The reborn kings of groove metal, with their only U.S. show of 2026 and 'Walk' and 'Cowboys from Hell' as scripture.
Groove metal
Louder Than Life 2026 Lineup
America's biggest rock festival: four days, nearly 200 bands, and every shade of heavy in one Louisville field.
Louder Than Life is expected back September 2027 (dates aren't announced yet). Until then, here's the full 2026 lineup and the acts you would have loved.
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About Louder Than Life 2026
Louder Than Life is America's biggest rock festival, full stop: four September days at Louisville's Highland Festival Grounds, seven stages, nearly 200 bands, and bourbon everywhere it legally fits. The 2026 bill is an embarrassment of heaviness: My Chemical Romance, Iron Maiden, Tool, Limp Bizkit, and Pantera's only U.S. show of the year up top; Megadeth's farewell; Cavalera performing Sepultura's Roots; reunions from Circa Survive, Chiodos, and Get Scared; and Saturday hosting one of the most prominent female-fronted stage lineups a major U.S. rock festival has ever assembled. Whatever heavy means to you (emo, thrash, hardcore, metalcore, nu-metal nostalgia), it's on this poster somewhere.
Expect metal, rock, post-hardcore and hard rock across 198 acts.
At a glance
- Dates
- –Thursday to Sunday, four days
- Where
- Highland Festival Grounds, Louisville, KY
- Lineup
- 198 acts
- Website
- Official site
Louder Than Life 2026 lineup & schedule: all 198 acts
Search it, filter by day, stage or genre.Browse all 198 acts
Search it, filter by day, stage or genre.
Up the irons: metal's greatest live institution, Eddie included, galloping twin leads and Bruce Dickinson sprinting the stage like it's 1985.
Heavy metal
San Diego post-hardcore romantics enjoying a massive TikTok-era second act, the scene's most swooned-over comeback.
Post-hardcore
Concept-album maximalists who treated emo as opera, with marching-band drums, guitar harmonies, and a costume for every era, theatrical to the last note.
EmoAlt-rock
Sun-bleached ska-punk-dub hybrid, now carried by Bradley Nowell's son with the songs left intact, and '40oz. to Freedom' forever.
Ska-punkReggae-rock
Nu-metal's chaos agents in their beloved victory-lap era. Fred Durst does it all for the nookie, still, and the field does it with him.
Nu-metalRap-rock
France's environmental-metal titans: from the Olympics opening ceremony to the pit, whale-song riffs and precision heaviness with an actual conscience.
Progressive metal
Prog-metal's cathedral builders: polyrhythms, lasers, and total audience surrender, with Danny Carey's drumming alone worth the pilgrimage.
Prog-metal
Venice crossover legends with 'Institutionalized' and a pit that never ages, and Cyco Mike still leading the charge.
Crossover thrash
Oakland groove-metal veterans, with 'Davidian' still an extinction event and three decades of down-tuned survival behind it.
Groove metal
Big Four thrash with NYC attitude, where 'Caught in a Mosh' remains an instruction, and four decades in they still play like the scrappiest kids in the class.
Thrash metal
Swedish power metal's war historians, tank included, with choruses drilled to parade-ground precision and history lectures you can mosh to.
Power metal
The original shock-rock showman, with guillotines, snakes, straitjackets, and 'School's Out' forever, still running rock's greatest vaudeville horror show six decades in.
Shock rock
The Evil Elvis, with Misfits mythology and 'Mother' brooding in the flesh, blues-metal croon delivered from rock's darkest pulpit.
Dark rockMetal
Chicago's heart-skull institution, offering graveyard romance in three chords, with Matt Skiba and Dan Andriano trading morbid valentines across two-plus decades of dark pop-punk.
PunkEmo
Mustaine's farewell campaign: thrash's most venomous catalog, one last ride through 'Peace Sells' and four decades of grudges.
Thrash metal
Midwest emo's chaotic favorites bring screamed choruses, absurd song titles, real feelings, and a crowd that knows every word including the yelps.
EmoPop-punk
Christian rock's arena juggernaut, with 'Monster' getting a special production, pyro and strings at full budget.
Christian rock
Chicago's melodic-hardcore conscience, with two decades of fists-up anthems delivered with undimmed conviction, 'Savior' still closing rooms.
Melodic hardcore
Sci-fi concept-rock saga with arena hooks: 'Welcome Home' indeed, the Amory Wars mythology powering some of modern prog's biggest singalongs.
Prog-rockPost-hardcore
Kellin Quinn's falsetto-fronted post-hardcore: Warped Tour royalty matured, with the high notes fully intact and scene-era devotion still filling rooms.
Post-hardcorePop-punk
Long Island emo royalty: mic-swinging catharsis, twenty-plus years deep, 'MakeDamnSure' still a communal throat-shred, and yes, the mic still swings.
Emo
Bert McCracken's scream-to-croon whiplash defined a corner of early-2000s post-hardcore and still detonates live, and the chaos has aged into craft.
