‘Sick New World’ Festival Rallies 3 Generations Of Rock & Metal Bands

‘Sick New World’ looks to be the latest fully stacked rock festival set in Las Vegas, Nevada for next year. Similar to the Las Vegas held emo-punk festival ‘When We Were Young,’ Sick New World’s bill is absolutely filled to the brim with top tier bands, all of whom stretch across over three decades of rock music.

Differentiating itself from When We Were Young, the theme of Sick New World’s bill seems to be focused on hard rock and metal bands, specifically with its headliners System Of A Down, Korn, Deftones, and Incubus. Additionally, this festival is making more an effort in providing younger bands better positioning on the bill as well, showcasing bands such as Tunstile, Spiritbox, Scowl, and Fiddlehead to name a few. However, ‘Sick New World’ is banking on the same mid-90’s early 2000’s nostalgia that was seen at this year’s When Were Young Festival, albeit Sick New World is doing so whilst catering toward the heavy music crowd.

In fact, after one glimpse of Sick New World’s bill it’s clear that Nu metal and late 90’s grunge acts are the main theme. While there are certainly some outliers to this categorization, the full list seen below sure does play in favor to these two eras of rock.

SYSTEM OF A DOWN

KORN

DEFTONES

INCUBUS

EVANESCENCE

TURNSTILE

CHEVELLE

THE SISTERS OF MERCY

PAPA ROACH

DEATH GRIPS

FLYLEAF

MR. BUNGLE

VILLE VALO

PLACEBO

MINISTRY

SHE WANTS REVENGE

KMFDM

100 GETS

SKINNY PUPPY

COAL CHAMBER

KILLING JOKE

SPIRITBOX

KITTIE

SOULFLY

P.O.D.

SEVENDUST

HOOBASTANK

ALIEN ANT FARM

LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT

FEVER 333

HEALTH

MACHINE GIRL

HO99O9

PRAYERS

FILTER

LACUNA COIL

MELVINS

FAILURE

STABBING WESTWARD

COLD

CRADLE OF FILTH

BODY COUNT

THE BIRTHDAY MASSACRE

THE 69 EYES

ORGY

MONSTER MAGNET

MY LIFE WITH THE THRILL KILL KULT

LOATHE

PANCHIKO

SCENE QUEEN

SUPERHEAVEN

FIDDLEHEAD

NARROW HEAD

SCOWL

Following the festival’s announcement, Sick New World’s official website states that the pre-sale for tickets will begin on Friday, November 11th at 10m PT. The site lists general admission tickets starting at $249 with premium packages going for as high as $539.

It’ll be interesting to see how this festival stacks up against When We Were Young, which coincidentally has already been booked for 2023. I’d wager that the festival promoters and organizers are ultimately planning to make Sick New World similar to WWWY by turning it into an annual festival attraction that caters toward a specific era of rock.

That being said, the problem with festivals like Sick New World is the heavy emphasis they place on nostalgia. Doing so further buries the chances of newer acts like Turnstile being showcased as headliners, which is ultimately what rock music should be focused on right now. Obviously no one is questioning that System Of A Down and Korn each have larger audiences than Turnstile, and it makes perfect sense for these festivals to book them as headliners provided that. However, I can’t help but point out the obvious that rock music is going through a monumental shift at the moment. Rock’s legacy acts are slowly starting to go into retirement and it feels as if there’s a genuine lack of risk taking from these festivals, specifically from not platforming newer bands as headliners. Who are rock, punk, and metal’s next generation of headliners? While that question is certainly being explored, there remains to be a clear answer.