At this year's Lollapalooza festival, rock, metal and punk will all be represented with Metallica, Green Day and Machine Gun Kelly billed high up — a marginally unexpected, but welcome surprise. What's truly shocking though is that breakout deathcore band Lorna Shore have also been tapped for the predominantly mainstream pop/indie/rap/hip-hop event.
While we don't anticipate any future Lollapalooza lineup to resemble anything close to what we'd typically see at a Mayhem Fest, Knotfest, Ozzfest, etc., it's an overwhelmingly positive sign that sincerely heavy music is gradually factoring into the mainstream conscience.
That notion alone will likely prove to be a divisive one as protective headbangers aim to keep their distance from the mainstream, but Lorna Shore's inclusion at this year's Lollapalooza festival, taking place at Grant Park in Chicago from July 28 through July 31, firmly flies in the face of the "rock is dead" narrative that has circulated throughout the last decade, namely by KISS bassist and co-vocalist Gene Simmons.
Other rock acts set to play include Idles, Turnstile, Willow, Royal Blood, Maneskin, Dashboard Confessional, Wet Leg, The Wombats, The Regrettes, Kennyhoopla, Gayle, Taipei Houston, Giovannie and the Hired Guns and Meet Me @ the Altar.
As mainstream events continuously shunned metal in particular, that was all met with backlash from those communities, who felt the pain of the time-honored insult of heavy music not getting its fair due.
The pendulum has been swinging back in the other direction, however.
A number of megastar pop and rap/hip-hop acts have been openly supportive of metal and have either dipped their toes in the waters of heavy music (Doja Cat's super metal performance at the 2020 MTV Europe Music Awards) or have expressed a desire to maybe one day make a metal album (Ed Sheeran, who may even collaborate with Cradle of Filth's Dani Filth). Post Malone even booked new age death metal act Gatecreeper and buzz band Turnstile for his namesake festival, which was set to take place in 2021 but was postponed.
Now, tens of thousands of unsuspecting festival goers stand to be smacked in the jaw when Lorna Shore hit the stage. The band experienced viral success last year after releasing "To The Hellfire" off their ...And I Return to Nothingness EP and it was a more than ideal entry point for new vocalist Will Ramos, who dazzled with his dynamic range of bowel-rattling gutturals, tortuous shrieks and slaughter-ripe pig squeals.
So, score one for metal. The mainstream has been put on notice.
And if Lollapalooza isn't your bag, you can catch Lorna Shore providing support for Suicide Silence and Carnifex on a U.S. tour beginning in early May. See those dates here.
