There’s been much anticipation heaped upon the Soundwave 2014 lineup before the first round of bands were announced for the annual hard and heavy music festival this afternoon, and while promoter AJ Maddah had talked down expectations of topping this year’s 10th anniversary lineup in the lead up to the Soundwave 2014 reveal, there’s still plenty of reason to get excited.

With 50+ bands announced for the bill there’s a lot to take in, so we’re going to attempt to break down some of the bigger names on the Soundwave 2014 lineup, starting with the big question…

There’s No Nine Inch Nails… And There Won’t Be

First of all, as with every year, this is only the first round of bands to be announced. As Maddah tweeted ahead of today’s announcement, “this is the 1st of our 2 announcements,” which includes just “2 of our 3 headline artists” in the form of Green Day and Avenged Sevenfold, with another major player topping the bill in a forthcoming announcement which “will have 20 bands if i can manage not to book any more!” adds Maddah.

But don’t hold your breath for the heavily rumoured Nine Inch Nails being one of them. Despite Trent Reznor and the revitalised lineup being in negotiations with Maddah, it seems that they weren’t interested. Maddah telling one disappointed fan about their omission: “Sorry Sarah. Sadly Trent wants to be mainstream now and reach Justin Timberlake’s audience;” while responding to another fan’s query of “where’s Nine Inch Nails” with “up their own arse sadly.” While further placing doubt on NIN reaching Australia at all:

Green Day Are Big Name Headliners


Sure they might not have the peak legacy and huge commercial figures of Soundwave 2013 headliners Metallica, but Green Day aren’t far behind. Quickly approaching their 30th Anniversary, the trio of singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tré Cool, make perfectly suited headliners for the Soundwave 2014 lineup. For starters, they’re one of the biggest selling acts in the world, with more than 75 million global album sales to their name, drawn from their 11 album-strong discography.

Their first to Australia in three years, Green Day will be playing “festivals only,” confirms Maddah, meaning zero sideshows, and playing a “2.5 hour set” for their Soundwave 2014 headline slot. Which gives them plenty of time to squeeze in the 40 landmark minutes of their 1994 major label debut Dookie live, just as they did at a recent warm-up gig ahead of their appearance at this week’s Leeds and Reading festivals in the UK, as NME reports.

Soundwave 2014 audiences young and old would totally lap up Green Day performing their third album from start to finish. Their live sets always features a greatest hits element too that draws liberally from American Idiot, the album that brought them out of the four-year slump following 2000’s Warning album and saw Green Day supplanting the pop in their punk attitude with purpose.

It’s directly responsible for Green Day becoming the stadium-straddling band they’ve been over the last decade with their super-sized arena spectaculars with a catalogue’s worth of stone-cold festival anthems. In fact American Idiot not only spawned massive singles – including ‘Holiday’, ‘When September Ends’, ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’, and the 9-minute epic ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ – but also a Broadway rock opera of the same name. The entire process is chronicled in Broadway Idiot, a feature-length documentary that is getting a cinematic run this October before heading to home release, as Billboard reports.

Recent Setlist – Aug, 21st O2 Academy Brixton, London, England Aug.
99 Revolutions
Know Your Enemy
Stay the Night
Stop When the Red Lights Flash
Letterbomb
Holiday
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Let Yourself Go
Wake Me Up When September Ends
Dookie
Burnout
Having a Blast
Chump
Longview
Welcome to Paradise
Pulling Teeth
Basket Case
She
Sassafras Roots
When I Come Around
Coming Clean
Emenius Sleepus
In the End
F.O.D.
St. Jimmy
Waiting
Minority
Encore:
American Idiot
Jesus of Suburbia
Brutal Love
Encore 2:
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)

Avenged Sevenfold Arrive With Fire In The Belly


The announcement of Avenged Sevenfold, or A7X as their known by their near-religious following, as the second headliner on the Soundwave 2014 lineup perfectly coincides with the release of the heavy metal quintet’s latest album, Hail To The King, which was released today. It is not only A7X’s first album in three years, since 2010’s Nightmare, but also their first full-length featuring their new permanent drummer Arin Ilejay, who joined the band in 2011 (following a stint replacement from Dream Theater sticksman Mike Portnoy) to replace the tragic loss of Jimmy ‘The Rev’ Sullivan, who passed in 2009.

“When we lost The Rev, it all became like the whole world was looking at us under a microscope to see what we were really made of,” rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Zacky Vengeance told The Morning Call in a recent interview. If early listens to Hail To The King are anything to go by, the band are made of some stern stuff indeed, turning in what might be a new career peak to rival 2005’s City Of Evil, and with a new sense of fight and fire in their belly – and a galvanised lineup – they’re likely to turn in a hugely memorable set.

