Las Rageous rock festival returns with a bigger lineup
I Nheavy metal, bigger is always better. This goes for the festivals that cater to the music as well.
None of this is lost on the organizers of Las Rageous, the two-day hard rock and metal fest returning to the Downtownlasvegasevents Center on April 20 and 21 for itssecondyear.
“We wanted to grow this thing,” says Kurt Melien, president of Live Nation Las Vegas, who is a driving force behind the event, along withpartnerderekstevens, owner of the D Las Vegas, the Golden Gate and the DLVEC.
That they’ve done, beginning with the newly announced lineup.
The headliners: rumina- tive alt-rockers A Perfect Circle and Vegas’ own Five Finger Death Punch, both of whom will release new albumsnextyear.theundercard is a strong one, pairing metal icons (Judas Priest, Saxon) with groove-heavy rockers (Ghost, Clutch), hard rock radio staples (In This Moment, Pop Evil), a touchofmetalcore(underoath, Atreyu), some masked nü metallers (Hollywood Undead) and plenty more among the 19 acts scheduled to perform.
According to Melien, Las Rageous has fattened its budget by 30 to 35 percent this year and will expand the footprint for the event, which takes place on two stages, from 9,000 square feet to 12,000.
Launching a fest is a long-term commitment that normally takes time to establish an audience. For that reason, they can come and go quickly. But Melien says he believed early on that Las Rageous would return in 2018.
“There were probably two moments when we knew it was coming back,” he explains. “We had a pretty good feeling back on the day
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