Yesterday the official Sick New World instagram account announced a confirmed lineup for their upcoming 2025 show to much excitement and… confusion.
One of the biggest shockers included Acid Bath, who’re reuniting at the event, and I was personally intrigued at seeing Tomahawk and Mayhem on the bill. But we’re here for nu metal, and it seems to be dwindling each and every year, despite that being the major selling point of the festival in the first place.
It’s not as if the lineup is completely devoid of the genre that originally inspired the festival. Linkin Park–a headliner alongside Metallica–and Evanescence are two of the biggest names on the list... and that’s about it. A few other big-name nu metal acts, namely Kittie and Mudvayne, are present in much smaller print. Orgy, Lacuna Coil and Dope make up the lower levels of the lineup. But these numbers feel so much smaller compared to the amount of nu metal we saw on the 2024 roster (Slipknot and System of a Down were headlining, and the lineup included Static-X, Skindred, A Perfect Circle, Nonpoint, Sevendust, and Powerman 5000, just to name a few), and the first ever Sick New World exclusively featured nu metal legends as their headliners. A closer look makes me wonder–was this ever meant to be a celebration, or just another corporate cash grab?
Obviously, it’s the latter. My biggest gripe with Sick (beyond the ridiculous one day only jam they’ve got going on) is that there is little to no love given to any of the current nu metal bands, nor is there a consistency to ensure the festival prioritizes nu metal as a whole. The very first run was clearly banking off the resurgence of nu metal that was taking the web by the jugular. Did the organizers not realize there is a pretty stable scene, one that they could've used the top line artists to bring to greater attention and then banked on for future lineups? I’m not talking about bands deciding one day that they feel like waving the flag. I mean bands who’ve been about it since the jump. For example, how has Tetrarch never been on a lineup for this festival despite being one of the most popular of the contemporary nu metal bands? Their most recent music video hit over a million views in a matter of days, so clearly they have an active fanbase. Bloodywood are probably one of the biggest and among the most unique out right now and get plenty of love across the globe, they’d be a smashing inclusion to the bill. Silly Goose is one of the youngest on the nu-wave and they’re already cementing themselves as a force to watch. Those are just a few examples out of many, but I find it a little ridiculous that there seems to be little effort to bring any of these contemporary bands on at all. I’m not asking them to all be headliner-worthy–I just find it hard to believe that they can’t take priority, especially if the festival wants to maintain any sort of identity for years to come.
We know there are hosts of reasons why the young bands mentioned may not have been booked, beyond the purely cynical–lack of availability, difficult logistics, or even outright refusals are all possible. For bands on the road, money can be tight, if not entirely scarce. Not everybody can just up and make the trek halfway across the country (or across the globe) to perform for a single day in Las Vegas. We also know that 2024 has been a bit of a reality check for music festivals around the world, with dozens either announcing this as their final year or cancelling outright and issuing refunds, including notables such as Desert Daze and Oblivion Access. The economic and logistical challenges are well-known, and the pandemic seemed to have been the final nail in the coffin for many a festival that began in the boom period of the 2010s. At $400 for a single day where you’re absolutely not going to be able to see all your faves, the price tag for Sick is a big ask. It's hard to understand why the people behind the festival don’t bother extending it across the weekend knowing full well there will be issues. The very first year saw bands getting their sets cut short to make for time, and Cradle of Filth had their set stopped dead in darkness and everyone was ushered out by security. Given the precarious reality of festivals like this one, loyalty to an identity seems like it could be one way to secure a future where people will continue to make the trip.
So, what’s the solution? Knowing how quick tickets sell out, there’s likely to be little change. The cash grab is working just as intended. It seems unlikely we’ll see Sick New World going away any time soon–instead, we’ll watch it morph into the same genre-flattening metal festival we have in different parts of the country every year. Alternatively, If we truly want to have a celebration of nu metal, it might be worth reviving something like the Family Values tour; while it was never exclusively a nu metal tour in the late 90s, today the bands are there to make it one. Until then, the best any of us can do is continue to support contemporary nu metal artists, spread the word, and know how to clock when something is solely betting on nostalgia and not real love or appreciation. You can see 70% of SNW's 2025 lineup at any other time, all over the place. Meanwhile, the more the nu metal revival only focuses on established bands, the closer to the grave it will get.