Recent Setlist – Aug 10, Heavy MTL 2013, QC Canada
Critical Acclaim
Beast and the Harlot
Welcome to the Family
Almost Easy
Buried Alive
Fiction
Nightmare
Hail to the King
Afterlife
Chapter Four
Encore:
Bat Country
Unholy Confessions

Stone Temple Pilots – Scott Weiland + Chester Bennington = Awesome


Nineties alt-rock Stone Temple Pilots are a surprise addition to the lineup, with Australian fans getting to experience the group with replacement Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington for the first time, playing a handful of new tunes as well as staples like ‘Vasoline’ and ‘Tripppin’ On A Hole In A Paper Heart’. Sure former vocalist Scott Weiland isn’t too happy about being booted from the band he helped form, suing his former STP bandmates to the tune of $5 million, but as he recently told Billboard, he’s got no beef with Bennington himself – with Noisecreep pointing out that the issue has even reached Weiland’s own solo shows, apologising to fans over the emotional fight between the two parties. Still, until a judge rules otherwise, it seems the Linkin Park-enhanced STP are free to continue playing the back catalogue in concert. Fans will just have to hope that no legal injunctions stop the group from their Soundwave 2014 lineup commitments.

Recent Set List – 19th May, Live 105 FM, Shoreline Amphitheatre, CA
Sex Type Thing
Vasoline
Big Bang Baby
Out of Time
Interstate Love Song
Wicked Garden
Dead & Bloated
Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart

One Of The Big Four: Megadeth


Dave Mustaine must have missed the memo when three of metal’s ‘Big Four’ made the Soundwave bill earlier this year, but promoters have rectified that by bringing out the metal legends for next year’s bill, and they aren’t among the highest of heavy rock royalty for nothing. Face-melting guitar solos, a catalogue of time-proven hits, Mustaine’s loopy on-stage banter, a Megadeth set has it all and fans can get warmed up with the September release of Countdown To Extinction: Live, a new live bundle that captures the group on their 20th anniversary tour of their double-platinum 1992 album of the same name, as Anti Music reports. The band have also been turning out quite a few covers in recent sets, including bouts of Thin Lizzy and even a cover of Mustaine’s former band, Metallica, at a recent show with none other than former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted – who’s also on the Soundwave 2014 bill. Mmmmm.

Recent Setlist – Aug 11, Molson Amphitheatre, Toronto, ON, Canada
Trust
Hangar 18
Wake Up Dead
In My Darkest Hour
Sweating Bullets
Skin o’ My Teeth
A Tout Le Monde
She-Wolf
Kingmaker
Dance in the Rain
Cold Sweat (Thin Lizzy cover)
Phantom Lord (Metallica cover) (with Jason Newsted)
Symphony of Destruction
Peace Sells
Holy Wars… The Punishment Due

The New(ish) Alice In Chains Aren’t A Nostalgia Act


It might still be difficult to disassociate Seattle rock veterans Alice In Chains from late frontman Layne Staley, but after achieving the seemingly impossible four years ago – with the release of a new album with a new singer after nearly 15 years in Black Gives Way To Blue – the band have proven they’re more than just survivors. The release of their latest LP, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here demonstrates there’s more at work than just a group capitalising on their legacy for a few quick bucks, but instead an active, artistic unit. Replacement singer/guitarist William DuVall tells The Oakland Press that where Black Gives Way “was very much ‘the first one’ [with] a feeling of exerting our right to exist,” with Dinosaurs… the band “had a little more of a comfortable, easy feeling.”

Recent Setlist – Aug 20, Molson Amphitheatre, Toronto, ON, Canada
Them Bones
Dam That River
Hollow
Again
Check My Brain
Man in the Box
Got Me Wrong
Last of My Kind
Stone
Down in a Hole
No Excuses
Would?
Rooster

Don’t Count Placebo Out


If you only know these androgynous rockers from Brian Molko’s distinctive nasal twang and their 1998 sophomore Without You I’m Nothing, then you’re doing it wrong. Placebo have been steadily crafting an impressive body of work since then, dipping their toe into industrial rock and fizzing punk, with healthy lashings of electronic and symphonic influences. They’re also conssumate professionals on the European tour circuit who know how to fill a venue with a grand sense of ambition and fervour. Come February 2014, they’ll also have a brand new set of tunes under their belt in the September release of Loud Like Love, which enlisted the services of American novelist Bret Easton Ellis for the video for lead single ‘Too Many Friends‘, which would provide a nice mid-festival breather before they grind back into fan crushing favourites like ‘Special K’, ‘The Bitter End’, and ‘Taste In Men’.

