Hard rock lovers will once again rejoice next year at Las Vegas’ Sick New World festival, which has secured Metallica and the reunited Linkin Park to headline its third edition on April 12 at Las Vegas Festival Grounds.
The massive, single-day event will feature more than 50 acts, including Queens of the Stone Age, Gojira, AFI, Evanescence, Tomahawk, 311, Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway, the Flaming Lips, the Sisters of Mercy, Meshuggah, Filter and Cradle of Filth. Tickets go on sale Friday (Oct. 18).
As usual, the undercard is loaded with cult classics such as X, Refused, Quicksand, Melvins and Cannibal Corpse, plus scene veterans such as Underoath, Mudvayne, Kittie, Orgy, Lacuna Coil and Stabbing Westward. Louisiana sludge metal outfit Acid Bath is also reuniting at Sick New World for their first performance since 1997.
Since launching in 2023, Sick New World has hosted some of the only System of a Down performances in the past five years. “I had more fun there than I had on many, many other tours, and that’s why we’re doing it again,” frontman Serj Tankian told SPIN after the inaugural edition. “It was a blast. We rehearsed just enough to know our chops and then the rest, who the fuck knows? Let’s see what happens on stage.”