EmoPost-hardcore
Three sisters from Monterrey out-rocking everyone, Mexico's hard-rock pride, a family band that grew into arena-grade virtuosity.
Hard rock
The pop-punk/metalcore hybrid blueprint, with mosh-call breakdowns and sugar-rush hooks in equal measure, delivered with beach balls, confetti cannons, and total arena confidence.
MetalcorePop-punk
Max and Iggor performing Sepultura's 'Roots' in full: Brazilian metal history live, from the brothers who wrote it.
ThrashDeath metal
Kentucky hardcore built on the meanest two-step riffs going, with Bryan Garris's shriek cutting clean over the top: heaviness that crossed over without softening.
HardcoreMetalcore
Taylor Momsen's grunge-blooded hard rock is smoky, heavy, and chart-topping, with more rock-radio #1s than most legacy acts.
Hard rockAlternative rock
San Antonio alt-metal showmen with bass-throwing spectacle, Grammy-nominated hooks, and a stage rig built like a science experiment.
Alt-metal
The Rage guitarist solo, which in practice means the riffs, the politics, and a rotating cast of guests. Expect surprises.
RockGuitar
Dancing electric-violin spectacle: classical chops at festival scale, choreography and pyrotechnics included, a one-woman production that earns the word spectacle.
Electronic violin
Horror-movie metalcore staged as full theatre, with every song a slasher reference and every set closer to a production than a gig.
Theatrical metalcore
Craig Owens's theatrical post-hardcore, reunited: MySpace-era drama with real stakes, piano flourishes and that unmistakable swooping vocal intact.
Post-hardcoreScreamo
Johnny Franck's absurdist country-core project gone legitimately huge, with saxophones, breakdowns, and jokes played tight enough to work as straight-up bangers.
Country-corePost-genre
Maria Brink's gothic ritual-metal, with costumes, choirs, and 'Whore' still searing, a stage show closer to dark ceremony than concert.
Theatrical metal
J-pop choreography welded to genuine power-metal chops, a premise that should not work and completely does, now with arena-scale production and a decade of converted skeptics.
Kawaii metal
Swancore's funk-flecked flagship (technicolor riffs and dual-vocal whiplash) with a prolific catalog that never stopped mutating.
SwancorePost-hardcore
Texas hardcore at its most punishing, with mosh calls that carry a message and a low end that treats subtlety as a character flaw.
HardcoreMetalcore
Lzzy Hale's Grammy-winning powerhouse, the loudest voice in modern hard rock, delivered nightly with full-throttle sincerity.
Hard rockHeavy metal
'Last Resort' to now, nu-metal survivors who never stopped filling fields, with Jacoby Shaddix still working every inch of stage.
Nu-metalAlt-rock
Anthony Green's art-punk flagship, reunited, soaring, strange, and beloved, with a fanbase that treats these songs as sacred text.
Post-hardcoreProg-rock
Metalocalypse's cartoon death-metal band, real and devastating live, with Brendon Small's shred played against the animation at brutal volume.
Melodic death metal
Al Jourgensen's industrial-metal war machine, with sampled sermons, mechanised riffing, and four decades of pure spite, still grinding forward.
Industrial metal
Zakk Wylde's biker-metal brotherhood has pinch harmonics for days, Sabbath-weight riffs, and guitar solos treated as main events.
Heavy metal
At the Drive-In's cosmic successors, bringing salsa-prog freakouts and falsetto fire, 'The Widow' amid the labyrinth.
Prog-rock
Warpaint-and-leather anthems: the black parade's glammer cousins, with stadium-goth choruses delivered with total conviction and eyeliner-era devotion still marching.
Glam metalcore
Atlanta's prog-sludge institution, with concept records about doom and grief, played with genuinely uncommon musicianship and harmonized howls.
Sludge-prog metal
Metalcore's standard-bearers, where 'The End of Heartache' still detonates and two decades of the genre's template are played by its authors.
Metalcore
Oingo Boingo's madman turned Tim Burton's composer, in a berserk orchestral-rock spectacle that mashes film scores into art-punk chaos.
Orchestral rock
'They're Only Chasing Safety' to now, metalcore's restless innovators, reinventing loudly in every era, and the reinventions keep landing.
MetalcorePost-hardcore
Firestarters, still. The UK's rave-punk institution hits harder than bands half their age, three decades of menace intact.
Rave-punkElectronic
Chained Saint
Metal
Set For Tomorrow
Metal
The Violent Hour
Hard rock
Flint, Michigan band whose bleak, spoken-word-heavy metal draws directly on their hometown's violence, and it's confrontational to the point of discomfort.
Metal
Black Sabbath covers performed by fast-food mascots, exactly as great as it sounds, with lyrics rewritten as fast-food satire.
Parody metal
Sent By Ravens
Rock
Zero 9:36
American singer working the seam between big-tent rock and rap-inflected pop-punk, delivering arena-scaled hooks with a screamer's commitment.
Rock
American metal institution going since 1980, bridging traditional heavy metal and the speed of early thrash, and riff-driven, high-register and remarkably durable.
