Report: Attendance At METALLICA's 'Orion Music + More' Festival Reached 24,000

According to Press Of Atlantic City, METALLICA's Orion Music + More festival sold 23,571 tickets for shows June 22 and 23 at the popular Atlantic City, New Jersey concert venue Bader Feld. METALLICA headlined both nights of Orion Music + More and played "Ride The Lightning" in its entirety the first night and "The Black Album" in its entirety the second.

The band's setlist for the June 23 concert was as follows:

01. Hit The Lights
02. Master Of Puppets
03. The Four Horsemen
04. Sad But True
05. Hell And Back
06. The Call Of Ktulu
07. Creeping Death
08. Escape
09. Trapped Under Ice
10. Fade To Black
11. For Whom The Bell Tolls
12. Ride The Lightning
13. Fight Fire With Fire
14. Nothing Else Matters
15. Enter Sandman

Encore:

16. Battery
17. One
18. Seek & Destroy

The band's setlist for the June 24 concert was as follows:

01. Hit The Lights
02. Master Of Puppets
03. Fuel
04. For Whom The Bell Tolls
05. The Shortest Straw
06. The Struggle Within
07. My Friend Of Misery
08. The God That Failed
09. Of Wolf & Man
10. Nothing Else Matters
11. Through The Never
12. Don't Tread On Me
13. Wherever I May Roam
14. The Unforgiven
15. Holier Than Thou
16. Sad But True
17. Enter Sandman

Encore:

18. Blackened
19. One
20. Seek & Destroy

Orion Music + More featured multiple live music stages plus a lifestyle element that reflects each of METALLICA's bandmembers' many personal interests.

When asked why METALLICA would want to do their own festival, guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield said in a recent interview, "First of all, because we can. Why wouldn't you? We're just trying to bring a little more of a mix to what is going on. . . . I think the Europeans are able to look at a festival more as an event than 'my favorite band is playing.' We're not necessarily trying to reproduce that in the States, but we'd like to bring a little taste of that here."

Speaking about the future of the Orion Music + More festival, Hetfield said, "I would love it to be an annual thing and become an established festival that people can come to and know it's going to be good, no matter what. It'll be a fun place to be and hang and see some of the other things that are going to be happening, whether it's a car show or the movie tent that Lars [Ulrich, drums] is doing or Kirk's [Hammett, guitar] haunted mansion. . . . If it ends up staying in Atlantic City, who knows, it could move. It could end up being three days, it could just be one. It really depends on how it goes this time."

METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich told The Pulse Of Radio that he's curious to see how the festival goes over. "I feel that this will work," he said. "I know I'm gonna have a great time. [laughs] Whether anybody else thinks it's gonna work, you know, we'll find out. And if it does work, obviously we would love to bring it back to the southern Jersey Shore every year. I think it has a shot at working, and if it does, then we would love to just keep making it cooler and cooler every year."

On the topic of the diversity the Orion Music + More bill, Ulrich told RollingStone.com, "I always think that our fans are as open-minded as I am, as METALLICA is, and sometimes in the past we've been proven wrong. And that's OK, I'm not going to sit and tell people what they should or shouldn't embrace. I don't walk around and think they're all METALLICA fans, I think they're all festival fans, music fans, people out for the experience. I hope our fans are going to be open and supportive of everybody that's here, and if they're not, I'm going to find them and kick their ass."

Day 1 Recap:

Day 2 Recap: