METALLICA’S ORION MUSIC + MORE FESTIVAL IS THIS WEEKEND

Metallica’s much ballyhooed Orion Music + More festival is finally here. The action starts tomorrow in beautiful, scenic Atlantic City, NJ.

Shrug.

I still maintain that the most interesting thing about this festival will be the non-metal bands.

Sure, it would be fun to see Red Fang, Torche, The Sword, Ghost, The Black Dahlia Murder, etc, but those are bands that tour all the friggin’ time (Ghost excepted — but they WILL tour all the friggin’ time in the near future, I guarantee it). And sure, Metallica are always great live. But there are bands I’d really be interested in seeing: The Gaslight Anthem, Gary Clark Jr., Lucero, Roky Erickson, Arctic Monkeys and whoever else I’d stumble upon. I mean, why not? I’d never go out of my way to see those bands in NYC under normal circumstances, but if I’m already at a festival they’re playing I may as well check them out first priority and catch whatever metal I can in between.

Or I could just visit the James Hetfield-curated on-site car show.

Thing is, I’m not even gonna be there. Nor is anyone from MetalSucks, although the Metal Injection dudes are going. Will you be there? Be sure to Tweet about the fun.

Noisecreep apparently agrees with my non-metal strategy, as they’ve published a guide to the Non-Metal Bands at Orion Fest. The punchline? Liturgy is on the list. Bravo!

-VN