More and more, festivals are becoming the driving force for touring rock and metal bands. While obviously there were none in 2020, festivals are returning in force in 2021, mostly in late summer and early fall. Headliners and co-headliners include such heavy hitters as Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Slipknot, Rob Zombie, the original Misfits, Korn, Judas Priest, Five Finger Death Punch and Shinedown. Live Metal’s “2021 Festival Spotlight” series aims to bring attention to some of the names in smaller print on the festival admats—the bands you can get up close and personal with at the smaller stages—along with a few higher profile acts we find worth calling out here. See you at the shows.
Playing: Louder Than Life, Aftershock
Website: www.southofedenband.com
Latest release: South of Eden released its debut EP, “The Talk,” in 2020.
What You Need to Know: Columbus, Ohio-based South of Eden is a rock band, plain and simple. “We want to open up the doors for rock in the modern era,” frontman Ehab Omran said. “We want to sound the way we hear rock in our heads—vintage with a sprinkle of today. We try to give listeners the feeling of discovering the genre for the first time. We think now is the moment to be a rock band.”
One listener who liked what he heard was Tom Morello, who called South of Eden’s version of Audioslave’s “Show Me How to Live” a “rocking cover.”
On tour, South of Eden has shared bills with Puddle of Mudd and Red Sun Rising, and played the Epicenter and Sonic Temple festivals in 2019. The band is signed to Lava Records, and a full-length album is slated to be released later this year.
What You Need to Hear:
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