American deathcore at its most relentless, with downtuned slams and guttural low end delivered with enough precision to keep the brutality legible.
Metal
Nashville band whose orchestral hard rock pairs strings with crushing guitars, the sound set by their 2006 debut 'End of Silence'.
Christian rock
vianova
Berlin band active since 2014, setting metalcore breakdowns against the syncopated, low-tuned riffing of djent.
Metal
Intergalactic latex monsters spraying fake blood on the front rows since 1984, with thrash chops under the costumes. Wear a poncho.
Shock metal
LA project trading in cinematic, brooding alt-pop with a big low end, with grief-forged songs delivered with theatrical force.
Alt-popDark-pop
Long-running American pop-punk act whose late-90s and early-2000s run made them fixtures of the skate-punk era, still touring on those hooks.
Rock
Chicago-area group that folded keyboards and sweeping synth leads into deathcore early, helping define the technical, djent-adjacent wing of the genre.
Metal
Finnish rock veterans who broke internationally with 'In the Shadows' after years of funk-inflected work at home, with three decades of goth-tinged arena hooks.
Rock
New Orleans four-piece who came up alongside the nu-metal revival and then kept mutating, delivering sludge, industrial grime and hooks with a Southern sneer.
Metal
Dark Divine
Metal
'My Own Worst Enemy' is one perfect song and a very good time, delivered by SoCal pros who know exactly why you came.
Alt-rock
Divisive by design, with nu-metal bounce, deathcore weight, and Frankie Palmeri saying the unsayable, engineered to start arguments and pits alike.
Metal
Las Vegas-formed hard rock outfit built around Rick DeJesus, a fixture of active-rock radio since the late 2000s: riff-first post-grunge with no apologies for it.
Hard rock
Ohio metalcore fronted by Chris Roetter, alternating throat-shredding screams with big clean hooks, and a decade-plus of relentless touring behind them.
Rock
Texas pop-punk comedians with better songwriting chops than the joke suggests, and twenty-five years of hooks hiding under the punchlines.
Pop-punkComedy rock
Elijah
Rock
Punishingly slow, tuned-into-the-floor heaviness with Vincent Bennett's misanthropy on top: doom tempos, hardcore intent, heaviness as a moral position.
DeathcoreMetallic hardcore
Rap-rock revivalists trading verses between a singer and an MC, straight out of the 2000s playbook, with updated production and the same adrenaline.
Rap-rockAlt-metal
Los Angeles band who came up in the early djent wave and stayed strange, with polyrhythmic guitar figures loosened by hip-hop swing and clean-sung hooks.
Metal
Early djent architects out of Minneapolis, with eight-string polyrhythms and huge grooves whose low end still lands harder live than any recording has managed to capture.
Metal
Archers
Madison band playing post-hardcore since 2015, leaning toward the rock end of the genre.
Metal
Alabama metalcore long-haulers who set Jesse Cash's clean melodies against JT Cavey's roar, with precision riffing and an ambient, weightless sheen.
Metal
Space-suit cinematic rock with sci-fi lore and radio-metal hooks, a full 'demonstration' rather than a mere concert.
Cinematic rock
Post-hardcore that leans into the ache, with glossy production over genuinely raw heartbreak, built for night drives after the show.
Hard rock
Connecticut metalcore working in precise, downtuned riff architecture and hairpin dynamic turns, delivering technical weight with the melodies left intact.
Metal
Utah deathcore that keeps finding new floors beneath the floor, a decade-plus of low-tuned punishment that only got nastier with time.
Metal
Texas metalcore built on clean-vocal lift and reliably enormous breakdowns, with arena-scale heaviness delivered with total consistency.
Metal
ivri
Alternative
Jacksonville post-hardcore whose one inescapable single has kept the whole catalogue in rotation for two decades, and 'Face Down' still hits its mark.
Post-hardcoreEmo
American Monster
Rock
The former Flyleaf vocalist under her own name, carrying that same raw-throated conviction into solo hard rock.
Rock
Ladrones
Rock
Death Valley Dreams
A supergroup of MCR, Thursday, and Circa Survive members, playing urgent, veteran post-hardcore like a first band, not a side project.
Post-hardcore supergroup
Billy McNicol
Nevertel
American band working in polished modern hard rock, pairing heavy riffs with big sing-along choruses built for active-rock radio.
Rock
Utah post-hardcore band out of the late-2000s scene era, keeping the theatrical screams and synth-tinted choruses fully intact.
Rock
The Nashville project of Kentucky-born singer Addison, whose voice jumps from low growls to piercing screams to clean melody over deathcore weight, first heard in clips filmed in her car.
Deathcore
Louisville crew splitting the difference between death metal riffing and hardcore delivery, built for rooms where the pit starts on the first note.
Metal
Los Angeles band built on duelling front-women trading screams and clean hooks, with a shock-rock streak inherited from the Plasmatics.
