Evolution Catches Up With Loud Session

Andrea Pieroni is taking over Italy’s 3-year-old Loud Session Festival and is turning it into Evolution, a two-day event at Milan Idropark.

The Live chief says his Gods Of Metal, which was staged at the Idropark in 2006-07, means he can access the top rock talent, but feels Evolution Festival will give him the platform to develop newer, smaller acts.

This year’s GOM (June 27-29), which has moved back to its old site at the 30,000-capacity Bologna Parco Nord, has Iron Maiden, Slayer, Judas Priest, Carcass, Apocalyptica, Avenged Sevenfold, Iced Earth, Testament and Dillinger Escape Plan.

A month later, Pieroni has Metallica playing its only Italian show, at Parco Nord July 22, and half the 30,000 tickets have already gone.

The first Evolution (July 11-12) is a result of the organisers approaching Pieroni and saying that, after running it for two years in Brescia and one in Florence, they’d taken Loud Session Festival as far as they could.

The Live chief has moved it to a 15,000-capacity site in the Milan, better situated than Bologna but too small for the top rock acts. The July 11-12 bill includes In Flames, Opeth, Gamma Ray, Death Angel, Pain of Salvation and Cavalera Conspiracy.