METALLICA will play its first-ever live performance in Saudi Arabia subsequent month.
The heavy metallic giants will headline the opening evening of the three-day Soundstorm competition in Riyadh on December 14.
Different artists scheduled to look on the occasion embrace Pharrell Williams, Chris Brown, H.E.R., BLACK EYED PEAS, J Balvin and Anne-Marie, in addition to DJs Tiesto and David Guetta.
Greater than 600,000 folks reportedly attended final 12 months’s Soundstorm.
Soundstorm, organized by Saudi music giants MDLBEAST, has been attracting a few of the greatest acts within the area and the globe to Riyadh since its launch in 2019.
The competition website spans greater than 5 and a half million sq. meters with park life areas for meals shops and road performers protecting competition goers entertained between units at what’s been dubbed “the loudest week in Riyadh”.
Stated METALLICA: “We’re not completed with 2023 simply but, as an incredible alternative has simply come our option to carry out at a significant competition that we now have by no means performed in part of the world we hardly ever get to go to.
“We’re excited to announce that on Thursday, December 14 we’ll be the primary laborious rock band to ever play at @MDLBeast’s Soundstorm Competition in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“Competition and single-day tickets can be found now at mdlbeast.com.”
METALLICA made its Center East stay debut in 2011 at Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Park. They performed the identical venue two years later.
Earlier than METALLICA carried out in Abu Dhabi in 2013, drummer Lars Ulrich instructed The Nationwide: “Once we have been right here a 12 months and a half in the past, it was actually magical. Now, I do not say that all over the place… there have been so many various nationalities — an amazing power and shared expertise.
“Once we began taking part in, there have been so many components of the world the place the kind of music that we have been doing was not likely accepted. There have been quite a lot of locations the place folks did not know what we have been doing or did not have sufficient infrastructure to help a band like us. Nevertheless it’s opening up. It is altering and the world is shrinking. It is nice to be within the entrance traces.”
In October 2022, Saudi melodic loss of life metallic band IMMORTAL PAIN turned the primary group to carry out heavy metallic at a big public occasion when it performed at Comedian Con Arabia.
Again in October 2019, Saudi Arabia’s grindcore band CREATIVE WASTE performed what’s believed to have been the primary public metallic live performance within the kingdom’s historical past. On the time, CREATIVE WASTE frontman Fawaz Al Shawaf instructed Steel Injection: “Main as much as the present, folks, particularly bands, have been skeptical for the longest time, as a result of they existed within the outdated technology. Loads of them have been being conservative. They have been nervous. Nobody’s able to take the chance. However, I imply, those who organized the present are literally principally newcomers and younger. They did not even know what grindcore or loss of life metallic was. In order that they weren’t into excessive music, however they requested us, and I assumed the concept was so loopy that I accepted it as a result of it is part of the change.”
In early 2022, Saudi metallic artist Meshari Sangora, who goes by the title “Nightfall“, instructed Mille in regards to the metallic scene within the kingdom: “Sure, there was and nonetheless is a metallic scene all around the kingdom — from bands that have been fashioned within the late ’90s to the early 2000s and even as much as at present. Just lately, locations like Syrup in Riyadh and The Music House in Jeddah have given the chance for indie musicians, together with metallic artists like myself, to precise themselves. With all of the modifications which are taking place and the continual engagement on social media, extra persons are getting uncovered to the style. Which makes me see an amazing future for the metallic scene and metallic music within the Center East and Saudi Arabia.”
We’re not completed with 2023 simply but, as an incredible alternative has simply come our option to carry out at a significant competition that…
Posted by Metallica on Monday, November 27, 2023
