There’s not long to wait now until the inaugural edition of Download Festival Australia reveals its lineup to us – just two days, in fact – but that’s not going to stop us trying to put the pieces together early.
The Madrid leg of the huge heavy music festival has just announced its lineup, and of course there are some huge names in rock and metal playing in, with Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Marilyn Manson, Avenged Sevenfold, A Perfect Circle, Bullet For My Valentine leading the charge.
Clutch, Tesseract and Galactic Empire round out the first lineup announcement, with more acts expected to be announced shortly.
We don’t know which, if any, of these acts might show up on the Australian lineup when it’s announced this Thursday the 9th, and Madrid is clearly a very different beast to the first running of an Aussie festival, but it does get the mind racing.
Locked in for March 24 2018 at Melbourne’s Flemington Racecourse, Download Festival Australia will open the grounds up to 25,000 punters for the day, with 28 bands playing across four stages.
One of these acts who may be on the cards is Marilyn Manson, who recently told triple j’s Ben and Liam that his management are organising his return, adding “They haven’t told me when it’s supposed to be, but I obviously want to come there.”
He doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of outdoor gigs, however, and may take some persuading.
“I’ve never really gotten the outdoor concert thing,” he explained, when discussing his most recent trips to Australia for Soundwave festival in 2012 and 2015.
“I remember I went to Lollapalooza, the very first one, and I took acid… There was a family that had a picnic blanket out and they were all covered in warts. Head to toe warts, as if they were cactus people with warts, and that was not good to watch when you’re on acid, it terrified me.”
“Strangely, maybe it was the acid that put me off, or maybe I was in the shade of the wart family, but it was not that hot out — even though it was in Florida — but any other festivals that are outdoors… they seem really sweaty.”
“It shows that the fans really endure the weather to get to see their favourite bands,” he concluded, “so in that sense I appreciate it.”
We imagine anyone who rocks up to Download Festival Australia will end up having a much better experience than he did at Lollapalooza, thankfully, and will keep tapping our foot impatiently until the lineup gets unleashed in a couple of days.
Download Festival Australia 2018
Presented by Live Nation, Unified and Secret Sounds
Saturday March 24, 2018 – Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
Lineup announced November 9
