BREAKING: METALLICA WILL HOST THEIR OWN “ORION” FESTIVAL IN ATLANTIC CITY THIS SUMMER

[This post is being live-updated. -Ed.]

This past weekend Metallica got all sneaky and sent out a “Save the Date” for a big announcement happening today at 2pm EST / 11am PST. And here’s the news, via their LiveStream (which started about 15 minutes late, featured a quick trailer announcing the fest, then cut to the band members in a room addressing the camera directly in an informal Q&A session).

Metallica are hosting their own 2-day festival, June 23-24, 2012 in Atlantic City, NJ called “Orion Music + More”. They will headline both nights and will have 22 other artists performing. The official website for the festival is here. The festival is in partnership with C3 who also does Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.

The festival will be hosted at the decommissioned airport Bader Field. The site was chosen because it’s centrally located — easy to get to from the East Coast, and halfway between L.A. and Western Europe — and hotels in Atlantic City are plentiful and affordable. They will play The Black Album in full one night and Ride the Lightning in full the other.

Here are the other bands playing that have been announced so far: Arctic Monkeys, Avenged Sevenfold, Modest Mouse, The Gaslight Anthem, Cage the Elephant, Fucked Up, Best Coast, Hot Snakes, Titus Andronicus, Gary Clark Jr., Lucero, Roky Erickson, The Black Angels, The Sword, A Place to Bury Strangers, and Liturgy.

There will also be a “lifestyle element” to the festival outside the music itself (think: activities, vendors, etc).

Met Club on-sale is February 8th at 10am through February 10th at 10am, and will be priced as follows: 2-day passes will cost only $125 and the “Met Club Ultra” 2-day pass will cost $225 (VIP access, etc). By modern Metallica standards that’s actually incredibly affordable! Public on-sale starts at February 11th at 10am and will cost $150 for “Early Bird” and $175 for “Advanced” (not sure what the difference is) for the 2-day passes. All times are EST.

2:42pm EST: And now it’s over! That’s all we’ve got for now. 

-VN

Additional reporting: Brooklyn Vegan