Archive | Festivals
It’s a pretty insane week for festival announcements. As if Bonnaroo and Rock on the Range aren’t enough, the granddaddy of metal festivals, the New England Metal and hardcore Festival, has gone official and unveiled their lineup.
We already correctly guessed that the Mastodon/BTBAM/Baroness tour would be part of it, but that’s only part of the fun. The two-day fest, at the Palladium in Worcester MA on April23 and 24, will include those bands on Friday night, plus Cro-Mags, Earth Crisis, Death Threat, Death Before Dishonor, COA, American Me, Thick as Blood, Forfeit, XTheWarx, Grave Maker, Rose Funeral, Conducting From the Grave and Howl.
Saturday’s lineup consists of Cannibal Corpse, Amon Amarth, Job For A Cowboy, Whitechapel, Skeletonwitch, Eluveite, 1349, Impending Doom, Lecherous, Nocturne, Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza, Chelsea Grin, Abacabb, Arsonists Get All the Girls, Malefice, Swashbuckle, Cattle Decapitation, Acara, Holy Grail, Disembodied, Cruel Hand, Reign Supreme, The Mongoloids, xTyrantx, Foundation, Soul Control, Alpha & Omega, Burning Empires, Mother of Mercy, Gaza, Across the Sun and Monsters.
Tickets for Friday, which starts at 3, are $40. Tickets for Saturday, which starts at Noon, are $46. Tickets for both days will save you a whopping $6, at $80. We’ve been going to this for a while, and with the possible exception of the Scion Rock Fest (free is a lot cheaper than $80), it’s pretty much the best metal festival around.
Way back in 1990, GWAR’s “Sexecutioner” had the immortal line “how do you hide money from a hippie? You put it under the soap.” Now they’ll have a chance to make fun of hippies in their natural habitat, Manchester TN, as they’ve been named one of the bands playing the Bonnaroo Festival. While the Coachella Festival stole headlines around the metal blogosphere a few weeks ago when they announced that Faith No More would be playing the Fest, Bonnaroo seems to be doing a fine job of curating a diverse set of bands to play from June 10-13.
Clutch, The Bakerton Group, The Melvins, and Tenacious D are among those acts announced so far in addition to GWAR. Bonaroo has been gradually unveiling the lineup via their Twitter account. They’ve had some good bands in the past, with Dillinger Escape Plan and Shadows Fall playing. Looks like this year will be no exception. While not confirmed, other bands rumored to be playing include Isis and Baroness, who are also playing Coachella. Stevie Wonder and Jay Z are among the headliners at the fest.
Dust off your backwards baseball cap and serve yourself a nice heaping glass of haterade, Limp Bizkit is coming back! While they’ve already played some European festivals, Fred Durst and company are playing the first American show since last year’s reunion at this year’s Rock on the Range festival, taking place in Columbus Ohio on May 22 and 23.
Actually, there are some pretty solid bands in the lineup, with Deftones, Helmet, Mastodon, Killswitch Engage, Rob Zombie and Coheed and Cambria among the 39 bands playing over the course of the two day festival. Other acts playing include Godsmack, Slash, Five Finger Death Punch, Bullet for my Valentine, Cold and Sevendust. While we’ve been vaguely aware of the festival in the past, this is it’s fourth year. Tickets for this testosterone fest go on sale on February 20. For more information, go to rockontherange.com.
Last year’s Scion Rock Fest took people by surprise – a well-run festival featuring a stellar lineup (Mastodon, Neurosis, High on Fire) of bands that was completely free for all attendees. This year it’s back, in a completely different city with a completely different lineup and four times the venues of last year – but still for free. And where last year’s Fest featured a more hipster metal-ish lineup, this year’s is augmented by some classic metal, hardcore and grindcore, with Cannibal Corpse, D.R.I. and Brutal Truth among the headliners. And while last year’s was in Atlanta, this year’s is in the equally exotic locale of Columbus, OH. Read on:
On March 13, 2010, Scion Rock Fest will take over Columbus, Ohio. This year, 24 metal bands will descend on four different venues. The powerful lineup includes metal institutions Cannibal Corpse and Voivod, as well as supergroup Shrinebuilder and the recently reunited D.R.I. Though Rock Fest features an impressive list of legends, there will also be performances by rising stars like Liturgy and Landmine Marathon, plus local Columbus bands Dead Sea and Struck by Lightning. And the entire concert is free when you RSVP at scion.com/rock.