Metal
'Check Yes Juliet' (MySpace-era pop-punk sunshine) and Florida warmth that never curdled, and the chorus still checks yes.
Pop-punk
New Jersey band from the turn-of-the-millennium nu-metal wave, trading in downtuned riffs and shouted-to-sung dynamics, and reactivated years after the fact.
Rock
Wind Walkers
Alternative
Vana
Auckland artist welding big pop choruses to heavy metal riffs, with a dark, theatrical edge she frames as her own 'darkcore' sound.
Metal
Liverpool heaviness that swings between crushing metalcore and gorgeous shoegaze drift, with Deftones lineage carried somewhere genuinely new.
MetalcoreShoegaze-metal
Missing Link
American crew working the heaviest end of hardcore since 2020, where the beatdown is built for two-step pits rather than record collections.
Metal
American post-grunge band formed in 1999 around Wil Martin's voice, making heavy, hook-first alt-rock from the era when radio rock still filled arenas.
Rock
Cleveland masked-metal institution predating most of the nu-metal wave, with painted faces, dual vocalists and a rotating cast held together for decades.
Rock
Formerly Slaves, rebuilt around melody, they make modern post-hardcore with the edges sanded deliberately smooth and the choruses aimed at radio.
Rock
Long Island kids threading '90s melodic hardcore through big, wistful hooks that stick immediately, with scene-lifer pedigree and real pop instincts.
Rock
Pink-glitter 'bimbocore' (pop-metalcore with a feminist bite), with breakdowns in hot pink and lyrics that name names.
Bimbocore
Downtuned riffs and half-rapped menace from nu-metal's major-label boom years, running in fits and starts until the band finally called it quits in 2015.
Rock
Phoenix metalcore fronted by Telle Smith, alternating clean choruses with breakdowns and drifting toward electronics as the years pass.
Rock
Max Cavalera's post-Sepultura vehicle, still fusing tribal percussion with pure groove-metal weight, with three decades of roar undiminished.
Metal
Los Angeles heavyweights pairing crushing metallic hardcore with a genuinely crooned baritone, so goth romance gets smuggled into the pit.
Metal
Guitar-forward alt-rock built on riffs that behave like hooks, from a four-piece that sounds considerably larger.
Rock
Welsh post-hardcore romantics with soaring, heart-first heaviness, every chorus written to be wept through, Cardiff sincerity at full wingspan.
Post-hardcoreAlternative rock
New York metal outfit out of the turn-of-the-millennium groove and nu-metal wave, with down-tuned churn under vocals that swing between bark and bellow.
Metal
Hardcore veterans making sunny, ramshackle power-pop with the energy of a band that has nothing to prove, with Turnstile and Trapped Under Ice pedigree and zero tough-guy posture.
Alternative
Blue Medusa
President
Masked, anonymous British rock outfit fronted by a figure styled as The President, pairing heavy riffs with soaring, pop-minded choruses.
Rock
Jeff Hardy
Rock
Boston hardcore named for the city's 617 area code and fronted by Austin Sparkman, carrying the local pit-first tradition from a 2024 debut on DAZE to a 2026 album on Roadrunner.
Hardcore
Late-nineties American heavy rock act that came up through the post-grunge and alt-metal churn and never softened the riffs.
Hard rock
A solo billing built entirely around two decades of nu-metal and groove-metal frontman work, with Mudvayne intensity and HELLYEAH swagger in one set.
Nu-metalGroove metal
Three brothers making self-described fashion-art rock, with glam theatrics wrapped around garage riffs, and one of the most devoted young fanbases in rock.
Rock
Los Angeles rock singer working in heavy guitars and big choruses, with a voice pitched at the back of the room.
Rock
Fort Collins solo project pairing pop-punk hooks with heavier emo-rock, with lyrics that dwell on mental health and personal struggle.
Rock
Kentucky's own, a post-hardcore band turned silk-smooth pop-rock, playing home turf with one of the scene's most distinctive clean vocals.
Post-hardcorePop-rock
Josey Scott: The Original Voice of SALIVA
Freeze The Fall
Rock
Kami Kehoe
Pop
Atlanta theatrical rock outfit with a taste for gothic showmanship: post-hardcore heft dressed in ringmaster flourish.
Rock
Fat Mike's genre-agnostic side project: punk, rap, and folk stitched into something genuinely odd, with Ceschi's rapid-fire verses at the center.
PunkHip-hop
Best known for turning 'Smooth Criminal' into an alt-metal hit, which undersells a Riverside band with a real ear for a chorus and more melodic instinct than their era usually rewarded.
Hard rock
Keyboard-led post-hardcore with a genuinely gorgeous streak under the screaming, bringing scene-era drama back from the vault.
Rock
Heavy//Hitter
As You Were
Pop
Ariel Bloomer's hook-driven alt-rock project, funded and released independently by a famously devoted audience, with electronics, big choruses, and blunt lyrics.
Alternative
Theatrical pop-rock with orchestral flourishes and a frontman who can genuinely belt, bringing Broadway instincts at Warped velocity.
