This Weekend: Heavy T.O. 2012!

One of my summer traditions (or at least what's going to become a summer tradition) is rocking out at Toronto's biggest metal festival, Heavy T.O. (HTO). HTO was spawned from the hugely successful Heavy MTL, over in poutineland across the Quebec border. Last year was HTO's first active year, and as soon as I found out it was happening, I got my tickets. Before then, I had never been to a music festival (I had been to many concerts, though) and it was everything I could have ever imagined and more.

Headliners last year included Slayer, Megadeth, Motorhead, and Rob Zombie, and the whole cast of supporting bands was ridiculously awesome, featuring a few of my favorite bands, Opeth, Testament, and Mastodon. All the bands played fantastically, I bought some sweet merch, and I even met one of my heavy metal heroes, David Gold, may he rest in peace.

I think I might've posted this picture a million times in this blog already.

Naturally after HTO 2011, I was counting down the days until the tickets for HTO 2012 went up for sale. I grabbed myself a weekend pass, and today I'll be squirming in my chair at work waiting for tomorrow to come faster. As excited as I am for the whole thing, I'm more pumped for Sunday than Saturday.

Out of all of Saturday's lineup, the bands I want to see are:

• Overkill
• Gojira
• In Flames

I know that's not a very long list, but when I got my tickets, the original lineup had Lamb of God instead of In Flames, as well as Dethklok (replaced by Dillinger Escape Plan). Lamb of God obviously couldn't make it because of Randy Blythe's arrest in the Czech Republic, but Dethklok didn't have a solid reason for cancelling. Dethklok and Lamb of God were supposed to hit up HTO as a part of their summer tour with Gojira, but when Lamb of God had their kerfuffle with the law and pulled out of the tour, Dethklok did too, even though Gojira stayed on board. It doesn't make sense to me, because Gojira are flying all the way in from France, while Dethklok just have to drive North for a couple hours to get here.

At least Lamb of God got replaced by a decent band, unlike Dethklok, unfortunately.

Headliners for Saturday are Slipknot and Marilyn Manson. Looks like I'm ditching the festival early. I've got nothing against Manson, I'm just not a fan of his music, but Slipknot can go suck a bag of dicks.

But, never fear! For Sunday's lineup rocks so fucking hard that it could make up for even a Saturday of nothing but Slipknot playing One Direction songs. 

Sunday's fantasicawesomefabulous lineup has me pumped for:

• Origin
• Fleshgod Apocalypse
• Exhumed
• The Faceless
• Goatwhore
• Kataklysm
• Cannibal Corpse
• System of a Down

I found out that for System of a Down, I have to sit through Five Finger Death Punch and Deftones, but I don't care because it's motherfucking SOAD. I have to admit that SOAD don't really fit the bill genre wise, seeing as Sunday's lineup is all technical death metal, grindcore, and deathcore, but it totally doesn't matter because it's motherfucking SOAD. Did I tell you I'm excited for System of a Down?

I have to say I'm more excited for this year's full lineup than last year's, mainly because out of the entire current lineup, I have never seen any of these bands live before. When I attended HTO 2011, I had already seen Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament the previous summer, and I already had plans to see Opeth later in the year in Guelph.

So that's what I'm pumped for this weekend! Drinking really expensive, really shitty beer and rocking the fuck out to some wicked metal. Sounds like a plan to me.

That's all for now, folks! Keep it heavy.