With this year’s event only just coming to a close, with a controversial curtain call to the Perth leg which was afflicted by power cuts that orgnanisers have called a “cheap political stunt,” rumours and speculation surrounding the Soundwave 2014 lineup have already begun.

Festival head honcho AJ Maddah has taken to his now infamous twitter feed revealing that the formulation of the lineup for the next installment of Soundwave has already begun.

The promoter has acknowledged himself that it will be hard to top the impressive bill of this year which saw acts like Metallica, Blink 182, Garbage, Linkin Park, The Offspring, Paramore, Slayer and Anthrax, topping a 70-strong bill of high quality metal and hardcore acts.

Maddah explains that “it was our 10th anniversary, so [it was] a one off big show,” and despite the increasing popularity and success of the festival, seemingly gaining in momentum with each of its annual festival series, that “we’re not going to top it.”

As FasterLouder reports, looking towards the 2014 edition of the event sees the confirmation that acts have already been locked in from the US, Sweden, Japan and Denmark, with Maddah maintaining his stance that Soundwave will be continuing as a predominantly international festival.

First hand off the bat sees Swedish glam metal outfit Crashdiet confirmed for the 2014 festival series as they revealed via social media a promotional billboard for their recently released album, The Savage Playground, along with the attached caption “this is what we call promoting! Soundwave Festival.”

Furthermore Maddah has unveiled the plans to feature a new Japanese stage at the festival that will play host to an array of heavy acts from the country. Maddah confirmed the inclusion of acts, X Japan and Maximum The Hormone via twitter feed:

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Continuing the apparently established Soundwave tradition of revealing information about the festival on his twitter, the promoter has also confimred the inclusion of Danish act Volbeat, (“almost confirmed,” he writes), American heavy metal outfit Godsmack (“they were in at 1 point, but had to pull out. SW14.”), and fellow American hard rockers Shinedown (“All good. Talking to the band’s agent about SW14”).

Other industry whispers have name checked British hardcore act Lower Than Atlantis, fellow English alt-rock outfit Don Broco, Swedish metallers Dead By April, and even a return from the reinvigorated Fall Out Boy, who are checking in for a whirlwind Australian visit at the end of the month in support of the announcement of their first album of new material since 2008’s Folie à Deux.

Following these announcements we’re expecting a continuous drip-feed of lineup inclusions to continue over the next few months untill the full bill is officially revealed later this year, let the speculation begin, we say.

AJ Maddah has taken to his now infamous twitter feed revealing that the formulation of the lineup for the next installment of Soundwave has already begun.

Soundwave 2014 may not roll back into Perth however, following the controversy surrounding the power cuts that affected sets by the likes of The Offspring, The Amity Affliction, and Pierce The Veil, Maddah accused the Western Australian State Government of being behind what he describes as a “cheap political stunt.”

He continued with a twitter rampage slamming government officials whom he believes have had it out for the festival ever since a 10pm curfew was imposed on the event.

Maddah further went on to comment on how “the fuckwit from Dept Envir & Consv was too gutless to shut down the big stages,” noting that Metallica were unaffected by the power cuts. “They wanted to hurt us, but knew that if they cut Metallica 45000 fans would set the town on fire.”

Despite these setbacks, Soundwave powers on as high attendance numbers for the festival prove that it is a force to be reckoned with. Estimates for this year’s crowd numbers have been found to trump those of some of Australia’s biggest festivals, including Big Day Out and Stereosonic.

In Adelaide, it was reported that numbers are estimated to have reached around 40,000 for the South Australian leg of Soundwave, whilst numbers for Big Day Out pale in comparison, only having sold an incomparable 17,000 tickets for their event.

Soundwave has proved itself to be a monster among festivals and continues to provide punters with an annually high quality ‘fuck you’ to other events on the Australian festival circuit. It’ll be hard to compete with the impressive lineup of this year but we can rest assured that it will be ridiculously impressive none the less.

Who knows, maybe Soundwave 2014 can also top this year’s almost comical number of absent drummers, guitarists, and entire bands who pulled out ahead of the event (the full list here if you can’t remember them all).

Soundwave 2014 Lineup Confirmations

Crashdiet
X Japan
Maximum The Hormone
Volbeat
Godsmack
Shinedown

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