Metallica has a music festival of their very own. The Los Angeles-based group announced the Orion Music & More Festival via internet livestream, promising a two-day event that Metallica will headline on both days.
Photo Credit: Marv Watson
The festival will take place June 23 and 24 in Atlantic City, New Jersey and features more than 20 other artists “handpicked by Metallica.” Groups as diverse as Modest Mouse, Best Coast and Fucked Up are scheduled to appear (full lineup below). Metallica plans to use each night to play one of their classic albums in its entirety. The two promised records are 1984’s Ride the Lightening and 1991’s Metallica (the “Black Album”). The venue, Bader Field, is described Ulrich as an abandoned airport “literally in the heart of Atlantic City.”
The Festival is named in honor of the band’s late bassist, Cliff Burton. The band calls their song “Orion” (an instrumental track off of 1986’s Master of Puppets that featured multiple bass solos) Burton’s “musical statement,” and means the use of the song’s title in the festival name to allude to him. Burton lost his life when the band’s bus crashed in Sweden in 1986. The band was touring in support of Master of Puppets.
Metallica’s most recent work was a collaborative album with Lou Reed, titled Lulu and released in September of last year. Their last non-collaborative record was 2008’s The Death Magnetic.
Tickets for the Orion Music & More Festival are available right now through the presale on the event’s website. The two-day pass will set you back $125.
Lineup (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
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