lemmy and his legacy in the RAM Gallery on site. Lemmy’s dressing room was recreated including his hat, coat, boots and his personal collection of photographs. Among the display pieces are Lemmy’s last ever jar of Marmite and Milky Way bars, from the band’s final tour in 2015.

The dressing room also includes a shower cap over a smoke alarm, and a sticker saying “harassing me about my smoking may be hazardous for your health”.
A traveling slot machine “that he took everywhere”, his reading glasses, and credit card, were also there for festival-goers to see.

When the festival was over, the Bust of Lemmy was moved by biker procession to the Rock City live music club.  Motörhead played the Nottingham venue 10 times from 1987 to 2006, and the ashes will remain there on public display.

Each August, the bust will return to Bloodstock for the duration of the festival.