Louder Than Life 2018 Lineup Suggests Danny Wimmer Could Be Changing The Summer Music Festival Game

In 2014, Louder Than Life Summer Rock festival had headliners consisting of bands such as Judas Priest, Kid Rock, Korn, Stone Temple Pilots, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Papa Roach, Mastodon as well as plenty of others.

This year, their headliners look a little different. Bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Limp Bizkit, Breaking Benjamin, and Godsmack are set to be in attendance and are names which sell plenty of tickets, but they fit in well with previous iterations of the festival. Sunday, September 30, the final night of the festival, the headliners take a notable turn, trading rock royalty for music gods.

Nine Inch Nails, Ice Cube, Deftones, and Primus all plan to rock the final night of the Louisville, Kentucky, festival.

It so appears promotion and production company Danny Wimmer Presents (DWP) is broadening their horizons in terms of musical diversity and prestige. Yesterday, Rolling Stone reported that the critically lauded alt-metal band Deftones is planning to host their own festival, a first for the band, which has been dubbed Dia de los Deftones.

Apart from that, Deftones are only playing five U.S. tour dates in 2018, one of those being Louder Than Life and another being Aftershock. Both of the aforementioned festivals are produced and promoted by DWP, suggesting that performing such festivals appears to be a significant priority for the band.

DWP promotes at least nine different summer rock festivals across the United States. Aside from Louder Than Life and Aftershock, DWP produces Welcome To Rockville, Carolina Rebellion, and Rock On The Range, to name a few. Many of the festivals have similar headliners to one another, but this year DWP appears to have upped the ante, pulling in Nine Inch Nails and Ice Cube to close up shop for the festival.

Carolina Rebellion made a similar move for 2018, announcing Friday and Saturday headliners like Godsmack, Breaking Benjamin, Five Finger Death Punch, Shinedown, and other familiar names. For Sunday, however, Carolina Rebellion brought in more subdued and critically lauded acts such as Muse and Queens of the Stone Age.

Perhaps most noteworthy inclusion to Louder Than Life is that of hip-hop icon Ice Cube as a headliner. Going back through Louder Than Life history, no rap acts have ever been included as a festival headliner.

Whether or not DWP is hoping to gradually change the image of their festival altogether, or simply include a more diverse festival lineup is unclear, but the move of a less-predictable lineup for 2018 has captured the attention of music fans, both in the Louisville, Kentucky, area and across the country.

Could Louder Than Life or another DWP festival become the next Coachella? Some music fans may scoff, but Danny Wimmer was previously a record executive for labels Geffen, Epic, and Atlantic and has decades of music industry experience. Furthermore, DWP projects over 800 million people to be in attendance at their festivals for 2018.

Lollapalooza, founded by Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction in 1991, originally began as a smaller touring festival. Since then it has evolved into an annual weekend event in Chicago, Illinois, and has drawn nearly half a million people some years.

In 2016, Danny Wimmer told Metal Insider that getting a Led Zepplin reunion for the festival was on his “bucket list.”