51 injured in festival lightning strike

A single lighning bolt injured 51 festivalgoers when it struck at the With Full Force event in Leipzig, Germany.

Witnesses say fans were thrown into the air in the electric explosion. Three were admitted to a nearby hospital’s intensive care unit with serious injuries.

The festival featured Machine Head, Soulfy, Children of Bodom, Flogging Molly and Trivium among others. It was also to have included Lamb of God, but they were forced to cancel after the arrest of frontman Randy Blythe in Prague on a manslaughter charge.

Violent conditions built up throughout the evening on Saturday, resulting in the huge thunderstorm which struck around 2am. The web of lightning overhead was described as “like a strobe light”. Spiegel reports the bolt “left behind a wasteland of destroyed tents, panicked guests and a venue flooded with mud and deep puddles.”

Elsewhere in Germany, a lightning bolt from the same storm killed three woman and seriously injured another when it struck the small hut they were sheltering in. Another woman died when her car was crushed by a tree. Flash floods, fallen trees and hailstones the size of golfballs were also reported.

source: classicrockmagazine.com

Metallica Announce First-Ever Orion Music Fest

Arctic Monkeys, Modest Mouse, Gaslight Anthem among other acts on June festival lineup.

They've headlined stadiums around the world and made an incredibly polarizing album with punk grandfather Lou Reed. So what's left for Metallica to do to cap off a stellar year? How about launch their own summer festival with a lineup that includes some of their favorite bands?



On Tuesday (February 7), the group announced the debut of the Orion Music + More fest, described as an annual "music, arts and lifestyle" gathering that will feature multiple stages and take place June 23-24 at Bader Field in Atlantic City, New Jersey.


In addition to headlining sets from Metallica each day — during which they will play The Black Album one night and Ride the Lightning the other in their only North American performances of those classic releases in 2012 — the festival will also feature sets from: Arctic Monkeys, Avenged Sevenfold, Modest Mouse, the Gaslight Anthem, Cage the Elephant, F---ed Up, Best Coast, Hot Snakes, Titus Andronicus, Gary Clark Jr., Lucero, Roky Erickson, the Black Angels, the Sword and Liturgy. More bands will be announced in the coming weeks.

"We've had the idea of doing our own lifestyle festival with lots of diverse music and fun and games for years," drummer Lars Ulrich said in a press release announcing the event. "Finally this year all the practical ducks lined up in a row, and we are beyond psyched to bring Orion to our fans, friends and the curious. After the most incredible of weeks ever in December 2011 celebrating our 30th anniversary at the Fillmore in San Francisco, CA, bringing the spirit of that week, the looseness of that week, the possibilities of that week, the fan interactive elements of that week, and the (fill in your own blank here) of that week to a festival setting is so exciting we can hardly contain ourselves."

Pre-sale tickets for the Metallica fan club start Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET, with the public on-sale slated to begin Saturday. Tickets are $150 for two-day passes for the public and $125 for fan-club members. Head to OrionMusicAndMore.com for details.

source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1678721/metallica-orion-festival.jhtml