Alternative
Keith Buckley's band after Every Time I Die, trading Buffalo's chaos for something heavier, straighter and more deliberate.
Rock
A drummer-vocalist fronting frantic, jazz-inflected post-hardcore that changes direction every eight bars, Chico's contribution to the Swancore canon.
Rock
Silly Goose
Nu-metal revivalists working bouncing downtuned riffs and rapped verses, with a playful streak that suits the name.
Metal
'Alive' and 'Youth of the Nation' are the calling cards of San Diego's nu-metal survivors, whose positivity stayed intact through every scene cycle.
Nu-metalReggae-rock
Nashville rapper with a rock streak and a fiercely independent release history, and melodic grit built entirely outside the label system.
Hip-hopRap-rock
The Barbarians of California
Metal
Australian guitarist who moved from Michael Jackson's final rehearsals to Alice Cooper's band and her own records, with shredding attached to plainspoken pop-rock songwriting.
Pop
Fox Lake
Denver group working the heavier end of modern rock since 2017, riff-driven and built for small rooms with loud PAs.
Metal
No Resolve
Rock
'Full Collapse' pioneers who were the bridge between hardcore and emo, still vital, with Geoff Rickly's yelp intact.
Post-hardcoreEmo
H2O
Alternative
Slam played with a hip-hop swagger: gurgles, gore, and breakdowns tuned to the floor, the internet's favorite new heaviness.
Metal
Long-running American hard rock band with roots in the late-nineties Christian scene, trading screamed passages for big melodic choruses.
Rock
NYHC royalty: Freddy Cricien's bark over the crossover riffing that defined the Lower East Side sound, with hardcore lineage in the literal family sense.
NYHC
Las Vegas hard rock band fronted by the Patrick brothers, longtime fixtures of the active-rock radio circuit, with post-grunge heft and anthems built for arenas they've mostly opened.
Hard rock
Bay Area deathcore with a bottomless low end and breakdowns that arrive like a door being kicked in: no melody, no mercy.
Metal
The godfathers of NYHC (Lower East Side scripture since the early '80s), with 'Victim in Pain' still the blueprint for every two-stepping hardcore band that followed.
NYHC
Louisville post-grunge veterans on home ground, playing 'Breakdown'-era radio rock for the crowd that grew up on it.
Post-grunge
Connecticut band working the heavy end of metalcore, with hardcore-scene pacing underneath the riffs and a pit-first approach to arrangement.
Metal
Bruising American hardcore outfit from the mid-nineties, trading in blue-collar bitterness and street-punk grit.
Alternative
Denison, Texas outfit dealing in what frontman Big Dad Ritch calls red dirt metal: Southern swagger welded to thick, stoner-weight riffing.
Rock
Spider One's long-running industrial metal outfit, built on sci-fi B-movie imagery and pneumatic riffs, with 'When Worlds Collide' still detonating three decades on.
Hard rock
The original Of Mice & Men vocalist returning to the material after years away from touring, a scene-history moment for everyone who wore out those first records.
MetalcorePost-hardcore
Pennsylvania technical death metal band who folded saxophone into the blast beats and made it feel inevitable rather than gimmicky, heavy music with a jazz lung.
Metal
North Carolina band who grew out of early-2000s post-hardcore into something swampier and slower-burning, with Schuylar Croom's howl over riffs with real southern grit.
Hard rock
Progressive metal with no regard for song length: polka breaks, jazz detours, and genuine death-metal fury, often inside the same eleven-minute track.
Progressive metal
Leeds band working the melodic end of metalcore, with big clean choruses set against screamed verses, polished, radio-sized heaviness with a post-hardcore heart.
Metal
Surfaced
Metal
'Possum Kingdom' is Texas alt-rock's eternal dark ride, still promising to be your angel nightly, Texas gothic in radio form.
Alt-rock
Maylene & The Sons of Disaster
Sace6
American band folding djent-weight riffing and electronic textures into hazy shoegaze, with alt-metal heaviness under the blur.
Alternative
Eight-string instrumental wizardry: Tosin Abasi rewrites what a guitar can do nightly, prog-metal precision that draws musicians the way other bands draw fans.
Instrumental prog
German trio working the melodic end of metalcore, with Maria Lessing swinging between clean vocals and screams over post-hardcore atmosphere.
Alternative
Boltcutter
Metal
One of the bands that defined electronicore, welding trance synths and dance drops to post-hardcore, maximalist and unapologetically melodic.
Rock
'Hey Man Nice Shot' is the hit, and Richard Patrick's industrial-rock sneer is intact, with machine-tooled riffs from NIN's family tree.
Industrial-rockAlt-rock
'The Question'-era screamo-pop veterans who are still swinging, with dueling vocals and dynamic whiplash from one of the scene's smartest bands.
Post-hardcore
The Pretty Wild
Las Vegas sisters Jyl and Jules Wylde, who graduated from casino cover sets to theatrical metalcore laced with dark pop hooks.
