SLIPKNOT, THE PRODIGY, MÖTLEY CRÜE, KORN, PENDULUM, DRAGONFORCE and DEVILDRIVER are the first confirmed bands for this year's edition of the the U.K.'s Download festival, set to take place over the weekend of June 12-14, 2009. More bands will be announced soon.

The Download festival is a three-day music festival held annually at Donington Park (which hosted the Monsters of Rock festivals between 1980 and 1996, and 2002's Ozzfest). It takes place at the end of spring, and is owned and managed by Live Nation.

Norwegian national television channel NRK aired a report on the moshpit phenomenon as part of its "Lydverket" music program. The eight-minute segment, which includes interviews with members of SLIPKNOT, IN FLAMES and DISTURBED, can be viewed below.

METALLICA and SLIPKNOT are among the first confirmed artists for the Optimus Alive! 09 festival, set to take place July 9-11, 2009 at Passeio Marítimo de Algés in Oeiras, Portugal. This eco-friendly event (recycling is vital to the festival's ethos) starts at 5:00 p.m. every evening.

Last year's Optimus Alive! festival featured performances by RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE and WITHIN TEMPTATION, among others.

Hey Slipknot Fans,
As you may or may not have noticed there are a ton of new dates that are being added to the tour section. A complete list can be seen below. Keep checking back as there are more to come!

June 6th - Rock Am Ring - Nurburgring, Germany
June 7th - Rock Im Park - Nurnburg, Germany
June 9th - Torwar - Warsaw, Poland
June14th - Greenfield Festival - Interlaken, Switzerland
June 16th - Dom Sportova 1 - Zagreb, Croatia
June 17th - Belgrade Arena - Belgrade, Serbia
June 19th - NovaRock Festival - Nickelsdorf, Austria
June 24th - Hove Festival - Arendal, Norway
June 27th - Graspop Metal Meeting - Dessel, Belgium
June 28th - Gods of Metal Festival - Milan, Italy
July 4th - Roskilde Festival - Roskilde, Denmark
July 9th - Alive Festival - Lisbon, Portugal
July 10th - Terrazas de Madrid - Madrid, Spain

According to The Pulse of Radio, SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor caused a stir last month when he revealed plans to make his first solo album sometime in the next year. The biggest question for fans was what would happen with Taylor's other group, STONE SOUR, whose last effort, "Come What(ever) May", surfaced in 2006. Taylor told The Pulse of Radio that he's keeping his priorities straight when it comes to new projects. "I think what got people up in arms is the fact that, you know, it was a question of what was going to come first, solo album or STONE SOUR?" he said. "What it comes down to is that we've put a lot of work into STONE SOUR, and for me to turn around and put out a solo album first would kind of destroy the foundation that we've built for STONE SOUR. So starting this fall, we are going to work on a new STONE SOUR album."

Taylor said he hopes to record the new STONE SOUR album next January and February, with a tentative release in the spring of 2010.

SLIPKNOT began its first solo headlining tour in support of the band's latest album, "All Hope Is Gone", Friday night (January 23) in St. Paul, Minnesota. Ross Raihala of TwinCities.com writes in his review of the concert, "The 10,230 fans who filled the general-admission floor and lower half of the arena were certainly ready for the band's first gig at the X in almost four years, moshing and cheering throughout the evening, shouting along to the Grammy-nominated single 'Duality' and basking in every last chunky riff. Heck, some of them were so excited, they even cheered while the roadies did a pre-show soundcheck behind a curtain.

"Indeed, all those things that seemed so ridiculous about the band in the beginning — from the slasher-film/SM masks to the logo straight out of a 1950s horror comic — now seem like the least unusual aspects of SLIPKNOT. What's most amazing these days is that they can still figure out how to use all nine members, which include a pair of additional percussionists, a DJ and keyboard/samples player alongside two guitarists, a bassist and drummer. All that extra manpower rarely felt superfluous and, if anything, added an extra layer of muscle to the music. The lack of pyro and special effects may have been to save a little scratch in these lean times, but it only further focused attention on the music itself."

Read the entire review, and check out photos of the concert, at TwinCities.com.

The group's setlist was as follows:

1. (Sic)
2. Eyeless
3. Wait and Bleed
4. Me Inside
5. Before I Forget
6. Dead Memories
7. Left Behind
8. The Blister Exists
9. Frail Limb Nursery
10. Purity
11. Everything Ends
12. Psychosocial
13. Duality
14. People = Shit
--------------------------
15. Surfacing
16. Spit It Out

DISTURBED, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE and SLIPKNOT are among the confirmed bands for this year's Nova Rock festival, set to take place June 19-21 on the Pannonia Fields in Burgenland, the easternmost federal state of Austria (near Nickelsdorf and the Hungarian and Slovak borders).

The festival billing is shaping up as follows (in alphabetical order):

3 FEET SMALLER
AUGUST BURNS RED
BLACK STONE CHERRY
BLACK TIDE
BRING ME THE HORIZON
DIE TOTEN HOSEN
DISTURBED
GOGOL BORDELLO
IN EXTREMO
KILLSWITCH ENGAGE
MASTODON
METALLICA
PLACEBO
SLIPKNOT
SMOKE BLOW
THE LIVING END
TRIVIUM

SLIPKNOT percussionist Chris Fehn has high hopes for the band's future.

"I think we're going to overtake METALLICA," Fehn told KansasCity.com in a recent interview. "We're going to overtake any band that sells out soccer arenas in Europe. We're going to do it. We're the last chance as far as the world goes."

"They (fans) keep showing up, and it's getting better and better every year," Fehn said.

And musically, he thinks SLIPKNOT has yet to peak.

"We haven't even made our 'Black' record yet," Fehn said, referring to the 1991 "Metallica" CD that made METALLICA the undisputed kings of the heavy metal scene. "Wait until we do that. It's over, dude."

Regarding SLIPKNOT's upcoming headlining U.S. tour in support of the "All Hope Is Gone" CD, Fehn said, "It's kind of a surprise for now. But we're going to play some really original, like different kind of stuff. We've got a great set put together. We've got four records now, so we've got a lot to choose from."