Two years ago, Metallica teased that their namesake festival, the Metallica Orion festival, might be returning in 2015. Well, the year is almost over and clearly that didn't happen, and it looks like it will never happen again.
The festival ran for two years, in 2012 in Atlantic City and 2013 in Detroit before going on (now permanant) hiatus. Recently, James Hetfield spoke to the band's fan zine, So What? magazine and confirmed the festival idea is dead:
"I'm so glad we did Orion. Those two we did were fun. We got some bands out there in front of people, our fans mainly, and that was the whole idea. If it would have broken even, we'd still be doing it, but we lost millions both times. We can't do that. At some point, business comes into play. Why would you keep doing something that's damaging you and could prevent you moving forward?"
He added: "It was fun to do, we had a blast doing it, employed a lot of people and helped out both cities it was in. A lot of good came out of it, but we can't do it again."
In terms of festival organization, the first iteration was the best run festival I'd ever been to. The problem was it wasn't a metal festival, and it wasn't a rock festival, it was really hard to guage who the audience for the fest would be. This is something that Hetfield himself acknowledged:
"Maybe it was too adventurous, bill-wise. I think it was too wide. If it was more of a metal fest, or really hard, maybe? What we were going for was 'edge.' Every band that was there had some kind of edge. And it didn't matter what genre they were in. I won't say every band, but that's the vibe we were going for. Maybe it needed to be a little more secular."
He continued: "How do festivals get big? I don't know. If it's billed as the hippie festival, do all the hippies come? If it's billed as the death metal fest, do all the death metal people come?"
"And who knows? Maybe it was us attaching our name. It's, like, 'Ah, it's their festival. I don't want to go.' I have no idea! Are we putting too much importance on our name? If we opened up the METALLICA hamburger stand over there, would more people come or fewer people come because they like us or don't like us? Are their opinions influenced by our moniker on there?"
Much like when Hetfield was asked about the band's failed movie attempt, Hetfield could see from the fan's point of view why it didn't work:
"Why, at the METALLICA festival, are the RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS playing? Or why did Eric Church play at a METALLICA festival? That's just wrong. I'm not going.' And tribalism. I love tribal earth. I love 'belonging.' I love a sense of family. I love a sense of 'it's okay to be different when you're different together.' And everyone's different. Everyone knows they're connected at the end of the day, but maybe sometimes you just think, 'Why can't you just like what you like because you like it?' Do I have to sit through ten other bands that I don't like just to see the band I like? Maybe I don't want to do that.' It's as simple as that."
He continued: "Trying to please all, all the time, has never worked. Never.
"And instead of all the fans of those bands coming into one place to join together, which was kind of the 'new PC' way to be — 'it's one world, one family' — they actually canceled each other out instad. 'My God, I don't want to go hang out with a bunch of greasy metalheads, with lice, headbanging, and their bugs flying into my hair! I don't want to share a toilet with that guy!' Maybe it was that? I don't know."
Look, I'm no festival promoter but all I can say is if instead of booking all these weird folk and indie acts, if they just stuck to hard rock and heavy metal, they really could have done something cool and worth going to. Clearly, other bands learned from Metallica's mistakes, as Slipknot have been running their own fest for almost five years, and every year it's just stronger and stronger. Because they only book metal acts!
It's a shame that a fest so well run would not be returning, but I guess it the thing that should not be. Thank you, good night.
[via Blabbermouth]
