TWO NEW U.S. METAL FESTIVALS: A ROCKSTAR MAYHEM FEST BOAT CRUISE, AND “TRESPASS AMERICA FESTIVAL”
UPDATE, 3:00pm EDT: We have it on good word from an anonymous industry insider that the Tresspass America Festival will have multiple dates, and will not be a one-off festival in Nashville.
Original Post:
America’s long been short on meaningful metal festivals. Rockstar Mayhem, Summer Slaughter, and the late Ozzfest certainly count for something, but I’m talking about the multi-day, multi-stage DESTINATION type of open-air festival where you camp out and get dirty and drunk for 3 days whilst being among 50,000 of your metalhead brethren, with a lineup that’s so unfuckable with that people travel hundreds (or thousands) of miles to be there. Europe’s got tons of these all over the place all summer long, but there’s really nothing like them in North America.
Inroads have been made in recent years, though, with the likes of Metallica’s Orion Music + More Festival, Heavy MTL and Heavy TO, metal bands playing Coachella and Bonnaroo (sort of), the 70,000 Tons of Metal boat cruise and a few other events. And now they’ve got company: in a Metal Injection interview with Machine Head at the Golden Gods black carpet last week, Robb Flynn revealed that the Rockstar Mayhem tour will be putting on a boat cruise of their own featuring Machine Head, Lamb of God, Suicide Silence and Anthrax, and possibly more. I gather some people are gonna be really stoked about this. Being trapped on a sea vessel with a bunch of drunken metalheads isn’t quite the same as a big open-air festival, but hey, whatever floats your boat (ha!).
Since the interview was released yesterday, Metal Insider confirmed with Rockstar Mayhem Festival founder Kevin Lyman that the cruise is indeed a really real thing. Lyman mentioned that in addition to the above, bands from Metal Blade, Sumerian, Roadrunner and Century Media would all be playing the boat, members of Slipknot (Sid Wilson) and Korn (Jonathan Davis) will be hosting DJ sets, and Slipknot’s Clown will be curating a film festival and an art show. Seems like this thing is shaping up to be a pretty big party.
But that’s not all:
In other possible festival news, The PRP is reporting that Five Finger Death Punch, Killswitch Engage, Trivium, Pop Evil, Emmure, God Forbid and Battlecross will perform together at the “Trespass America Festival” at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, TN on July 30th. The article does not name or link a source for this information, but The PRP is usually dead-on about the rumors they report, and they note that they aren’t sure whether this will be a one-off or a tour.
More as we get it.
-VN
