Photo Credit: Mauricio Alvarado

While the wonderful management a.k.a superlative supervisors that reign over yours truly have so kindly asked me not to refer to  myself in the first person…or you, out there, in the second person, well…this time, it just seems necessary. Why? Well,  being as this is the second…count it…second time now I have been assigned a stupidly cool metal festival in Europe, that I can SO not afford to go to, as a very poor recent college graduate, I’m feeling well…a little bad for myself. But, I have very high expectations for my dear readers out there: I’m fairly certain all of you are much better at managing your finances than I am, and thus will make plans this summer to attend the Graspop Metal Meeting 2017, on Friday June 16th through Sunday June 18th in, wait for it, Dessel…Belgium.

The festival’s coordinators just released a stellar lineup which includes legends of heavy, heavy rock Deep Purple, emotional slash metal aristocrats Evanescence, as well as Devin Townsend Project…oh and, a personal favorite of mine— Suicidal Tendencies (hey boys!).

According to the festival’s Facebook page, “[Graspop’s] line-up represents a cross-section of the best the international heavy music scene has to offer: from brutal black metal and melodic power metal to uncompromising hard rock, thrash, metalcore and more… Every year, thousands of metalheads from across Europe and beyond flock to festival park De Stenehei in Dessel, Belgium, for three days of virtuoso shredding, wrist-fracturing drumbeats and epic anthems.”

Please pay special attention to the “wrist-fracturing drumbeats” previously promised by purveyors of the upcoming festivities. You are responsible for reporting back to me on said painful, yet ultimately EPIC predictions from Graspop itself.

As it turns out, the great Metal Meeting has not always been so head-banger friendly, but rather more of a “family rock gathering” in its original mission statement, back in the 1980’s. Actually, as late as 1995 the festival’s grounds welcomed headlining acts such as Simple Minds and Joe Cocker. But, alas, the “over saturation” of similar-in-spirit festivals in the surrounding areas began to impede on Graspop’s success…and it finally found a much more “Shred-worthy” purpose in 1996, with Gods of all things mighty, musical, and slightly satanic Iron Maiden headlining the newly incepted heavy rock…metal-esque event. And well, the rest is kind of history…despite the record 152,000 attendees that show up, stringy, long black-hair clad, ready to rock under the Belgium summer heat. Perspiring so included.

More information of Graspop, as well as a portal to all of your ticket purchasing desires can be found right here, and below, well, is the lineup, as announced this weekend: but, apparently, more is to come! I expect full accounts of your awesome weekend under the care of the metal meeting-ers upon your mid-June return, and for those about to rock…well, I salute you.