By The Riff Report 🤘
Well butt, Stonedead Festival has only just packed away the amps from 2025 and already the 2026 edition is shaping up to be a MONSTER. With the festival already sold out (yep, gone quicker than a pint on a hot day in Newark 🍺), the crew have unleashed their second wave of band announcements — and tidy one it is too!
⚡ ACCEPT – VERY SPECIAL GUESTS
That’s right — German metal icons Accept are joining the 2026 Stonedead lineup as Very Special Guests! 🤘🇩🇪
Formed way back in 1976 in Solingen, West Germany, these titans of Teutonic metal are celebrating their 50th anniversary in style. With 17 studio albums, 5 live records, and more metal anthems than you can shake a Flying V at, they’re gearing up for a career-spanning set that’ll melt faces as the sun dips over Newark Showground.
Expect a thunderous trip through classics like Balls to the Wall, Fast as a Shark, and Restless and Wild — alongside newer bangers that prove Accept are still firing harder than ever. This isn’t just nostalgia, mun — this is a full-blown heavy metal celebration five decades in the making. 🎉
🦁 BATTLE BEAST – FINNISH POWER METAL FURY
Next up, prepare your necks for some serious headbanging — because Battle Beast are coming to unleash chaos in the early evening slot! 🇫🇮⚔️
Formed in 2008 in Helsinki, this powerhouse sextet has been conquering Europe one riff at a time. Their debut Steel (2011) broke into the Finnish Top 10 and kicked off a hot streak of six charting albums, every single one landing in Finland’s Top 10 — proper job, that.
With their seventh album “Steelbound” about to drop, Battle Beast are storming into Stonedead ready to slay. Expect arena-sized choruses, face-melting solos, and frontwoman Noora Louhimo commanding the stage like a Viking queen. This is power metal turned up to eleven. 💥
⚔️ ARMORED SAINT – CLASSIC HEAVY METAL HEROES
And for that prime mid-afternoon slot — a real treat for the old-school heads! Armored Saint are rolling in from Los Angeles to bring some proper heavy metal history to the fields of Newark. 🇺🇸🔥
Since bursting out of the LA scene in the early ‘80s, these lads have been grinding away with the spirit of the saints — dropping their debut March of the Saint in 1984 and gaining MTV airtime faster than you could say “spandex and solos.”
Though tragedy and line-up changes hit hard, John Bush and Joey Vera resurrected the band in 1999, and they’ve since released six more albums, most recently in 2020. Expect pure, pounding metal and a masterclass from a band who’ve shared stages with Saxon, Alice Cooper, and Whitesnake — a line-up so classic it practically smells of leather jackets and Marshall stacks. 🎸
💀 TICKETS & WAITING LIST INFO
Here’s the catch — 2026 sold out in just 34 hours. Yep. Thirty. Four. Hours. 😱
But don’t panic, mun — if you missed out, there’s still hope!
👉 Join the official waiting list now:
And circle this in your diary with a big bloody red pen:
📅 Ticket re-sell page goes live Saturday 25th October at 18:00
This is the only official way to snag a ticket — so get in there faster than a metalhead to the front barrier when the gates open.
🤘 THE BOTTOM LINE
With Accept, Battle Beast, and Armored Saint added to the bill, Stonedead 2026 is already shaping up to be a meltdown of metal proportions. The organisers promised “something for everyone” — and they’re delivering like a flaming riff to the face. 🔥
See you in Newark, butties — we’ll be the ones screaming “METAAAAAAL!” with a pint in one hand and devil horns in the other. 🏴🤘
#StonedeadFestival #Accept #BattleBeast #ArmoredSaint #TheRiffReport #MetalCommunity #UKFestivals #HeavyMetalForever