Recent Setlist – Aug 16, Parkorman, Istanbul, Turkey
B3
For What It’s Worth
Bionic
Too Many Friends
Loud Like Love
Twenty Years
Every You Every Me
Black-Eyed
Song to Say Goodbye
Blind
Bright Lights
Meds
Slave to the Wage
Special K
The Bitter End
Encore:
Teenage Angst
Running Up That Hill (Kate Bush cover)
Post Blue
Infra-red

AFI’s Long-Awaited Comeback


It’s been nearly half a decade between drinks for fans of the Californian rockers, who have finally put a date to Burials, the follow-up to 2009’s Crash Love. Recorded in LA with producer Gil Norton (Foo Fighters, Pixies, Patti Smith) and mixed by Andrew Scheps (Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers), frontman Davey Havok says the album deals with the band’s own trials and tribulations. “This record is of silence, of burials, and the burials that result from that silence, he says. Lead single and video, ’17 Crimes’ shows just what he means and displays that the same incendiary guitars and energy the group are known for has not deserted them. But Australia will be one of the first countries outside of the band’s homeland that will get to experience the band’s new material in the flesh, having only just announced their first live dates in three years as Loudwire points out, meaning no recent set lists – it’s anyone’s guess what’ll be on there, but they’d be foolish not to give the crowd a round of ‘Girl’s Not Grey’ and ‘Miss Murder’.

Biffy Clyro Could Be The Surprise Hit Of The Festival


The rock trio that are regularly hailed as ‘Scotland’s answer to Foo Fighters’ have achieved an awful lot since they were last in Australia thee years ago, supporting Muse on their 2010 December tour as well as playing headline club shows. Since then they’ve become certified rock stars in the United Kingdom this year claiming their first ever #1 charting with their double album Opposites, not so much of a surprise considering they are now able to regularly fill massive arena stages, such as the 12,500 capacity Wembley Arena as captured in their 2011 Revolutions: Live release. Their songs have enough bite and edge to satisfy headbangers, yet enough anthemic fervour to ensure lung-bursting sing-alongs, that and the regularly shirtless, bloodied visage of frontman Simon Neil and the rhythm section of the Johnston brothers whipping themselves into a frenzy as fans chant “Mon the Biff!” is a must-see live sight in and of itself.

Recent Setlist – Aug 17, Rock ‘n’ Heim 2013
Stingin’ Belle
The Captain
Sounds Like Balloons
Biblical
God & Satan
The Joke’s on Us
Bubbles
Victory Over the Sun
Opposite
Living Is a Problem Because Everything Dies
Many of Horror
That Golden Rule
Black Chandelier
Mountains

Baroness Will Make An Heroic Return


Tragedy struck the classic metal outfit from Savannah, Georgia when their tour bus flipped last year, hospitalising band members. In the long road to recovery, the band faced further hardships when their rhythm section up and quit the band in the wake of the near-fatal crash, as Pitchfork reports. But instead of putting them in a permanent tailspin, less than a week later, frontman John Baizley announced a US headline with the debut of a new bassist and drummer, fulfilling that old adage “what doesn’t kill you…” and as anyone who caught the band at their 2010 Soundwave Festival performance will tell you, Baroness were already a very strong band indeed.

Recent Setlist – Aug 21, Bluebird Theater, Denver, CO, USA
Ogeechee Hymnal
Take My Bones Away
March to the Sea
A Horse Called Golgotha
Foolsong
Little Things
Green Theme
Swollen and Halo
Board Up the House
Sea Lungs
Cocainium
The Line Between
Eula
The Gnashing
Encore:
The Sweetest Curse
Jake Leg
Isak

Soundwave 2014 Lineup

Green Day
Avenged Sevenfold
Stone Temple Pilots (with Chester Bennington)
Megadeth
Alice In Chains
Rob Zombie
Megadeth
Placebo
AFI
KoRn
Alterbridge
Trivium
Down
DevilDriver
Newsted
Biffy Clyro
Rocket From The Crypt
Asking Alexandria
Clutch
Alkaline Trio
Baroness
Five Finger Death Punch
August Burns Red
Testament
Living Color
Letlive
Motionless In White
Gwar
Black Dahlia Murder
MushroomHead
Finch
Pulled Apart By Horses
Ill Nino
Nancy Vandal
Bowling For Soup
Trash Talk
Skindred
Volbeat
Amon Amarth
Terror
Whitechapel
TesseracT
The Story So Far
Hardcore Superstar
10 Years
Walking Papers
Our Last Night
Coliseum
Your Demise
Heaven’s Basement
Real Friends
+ more to be announced.

Soundwave 2014 Dates & Tickets

Tickets on sale Thrusday 9th September at 9am
via: soundwavefestival.com, oztix.com.au & other outlets

Saturday 22nd February – Brisbane, RNA Showgrounds

Sunday 23rd February – Sydney, Olympic Park

Friday 28th February – Melbourne, Flemington Racecourse

Saturday 1st March – Adelaide, Bonython Park

Monday 3rd March – Perth, Claremont Showgrounds

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine