Rock and Roll fans all across the tri state are anticipating the debut of Ohio’s newest festival, Sonic Temple Art + Music Festival. Danny Wimmer Presents have created a new heavy metal art and music festival which will take place on the second weekend of May, at the Mapfre Stadium in Columbus, and the lineup is amazing. Music giants like System of a Down, Disturbed, Foo Fighters and Bring Me the Horizon are proof that Rock and Roll is alive and thriving in 2019, and will offer fans some of the most immersive live music experiences possible.
Concert veterans who have attended Rock on the Range in the past know that Mapfre Stadium in Columbus is the perfect setting to witness the pure energy that the artists bring to the stage. As a person walks through the expansive RV city created outside of the stadium, it becomes apparent that the crowds gathered there have banded together to create a tight knit heavy metal community right in the parking lot. Outside of Mapfre during festival season is probably one of the best tailgating experiences in America.
Sonic Temple Festival is one of your only chances to see System of a Down this year, and for that reason alone this will be one of the biggest heavy metal events of the year. Currently SOAD is only playing two shows this year, Sonic Temple and Chicago the next day. SOAD has not regularly played shows since 2015, and their return to an American festival stage will be a sacred experience for the fans able to see them for the first time. Insane anthems that will surely be included in the set include “Chop Suey!,” “BYOB,” “Prison Song,” and “Toxicity.”
There will be many memorable moments from the first Sonic Temple, some of the things that stick out include one of the only shows Russian protest band Pussy Riot will be playing in America this year. Tom Morello will be playing a solo show which will include an opportunity to see authentic Rage Against the Machine songs on the big stage. Ghost always puts on an amazing show, and the band is in a high point in their career, now that they are a Grammy Award winning metal band. People attending the festival should keep in mind that this is an opportunity to see some great spoken word performances from Henry Rollins of Black Flag, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, and Nadya from Pussy Riot. The Foo Fighters are one of the biggest rock acts in the world and the fact that they will be closing the weekend will leave fans awestruck as they depart from the festival to return to real life.
This festival has so many things going on that everyone will have a unique experience. This will be your chance to get out to a brand-new festival and experience rock and roll the way it is meant to be. Stay hydrated, hold up the crowd surfers, pick up people in the pit, and live in the moment at Sonic Temple Festival.
