Last year, the first annual Chicago Open Air Festival arrived, featuring mainstream metal bands like Rammstein, Disturbed, Korn, Five Finger Death Punch, Breaking Benjamin, and Slipknot, alongside heralded underground bands like Carcass, Deafheaven, Gojira, and Meshuggah. It was an interesting and pretty decent - if unspectacular - mix of metal that a lot of folks have heard alongside bands that hover in more extreme territory. Also Hollywood Undead was there, which throws my perception of the whole thing off a bit. I didn't make it to the festival last year, but I did catch the sterling aftershow featuring Carcass and Deafheaven, which was excellent. Obviously a giant, open air metal festival in my backyard is something I want to support and attend, so I was eagerly awaiting news on this year's lineup. Last week, the festival organizers announced the lineup for the second iteration of the festival, to be held at Toyota Park in Bridgeview (just outside Chicago) July 14th-16th. Would the festival bring in more underground bands? Would early-2000s alt-metal continue to headline? Would 2017 be the year that puts COA alongside Maryland Death Fest or Southwest Terror Fest in the pantheon of American Metal Festivals?
