Heavy metal star band Metallica returns to headline Hellfest in 2024

The festival organized in Clisson, a small town in Loire-Atlantique which has become the flagship meeting place for extreme music in Europe, will be held from June 27 to 30, 2024. Metallica is making an expected return.

During his first visit to the Hellfest festival in June 2022, singer and guitarist James Hetfield, leader of the Californian quartet, promised that Metallica would return. “You made us good”, greeted the musician while addressing the public in the middle of the vineyards, in the west of France, not far from Nantes. The group kept their promise: they will headline the 2024 edition of the festival, from June 27 to 30 in Clisson.

The lives of founding members James Hetfield (60) and drummer Lars Ulrich (60 in a month) changed in 1991 with what we now call the “Black Album”. This 5th opus allowed them to reach the general public, with the hits Enter Sandman And Nothing Else Matters.

The group is now part of pop culture in the broad sense, since the song Master Of Puppets (1986) even made it into the hit Netflix series Stranger Things. Always productive, Metallica released this year the album 72 Seasons.

Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Offspring to be shown in 2024

For its 17th edition, Hellfest will feature nearly 180 groups in 2024. Among the other big names, Foo Fighters – the group of Dave Grohl, former Nirvana drummer who became a singer and guitarist here – The Offspring, Queens of the Stone Age, Body Count led by Ice-T, and Tom Morello, guitarist who broke out solo. by Rage Against the Machine.

In 2023, Hellfest welcomed nearly 240,000 festival-goers. A legal case followed this edition. Last summer, the festival manager, Ben Barbaud, was sentenced to eight months in prison and a fine of 20,000 euros for breach of trust. “I was accused of having drawn on the association’s treasury in the form of an advance, for personal purposes. These uses were, of course, reimbursed in full. I have never stolen from the coffers of the association, I would like to point out this”, had he defended himself in theWeekly of Sèvre et Maine.

Hellfest was also criticized last year after notably revealing that its 2022 edition – double edition, unique in the history of the festival – had represented 300,000 liters of fuel oil. The festival had promised to make efforts in the future to improve its carbon footprint.