MetalcoreDark pop
Corpse Pile
Metal
Vegas post-hardcore that survived a frontman swap and a decade of scene churn intact, with arena-scene hooks and a survivor's stubbornness.
Hard rock
Orlando trio playing bright, hook-first pop-rock with synths pushed up in the mix, together since their early teens.
Rock
Indiana metalcore band out of the early-2000s Christian hardcore scene, with a lineup that turned over repeatedly across two vocalist eras before a farewell and eventual return.
Metal
Connecticut metalcore outfit threading synthwave gloss through progressive riffing, with neon melody over technical heft.
Metal
Cleveland's contribution to the new-school death-metal revival: filthy, mid-paced, and built entirely around the riff, with the kind of grooves that turn a pit violent in seconds.
Metal
OC metalcore originators bring 'Lip Gloss and Black' nostalgia with new-era polish, from a band that helped write the genre's melodic playbook in the first place.
Metalcore
Canada's post-hardcore heart: three voices trading scream, croon, and rasp across one beloved catalog, with reunion sets that feel like national holidays back home.
Post-hardcore
Holywatr
Rock
Lyon quintet folding post-hardcore urgency into djent-adjacent heaviness, with strings and clean choruses used as pressure release.
Metal
Baltimore hardcore built on short, brutal bursts and unmistakable hometown pride, with economical songs delivered at maximum aggression.
Metal
Post-hardcore's elder statesmen, heavy, literate, endlessly evolving, and never once coasting on the back catalog.
Post-hardcoreAlt-rock
Downswing
Metal
Locked Shut
Rock
Toronto artist who moved from rap features into full pop-punk, and sounds more at home there, with emo-rap roots showing through the power chords.
Alternative
Gothenburg group working in modern, machine-tight heaviness rather than their city's melodeath tradition, with riffs built on precision and sudden dynamic drops.
Metal
Louisville's chaotic metalcore pride, with Every Time I Die-school swerves and hooks, on a hometown play.
Metalcore
Bay Area beatdown that turned meme-level swagger into a genuinely feared live act, and the joke stopped being a joke fast.
HardcoreBeatdown
Seattle's funk-flecked pop-metalcore puts groove first and breakdowns second, with falsetto hooks the scene didn't see coming.
Pop-metalcore
Pittsburgh metalcore outfit built on dissonant, mathy riffing and unrelenting vocal delivery: hardcore aggression with the corners deliberately left jagged.
Metal
New-generation alt-metal built on a soulful clean vocal and a very modern low end, and the format's next arena act in waiting.
Rock
The headliners
My Chemical Romance · Concept-album maximalists who treated emo as opera, with marching-band drums, guitar harmonies, and a costume for every era, theatrical to the last note.
Iron Maiden · Up the irons: metal's greatest live institution, Eddie included, galloping twin leads and Bruce Dickinson sprinting the stage like it's 1985.
Tool · Prog-metal's cathedral builders: polyrhythms, lasers, and total audience surrender, with Danny Carey's drumming alone worth the pilgrimage.
Limp Bizkit · Nu-metal's chaos agents in their beloved victory-lap era. Fred Durst does it all for the nookie, still, and the field does it with him.
Pantera · The reborn kings of groove metal, with their only U.S. show of 2026 and 'Walk' and 'Cowboys from Hell' as scripture. The reborn groove-metal kings, playing their only U.S. show of 2026.
Pierce The Veil · San Diego post-hardcore romantics enjoying a massive TikTok-era second act, the scene's most swooned-over comeback.
Gojira · France's environmental-metal titans: from the Olympics opening ceremony to the pit, whale-song riffs and precision heaviness with an actual conscience.
Sublime · Sun-bleached ska-punk-dub hybrid, now carried by Bradley Nowell's son with the songs left intact, and '40oz. to Freedom' forever.
Up-and-comers to catch early
Sleep Theory · Memphis alt-metal's fastest riser: R&B-smooth vocals over crushing grooves.
The Home Team · Seattle's funk-flecked pop-metalcore: groove first, breakdowns second.
Scene Queen · Pink-glitter 'bimbocore': pop-metalcore with a feminist bite.
The Warning · Three sisters from Monterrey out-rocking everyone: Mexico's hard-rock pride.
Bilmuri · Absurdist country-core gone legitimately huge: saxophones and breakdowns.
Other acts worth planning around
Megadeth · Mustaine's farewell campaign: thrash's most venomous catalog, one last ride.
Cavalera · Max and Iggor performing Sepultura's Roots in full: Brazilian metal history, live.Danny Elfman · Oingo Boingo's madman turned Burton's composer, a berserk orchestral-rock spectacle.
The Mars Volta · At the Drive-In's cosmic successors: salsa-prog freakouts and falsetto fire.
Circa Survive · Anthony Green's art-punk flagship, reunited (soaring, strange, beloved).
- Mac Sabbath · Black Sabbath covers performed by fast-food mascots. Exactly as great as it sounds.
