Alcatraz festival 2021 announces huge lineup

Belgian festival Alcatraz has announced its lineup for 2021. Much like all major events, Alcatraz festival was striken by the pandemic and had to shut its doors last year but the return is as majestic as one would expect. With a lineup boasting 77 bands from all spectrums of extreme music, including titans like Epica, Cradle of Filth, Emperor, Kreator and Eluveitie among many others, it will take place on August 13-15. Tickets are available here.

The announcement reads as follows:

"When we announced on 12 May that Alcatraz 2021 would take place as scheduled, we realised we were taking on a huge challenge. As we all know these are uncertain and turbulent times but all things pass and every cloud has a silver lining. More even, the dark clouds that were hanging over Alcatraz 2021 are slowly dissipating and what once seemed like an unattainable dream is now within our grasp. Live music is in the cards again, in an open air festival arena, without face masks or social distancing rules. We promised you a top-tier line-up and we feel we’ve lived up to that promise. We pulled out all the stops and despite the cancellation of countless festivals and tours we still managed to put together a bill worthy of our festival. Even so, as you might expect, a slew of bands won’t be able to make it this summer. On the bright side though, every single band that featured on the original 2020 line-up and that won’t be performing this summer has been carried over to Alcatraz 2022. As a result we already have an enviable list of confirmations for next year’s edition. In putting together the roster for this year we didn’t take the easy way out. 

Obviously postponing the introduction of our fourth stage to next year meant a significant reduction in the number of artists. Other bands have been replaced with a variety of top acts. Kreator, Doro, Jinjer, … these are just a few of the names that were not included in the original line-up but that have meanwhile been confirmed for Alcatraz 2021. Several Belgian bands also threw in the towel – some through lack of rehearsal time, others are hitting the studio to record new material. Here, too, we went for all killer, no filler. Newcomers include Bark, Sloper, Lalma, Feed, Thorium, After All, Powerstroke and White Heat – a mix of household names and new heavy hitters with quality as the common denominator. Stoner heroes Cowboys & Aliens have even chosen our correctional facility to celebrate their 25th anniversary and Channel Zero will be playing not one, but two sets! The band around Franky DSVD will open the Prison Stage on Friday with a set list taken exclusively from their third album ‘Unsafe’ and onwards; also on Friday they have agreed to close out the Swamp stage with an old school set with nothing but songs off their first two records. In other words, Channel Zero fans of every ilk will get their fill on Friday 13 August but come on time if you don’t want to miss out on your first helping of black fuel. 

To summarise, putting together this line-up was a genuine jigsaw quandary. It was nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat but the end result is definitely worth it. We are proud of this varied line-up featuring the best of the (available) bands and artists from all heavy genres. We are looking forward to this summer and we can’t wait to see you all in Kortrijk in mid-August! 

A final string of bands will be announced shortly..."

Alcatraz takes place in Kortrijk, Belgium on August 13-15.

For info and tickets, visit www.alcatraz.be.

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