We can tell you this much: like last year’s Fest, we WILL have tickets to give away starting next month. If you’re in the Midwest, you have no reason not to travel to this. Full lineup and more details after the jump. Read more »
For the last ten years or so, the Coachella and Bonnaroo Festivals have been great standalone multi-day music experiences. Both of them started out more for fans of indie rock (and in the case of Bonnaroo, jam bands) than anything else, but in recent years, they’ve become more inclusive. Clutch and Shadows Fall have played Bonnaroo in the past, and Tool have played both festivals. This year, Coachella, taking place from April 14-16, seems even more geared towards discerning metalheads.
For one, Faith No More is playing what’s going to be their first-ever United States show since their reunion last year. The biggest breakthrough this year is Baroness, who will be playing their first festival, likely in front of the largest audience they’ve played for. Porcupine Tree will also be playing, which should bring the prog band to an audience that’s likely never seen them and will be blown away. Dillinger Escape Plan, Coheed & Cambria, Them Crooked Vultures, and Les Claypool will also be performing. They’ll be joining mainstream artists including Muse, Jay Z, Gorillaz, and maybe Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke. We are so there. And by so there, we mean if any Metal Insider readers want to fly us out and put us up, we’re totally in.
UPDATE: The lineup was announced on 1/20.
We’re big fans of the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival. Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman has done a great job of curating it in its first two years, bringing together established acts and newer ones while fostering a fun atmosphere for the bands playing it as well. While the lineup for next year’s incarnation has yet to be announced, some bands are starting to hint around that they might be playing it in 2010, including Korn and Hatebreed.
Korn drummer Ray Luzier let slip to Unwired TV that they might be headlining next year’s festival, while Hatebreed frontman Jamey Jasta recently told SkullsNBones.com that the band would “be on a big summer tour” that they couldn’t officially announce yet. Theprp.com suggests that Rob Zombie will also be involved.
If this shakes out with those three headliners, it sounds kinda like an Ozzfest lineup from ten years ago. Not that that’s a bad thing. Everyone knows that, like Ozzfest, the appetizers are as exciting, if not more exciting than the main course. Zombie, Korn and Hatebreed are bands that will get your older brother to go to Mayhem Fest, and I’m sure that when the whole schedule is announced, there will be a few bands that everyone will psyched to see. At least 2/3rds of those bands will be fun to watch, and if it makes for fuller arenas and a healthier metal scene, everyone wins.
Do you like good music and live within a few hours of San Francisco? Then mark November 7 on your calendar. Red Fang has just joined the first annual Fog Rising Festival that already features Witch, Saviours, and Night Horse, among other bands. Presented by Tee Pee Records and art collective Secret Serpent, the festival will feature some great music (mostly from Tee Pee artists) in addition to awesome poster art from artists including Alan Forbes, David D’Andrea, Alan Hynes and Marq Spusta.
Bands playing include Witch, Saviours, Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, Night Horse, Red Fang, Ancestors, and Black Math Horseman among others.
I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking the only fog that’s going to be rising from that festival is a fog of WEED. Amirite?
Buy tickets here.
As you read this, 75,000 metal fans are descending upon Wacken, Germany for the annual Wacken Open Air metal festival. However, thanks to Schleswig-Holstein’s (the state Wacken is in) higher than average swine flu rate, their health ministry has issued a statement urging caution.
Citing “circumstances of limited hygeine,” the statement urges festival attendees to “resist close greeting rituals,” including hugging, handshakes and kisses on the cheek. They also asked not to let beverages “circulate.” Also, medical rescue personell have stockpiled antiviral medical inventory and isolation rooms to help prevent the spread of swine flu, also known as the A/H1NI virus.
So if you’re at the biggest metal festival in the world, don’t share a beer or hug anyone? I mean, it’s almost a win-win. There’s probably a ton of people there that you wouldn’t want to share a brew or make out with anyway. A virus outbreak at a multi-day metal festival has all the makings of a pretty amazing horror movie, actually.
[The Local] via [Idolator]
Posted by Bram Teitelman on Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 10:40 am
Festivals