The lineup by day
Thursday lineup (September 17)
Iron Maiden, Pantera, Megadeth, Danzig, Rise Against, Alice Cooper + 42 more
Thursday set times (48 sets)
- Chained Saint · Life Stage
- Set For Tomorrow · Big Bourbon Bar
- The Violent Hour · Louder Stage
- King 810 · Impact Stage
- Mac Sabbath · Life Stage
- Sent By Ravens · Big Bourbon Bar
- Zero 9:36 · Decibel Stage
- Metal Church · Louder Stage
- Signs of the Swarm · Impact Stage
- Red · Reverb Stage
- vianova · Loudmouth Stage
- GWAR · Life Stage
- Holy Wars · Big Bourbon Bar
- The Ataris · Decibel Stage
- Suicidal Tendencies · Louder Stage
- Born of Osiris · Impact Stage
- The Rasmus · Reverb Stage
- Machine Head · Life Stage
- Cane Hill · Loudmouth Stage
- Lit · Decibel Stage
- Dark Divine · Big Bourbon Bar
- Anthrax · Louder Stage
- Emmure · Impact Stage
- Adelitas Way · Reverb Stage
- Like Moths To Flames · Loudmouth Stage
- Sabaton · Life Stage
- Bowling For Soup · Decibel Stage
- Elijah · Big Bourbon Bar
- The Acacia Strain · Impact Stage
- Alice Cooper · Louder Stage
- From Ashes To New · Reverb Stage
- Volumes · Loudmouth Stage
- Danzig · Life Stage
- After The Burial · Impact Stage
- Alkaline Trio · Decibel Stage
- Archers · Big Bourbon Bar
- Megadeth · Louder Stage
- ERRA · Loudmouth Stage
- Starset · Reverb Stage
- Pantera · Life Stage
- Thousand Below · Big Bourbon Bar
- Hot Mulligan · Decibel Stage
- Currents · Loudmouth Stage
- Iron Maiden · Louder Stage
- Skillet · Reverb Stage
- Chelsea Grin · Impact Stage
- Rise Against · Decibel Stage
- Fit For A King · Loudmouth Stage
Friday lineup (September 18)
My Chemical Romance, Pierce The Veil, A Day To Remember, The Used, Coheed and Cambria, The Pretty Reckless + 44 more
Friday set times (49 sets)
- ivri · Life Stage
- The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus · Louder Stage
- Lacey Sturm · Life Stage
- American Monster · Decibel Stage
- Ladrones · Loudmouth Stage
- L.S. Dunes · Louder Stage
- Death Valley Dreams · Reverb Stage
- Billy McNicol · Big Bourbon Bar
- Nevertel · Loudmouth Stage
- Get Scared · Life Stage
- Showing Teeth · Decibel Stage
- Gates To Hell · Impact Stage
- We The Kings · Louder Stage
- Butcher Babies · Reverb Stage
- 40 Below Summer · Big Bourbon Bar
- Wind Walkers · Loudmouth Stage
- Vana · Decibel Stage
- Loathe · Life Stage
- Missing Link · Impact Stage
- Earshot · Big Bourbon Bar
- Rain City Drive · Loudmouth Stage
- Mushroomhead · Reverb Stage
- Coheed and Cambria · Louder Stage
- KOYO · Impact Stage
- Scene Queen · Decibel Stage
- The Word Alive · Loudmouth Stage
- Primer 55 · Big Bourbon Bar
- Sleeping with Sirens · Life Stage
- Soulfly · Reverb Stage
- Twitching Tongues · Impact Stage
- Dead Poet Society · Decibel Stage
- Holding Absence · Loudmouth Stage
- Taking Back Sunday · Louder Stage
- Dry Kill Logic · Big Bourbon Bar
- Blue Medusa · Reverb Stage
- Angel Du$t · Impact Stage
- The Used · Life Stage
- President · Loudmouth Stage
- The Warning · Decibel Stage
- Jeff Hardy · Big Bourbon Bar
- HAYWIRE · Impact Stage
- A Day To Remember · Louder Stage
- Cavalera · Reverb Stage
- Soil · Big Bourbon Bar
- Pierce The Veil · Life Stage
- The Pretty Reckless · Decibel Stage
- Knocked Loose · Impact Stage
- Chad Gray: Voice of Mudvayne & HELLYEAH · Reverb Stage
- My Chemical Romance · Louder Stage
Saturday lineup (September 19)
Limp Bizkit, Sublime, Papa Roach, BABYMETAL, Halestorm, Circa Survive + 45 more
Saturday set times (51 sets)
- TX2 · Life Stage
- Diamante · Decibel Stage
- Josey Scott: The Original Voice of SALIVA · Louder Stage
- Emarosa · Reverb Stage
- The Funeral Portrait · Life Stage
- Kami Kehoe · Decibel Stage
- Freeze The Fall · Loudmouth Stage
- Codefendants · Impact Stage
- Alien Ant Farm · Louder Stage
- Scary Kids Scaring Kids · Reverb Stage
- Heavy//Hitter · Loudmouth Stage
- As You Were · Big Bourbon Bar
- Set It Off · Life Stage
- Icon For Hire · Decibel Stage
- Many Eyes · Impact Stage
