Friday big 4.

[luckysalt]

Thrash hits are reporting that friday at soni will be the big 4 of metallica, anthrax, slayer and megadeth, and this was meant to be announced yesterday with biffy but something happened that meant they couldnt announce it. Soni have said there may be an announcement later this week.

[jump]

f**king hell that's tempting, what order will the line up be though? I can see a few squabbles over it.

[cyberdrummer]

Have you got a link, can't seem to find it. Probably me being stupid.

EDIT: Don't worry found it. http://www.thrashhits.com/2010/12/linkin-park-and-rob-zombie-huh-for-download-festival-2011-biffy-clyro-for-sonisphere-2011/#more-14512

Edited December 7, 2010 by cyberdrummer

[eFestivals]

Thrash hits are reporting that friday at soni will be the big 4 of metallica, anthrax, slayer and megadeth, and this was meant to be announced yesterday with biffy but something happened that meant they couldnt announce it. Soni have said there may be an announcement later this week.

hmmm, it doesn't say that now, at least not anywhere that I can find.

[she bangs the drums]

Thrash Hits

The biggest brouhaha though (at least as far as the Internet shit-talkers go) is the booking of Biffy Clyro as the Saturday night headliners at Sonisphere 2011. It raises a couple of rather interesting questions:

1) Are Biffy Clyro “big” enough to headline Sonisphere? (Answer: Yes, they’ve headlined Wembley Arena).

2) Are Biffy Clyro the “right fit” for Sonisphere? (Answer: It remains to be seen)

I’m going to put my neck out – I don’t think Sonisphere’s announcement yesterday was originally intended to be just Biffy Clyro. I think there were supposed to be more bands included in their announcement, but for various contractual reasons, Kilimanjaro had to pull the plug at the last minute. Heck, Andy Copping’s on-again-off-again-on-again situation with Rob Zombie is a perfect example of the way that festival bill confirmations can flip overnight – and I’d bet a pretty penny that’s what happened to Sonisphere yesterday.

And just why do I think that? The guys over at Sonisphere had been doing some serious talking-up as far as yesterday’s announcement went – they were promising that “Something wonderful is about to happen…” over on the festival’s Facebook page. Confession time: I know people that work at both Sonisphere and Download Festival, and contrary to what some of the more vocal internet sh1t-spouters might have you believe, they all genuinely want to put on the best festivals they can. They’re not in the habit of bigging up line-up announcements when they know they might come across as a disappointment to some of the people waiting to hear the next slew of bands. Rightly or wrongly, the announcement of Biffy Clyro all on their lonesome was seen as a disappointment by a lot of people. I think there was a plan afoot to announce something genuinely spectacular, but some outside force got in the way at the last moment.

F*ck it, let’s really go out on a limb here – last year Sonisphere Festival was almost a full 3-day festival, with an evening-only Friday before the two full-days of bands that were playing over the weekend. Let’s just suppose – on a purely hypothetical level, you understand – that they do something similar this year. If I’m honest, it’d be hugely surprising if they didn’t, given how successful it turned out this year. If you’re going to put on an evening-only half-day, you need to really push the boat out, and get something truly special to make it appeal to your ticket holders and inspire them to make the effort to get down to Knebworth nice and early. You’ve also got to deal with a much more limited timeframe – if the bands start at 6pm, then you’ve only really got room for around, oh, I dunno, FOUR bands to play decent length sets. Even then, they’d still have to be a pretty BIG FOUR bands in order to make it work – don’t you think?

[she bangs the drums]

Thinking about it, they did say originally that we would get 6 bands, then Slipknot was announced and they said they were going to announce 5 bands yesterday and only one was announced......so who were the other 4?

[5co77ie]

I've said this for some time it's now the third year (and final) of the Metallica deal (the one which both sides say don't exist! ) -seems silly not to have them back.

Metallica said in the Sonisphere interview on the site earlier this year,

Any clues as to where you’ll be playing with Sonisphere next year?

Right now it’s a little early still, but we did a bunch of great Sonisphere festivals last year in 2009. We’ve done a bunch of different ones in 2010 and I think 2011 will hopefully take us back to a few of the same countries and probably take us to a few new countries. It’s been a lot of fun to do this thing with Megadeth and Slayer and Anthrax and I think we’d like to do it in different parts of the world.

Edited December 7, 2010 by 5co77ie

[5co77ie]

I was hoping for the Ayreon/Star One thing on friday - the metal opera, and with Arjen A. Lucassen plus loads of guests, including Ed Warby, Bruce Dickinson, Fish, James Labrie, Mikael Akerfeldt, Russell Allen, Devin Townsend, Daniel Gildenlow, Hansi Kursch, Jorn Lande, Anneke van Giersbergen, Neal Morse, Floor Jansen, Dave Brock, Ken Hensley, Damian Wilson and many others.

