News

Well then… that didn’t take long, did it? Download Festival has officially shifted its Early Bird tickets, and the message from Donington is louder than a main stage wall of Marshalls: SOLD OUT. Big green letters. Massive crowd. Proper festival chaos. Lovely stuff. 💚🎸 For anyone still recovering from last year’s mud, riffs, overpriced chips, 3am campsite singalongs and the...

Bloodstock Open Air is back, butt… and the 2026 line-up is absolutely ridiculous! 🤘🔥 If there was ever a year to dust off your battle jacket, patch up those ripped denim shorts and prepare your neck muscles for four solid days of headbanging, this is it. From 6–9 August 2026, the UK’s biggest independent metal festival returns to Catton Park,...

Instrumental trailblazers Polyphia are officially back, unleashing their first new single in four years alongside the announcement of a brand-new UK tour. The genre-smashing guitar wizards have released ‘Can You Feel It’, a slick, funky and technically outrageous new track that proves Tim Henson and the gang have lost absolutely none of their ability to leave listeners staring at their...

By Around 1,000 Fans — Because Even The Numbers Got Caught In The Pit Cardiff, take a bow. No, seriously — stand up, throw the horns, spill half your pint, and scream until the roof starts sweating. Because Metallica didn’t just come to Cardiff. They claimed the Principality Stadium, flattened it with riffs, filled it with fire, and walked away...

The Nightwish powerhouse is bringing her solo thunder to London — and this one is going to be absolutely massive Floor Jansen is finally bringing her solo show to the UK, and honestly, symphonic metal fans may need to sit down, breathe into a tour hoodie, and stop refreshing ticket pages like they owe them rent. The mighty Nightwish vocalist...

Well, butt… January 2027 just got a proper boot through the venue doors. Massive Wagons and Terrorvision have announced a huge co-headline UK tour, and it sounds like exactly the sort of sweat-soaked, pint-hoisting, chorus-bellowing rock chaos we all need after the festive season has emptied our wallets and left us emotionally attached to leftover Quality Street. The tour, brilliantly...

Metallica came to Cardiff, shook the Principality Stadium like a washing machine full of bricks, blasted the city with riffs, flames, pyro and pure heavy metal thunder… and then quietly did something properly beautiful for the community. The metal legends have donated £20,000 to Cardiff Foodbank, a massive contribution that will help provide around 9,000 meals for people in need...

Metallica – M72 World TourPrincipality Stadium, CardiffSunday 28th June 2026Support: Gojira + Knocked Loose Cardiff has seen plenty of carnage over the years. Rugby madness. Six Nations chaos. Hen parties armed with inflatable objects. Pints flying down St Mary Street like they’ve got somewhere important to be. But on Sunday night, the Welsh capital belonged to Metallica. Not just “big...

Hellfest has gone full heavy metal cathedral, butt. The legendary French festival has unveiled a towering new statue of Ozzy Osbourne at its 2026 edition, giving the late Prince of Darkness the kind of tribute only the world of metal could possibly deliver: massive, emotional, slightly terrifying, gloriously dramatic, and absolutely dripping in riff-powered mythology. This isn’t some tiny memorial...

Cardiff has seen some wild nights, butt — rugby heartbreak, rain that arrives sideways, and enough Caroline Street post-gig carnage to fill a Netflix documentary — but Metallica dropping a surprise cover of Tom Jones’ “Delilah” inside the Principality Stadium? That’s a proper Welsh “DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?” moment. According to the viral post doing the rounds, Metallica defied the...

Well then, butt — here’s one to rattle the fillings and wake up the neighbours. The Fell have announced their debut UK tour for December 2026, and it looks like Britain is about to get a proper dose of modern rock thunder just in time for the festive season. Forget sleigh bells — this December, we’re getting bass bombs, crunchy...

Captain Kirk recruits Mikkey Dee for a metal mission that sounds absolutely bonkers… and we are fully strapped in Just when you think the world of heavy metal has run out of ways to surprise us, William Shatner has kicked down the door, pointed dramatically at the nearest Marshall stack, and decided he’s going full metal. Yes. That William Shatner.Captain...

Dave Grohl And The Stadium Rock Machine Roll Into Liverpool For Two Massive Nights Foo Fighters fans, sound the alarm, cancel your sensible plans, and start stretching those vocal cords — because final tickets were released for the band’s opening Liverpool show at Anfield, giving fans one last shot at joining the stadium-sized chaos. The rock giants hit Anfield Stadium...

Deep Purple fans, gather round the campfire, crack open the imaginary tour bus fridge, and prepare for some proper rock ’n’ roll storytelling — because Ian Gillan is heading out on the road in 2027 for a huge UK spoken word tour. The legendary Deep Purple vocalist has announced The Talking Gib’rish Tour, a 24-date run across April and May...

Cardiff’s summer gig season has been absolutely stacked this year, with Blackweir Fields turning into one of the biggest open-air music spots in Wales. From goth legends to soul powerhouses, pop giants, party chaos and a cancelled rock icon moment, here’s the Riff Report-friendly rundown of what went down — or was meant to go down — at Blackweir Live...