- Silly Goose · Loudmouth Stage
- Hail The Sun · Reverb Stage
- P.O.D. · Louder Stage
- Doobie · Big Bourbon Bar
- The Barbarians of California · Impact Stage
- Orianthi · Decibel Stage
- Nothing More · Life Stage
- Fox Lake · Loudmouth Stage
- No Resolve · Big Bourbon Bar
- Thursday · Reverb Stage
- H2O · Impact Stage
- Tom Morello · Louder Stage
- PeelingFlesh · Loudmouth Stage
- Spoken · Big Bourbon Bar
- Lindsey Stirling · Decibel Stage
- Madball · Impact Stage
- Ice Nine Kills · Life Stage
- Chiodos · Reverb Stage
- OTHERWISE · Big Bourbon Bar
- Spite · Loudmouth Stage
- Bilmuri · Louder Stage
- Agnostic Front · Impact Stage
- In This Moment · Decibel Stage
- Tantric · Big Bourbon Bar
- Boundaries · Loudmouth Stage
- BABYMETAL · Life Stage
- Dance Gavin Dance · Reverb Stage
- Blood For Blood · Impact Stage
- Texas Hippie Coalition · Big Bourbon Bar
- Sublime · Louder Stage
- Kublai Khan TX · Loudmouth Stage
- Halestorm · Decibel Stage
- Powerman 5000 · Big Bourbon Bar
- Papa Roach · Life Stage
- Circa Survive · Reverb Stage
- Limp Bizkit · Louder Stage
Sunday lineup (September 20)
Tool, Gojira, Danny Elfman, The Prodigy, The Mars Volta, Mastodon + 43 more
Sunday set times (49 sets)
- Austin Carlile: The Original Voice of Of Mice & Men · Decibel Stage
- Rivers of Nihil · Life Stage
- He Is Legend · Reverb Stage
- Between The Buried And Me · Life Stage
- Caskets · Decibel Stage
- Surfaced · Impact Stage
- Toadies · Louder Stage
- Maylene & The Sons of Disaster · Reverb Stage
- Sace6 · Loudmouth Stage
- Animals As Leaders · Life Stage
- Future Palace · Big Bourbon Bar
- I See Stars · Decibel Stage
- Boltcutter · Impact Stage
- Filter · Louder Stage
- Emery · Reverb Stage
- The Pretty Wild · Loudmouth Stage
- Dethklok · Life Stage
- Escape The Fate · Decibel Stage
- Corpse Pile · Impact Stage
- Haste The Day · Reverb Stage
- Arrows in Action · Loudmouth Stage
- Ministry · Louder Stage
- Dreamwake · Big Bourbon Bar
- Atreyu · Decibel Stage
- 200 Stab Wounds · Impact Stage
- Black Label Society · Life Stage
- Alexisonfire · Reverb Stage
- Holywatr · Loudmouth Stage
- The Mars Volta · Louder Stage
- Resolve · Big Bourbon Bar
- Black Veil Brides · Decibel Stage
- End It · Impact Stage
- Mastodon · Life Stage
- Thrice · Reverb Stage
- Downswing · Big Bourbon Bar
- Killswitch Engage · Decibel Stage
- Locked Shut · Impact Stage
- Jutes · Loudmouth Stage
- Danny Elfman · Louder Stage
- Aviana · Big Bourbon Bar
- Underoath · Reverb Stage
- Gojira · Life Stage
- Greyhaven · Big Bourbon Bar
- The Prodigy · Decibel Stage
- Sunami · Impact Stage
- The Home Team · Loudmouth Stage
- Tool · Louder Stage
- 156/Silence · Big Bourbon Bar
- Sleep Theory · Loudmouth Stage
Louder Than Life 2026 lineup FAQ
When is Louder Than Life 2026?
September 17–20, 2026, Thursday through Sunday.
Where does Louder Than Life take place?
Highland Festival Grounds at the Kentucky Exposition Center, Louisville, KY.
Who is headlining Louder Than Life 2026?
Iron Maiden and Pantera (Thursday), My Chemical Romance and Pierce The Veil (Friday), Limp Bizkit and Sublime (Saturday), and Tool with Gojira (Sunday).
How many bands are playing?
198 announced acts across seven stages over four days.
What days and times do specific bands play?
Set times are live. The festival published its full schedule on 13 August, and every act on this page carries a day, a stage and a set time. Expand the full lineup below, or use the day-by-day breakdown. The one exception is Palaye Royale, still billed for the Friday but not yet given a slot.
How do I figure out which of the 198 bands I'd actually like?
Tell the finder at the top of this page a few bands you love, and it'll match you with your must-see sets, with reasons why.
When is Louder Than Life 2027?
Louder Than Life is expected back in September 2027; the festival has not announced the 2027 dates yet. The 2026 lineup stays on this page until it does.
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