Rather than S&M2

[lharris92]

I've said this for some time it's now the third year (and final) of the Metallica deal (the one which both sides say don't exist! ) -seems silly not to have them back.

Metallica said in the Sonisphere interview on the site earlier this year,

However as I posted on here a while ago there are hints that Sonisphere will be going to the USA to do a Big Four tour there for the first time ever. There will definitely be a big four tour - whether it includes Sonisphere UK we still have to wait and see.

Edited to add: We do know it's only 10 dates

Edited December 7, 2010 by lharris92

[5co77ie]

EDIT: FOUND THE LINKS

and then the big four plans might delay the tour that rivals the wall tour: http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news/metallica-to-delay-their-pink-floyd-tour/

so they are both different plans, but could come into one, but who knows

[lharris92]

tbh i reckon they will do their own big four gigs, not with soni, just so they can do plan it themselves.

[she bangs the drums]

That's an interesting quote I'd not seen before.

[gazza_20]

I'm curious if they're going to give Machine Head a headline Friday spot. Would be perfect for the average crowd.

Not big enought to headline but could do 2nd/3rd eg. alice cooper

Think metallica will do own big 4. but could do it

So.

Machine Head

Biffy Clyro

Slipknot

[t8yman]

The big 4 is very possible. And no, it wont be done as a seperate tour over here IMHO. And the metallica 10 cities thing is definitely nothing to do with the big 4. its gonna be all Metallica, and its touted to be something very special, and whilst the big 4 is something very special to us, it isnt to Metallica.

[cyberdrummer]

According to a well-regarded member of the Sonisphere and Metallica forums, festival management have confirmed to the Sonisphere forum admin staff that the Big 4 will be playing on the Friday, and in France and Italy too.

[bekimo]

See I thought the Big 4 would do Sonisphere. But I was listening to Kerrang Radio on the way to Taste of Chaos at NIA last night and they played a song by Biffy. Afterwards, Kate Lawler said that Biffy would be headlining Sonisphere with Slipknot and Foo Fighters. I was like WTF!

But I can't see this has been announced anywhere and it wasn't referred to again. Did he make a proper boo boo and they are making out like it never happened? Or was she thinking about T?

Hmm...

[5co77ie]

According to a well-regarded member of the Sonisphere and Metallica forums, festival management have confirmed to the Sonisphere forum admin staff that the Big 4 will be playing on the Friday, and in France and Italy too.

[5co77ie]

The big 4 is very possible. And no, it wont be done as a seperate tour over here IMHO. And the metallica 10 cities thing is definitely nothing to do with the big 4. its gonna be all Metallica, and its touted to be something very special, and whilst the big 4 is something very special to us, it isnt to Metallica.

[gazza_20]

I'm sure there's some gentlemen's agreement where if Metallica do a Sonisphere event they don't play anything else in that country. So the 10 cities thing can't happen in the same countries as those where Metallica play a Sonisphere.

[gazza_20]

See I thought the Big 4 would do Sonisphere. But I was listening to Kerrang Radio on the way to Taste of Chaos at NIA last night and they played a song by Biffy. Afterwards, Kate Lawler said that Biffy would be headlining Sonisphere with Slipknot and Foo Fighters. I was like WTF!

But I can't see this has been announced anywhere and it wasn't referred to again. Did he make a proper boo boo and they are making out like it never happened? Or was she thinking about T?

Hmm...

[cyberdrummer]

Also, there are people on the Download forums that say they heard the exact same thing about Foo Fighters on Kerrang Radio, but for Download not Sonisphere.

[bekimo]

Also, there are people on the Download forums that say they heard the exact same thing about Foo Fighters on Kerrang Radio, but for Download not Sonisphere.

[bekimo]

Only thing is it says above that metal fans will be please, Foos aren't metal, although can't see a lot of people going there being bothered about if its metal or not if its them as a lot are happy to leave it another year to see metallica

[gazza_20]

I think Foos is defo an option. As sum1 has said metallica doing a 10 city tour and that apparantly has a clause that thats all they do.

[biffoire]

Remember it soni guys. I remember having my hopes raised and dashed in the run up to the first one so wouldn't give the benefit of the doubt personally. Also seems backwards to field the big 4 on the opening day. Surely you'd want them to close the festival. Or the Saturday.

But yeah, 'metal heads will be pleased' for me would be taken with the same amount of salt thats currently in my drive when it comes from the same people who said 'we have a HUGE announcement' then announced squat! Then eventually announced Heaven and Hell.