Louder Than Life 2023 Lineup Announced

The summer festival lineup announcements just keep coming. Today, Louder Than Life announced the lineup for the September 21-24 event that will take place in Louisville, Kentucky.

Headliners include Avenged Sevenfold, Foo Fighters, Tool and Green Day. Other bands on the bill are Asking Alexandria, Bad Omens, Godsmack, Weezer, Megadeth, Pantera, Rival Sons and a ton more. Tickets are on sale now. Weekend GA is $280. There are VIP options too (of course).

Comments

[bkallday]

Coming from someone who went to the first 4, let me just say the lineup gets worse and less metal, every single year. This lineup may be the worst yet. Green Day? Weezer? Foo FIghters? Rancid? Tool? Falling in Reverse? I mean really??? And those are all supposed headliners. Just putrid.

[stu]

yawn.
i wonder if these large, loud, “rock” fest are getting weaker because the promoters want a nicer crowd, or because the good bands just don’t have the drawing power anymore.

[Him]

:Let me echo both stu and bk, cuz it is a little bit of both for me.

First, for DWP to compete, he has to draw a large crowd, one that can compete with festivals and shows by the you-know-whos. To do so, he has to spread out the genres/sub-genres. It leads to some interesting pairings. I went to several Aftershocks. Weezer was at one of them. Was I there for Weezer? No. Did I like a lot of the rest of the bands? Not really. What I liked was a _few_ of the bands and the VIP options. See what DWP did there? Come for some;stay for all. But if pricing keeps going up and the _few_ are fewer, no dice for me. And that's just me.

Second, our music still sells . . . but who's buying? And why are they buying? Moreover, which of our bands are going to be picked/are still in fighting spirit/aren't mostly retired or leaving slime trails of different versions or iterations across the scuffed wood floors of clubs already? Just because you package them as a festival doesn't mean you will get enough of us to come, to make it profitable, and to make it an annual event. Just ask DWP about Houston Open Air (which I attended . . . and, yes, it had a lot to also do with when it was scheduled and the weather). And also ask whoever lost their shirt on Rock n' American a decade or so ago. There is no genie to put back in that bottle. So you have to travel to curated shows in Europe or to smaller tours there and here. Basically, DWP did Rocklahoma after Rocklahoma sold-out. But then DWP started doing a smaller-scale version of what others were doing (which I have discussed previously). Why? Because it sells. And because it isn't really a festival. It is a tour, with plug-and-play bands appearing at several versions across the country. Good from them; good for DWP.

AND . . .

. . . I say all of that while full well acknowledging that this year's LtL is a pretty wide-ranging list of talent from different areas. So, kudos to DWP for figuring out the secret to keeping his thing going. I just don't want to see most of them and/or see the ones I want to see on a side-stage for a 30-minute set. So, alas, I pass.

[bkallday]

Im just gonna say I strongly disagree, Him. Louder than life has never had trouble selling tickets when it was mostly metal bands. There is no reason to lower the standards when the standards have already been set very high. Imo, this is nothing more than Wimmer bowing to what is popular these days, and metal has never ever been popular. But here in the Ville, metal is huge and we don't need alternative wimpy bands to sell tickets. All this is doing is weakening his image when it comes to this festival, in particular. I can already see next yrs headliners, REM, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Coldplay, Modest effin Mouse, Paramore, Fall Out Boy, & Snow Patrol. Smfh