WTF: Metallica Forms Music Festival Featuring Modest Mouse, Arctic Monkeys, Liturgy, Best Coast and Titus Andronicus

Yesterday, Feb. 7, Metallica and C3 Presents announced their first music festival, Orion Music + More. It’s set to take place in Atlantic City, New Jersey June 23 and 24. But the biggest “WTF” moment from all of this (maybe even bigger than that Disney/Joy Division fiasco) is the proposed lineup.

So far, Orion Music + More festival is set to play a diverse lineup with genres ranging from punk to country to indie. The bands announced so far are: Arctic Monkeys, Avenged Sevenfold, Best Coast, The Black Angels, Cage The Elephant, Fucked Up, Gary Clark Jr., The Gaslight Anthem, Hot Snakes, Liturgy, Lucero, Modest Mouse, Roky Erickson, The Sword, Titus Andronicus, and the full lineup will be announced in the upcoming weeks.

Metallica will be headlining both nights and they’ll be playing The Black Album in its entirety the first night and all of Ride the Lightening the second night. This will be the only North American performance in 2012 for these albums.

But how did Metallica come up with this lineup, including Modest Mouse, Arctic Monkeys, Liturgy, Best Coast and Titus Andronicus? “Music to us is really diverse, and it covers all grounds,” Lars Ulrich said in a video interview on the homepage of the festival’s website. “If you took the four of our iPods and scanned through those, you’d find the biggest variety and diversity of music, so we’re trying to bring that spirit to this festival.”

Still, it’s interesting that just last October Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast tweeted: “listening to the lou reed & metallica record. my jaw is on the ground. you guys!!! ‘jaw is on the ground’ as in: ‘i can not believe this is a real thing/this is the worst thing i’ve ever heard,’” yet they picked Best Coast to play Orion. Apparently Metallica’s forgiveness knows no bounds . . . or perhaps they just don’t follow @bestycoastyy on Twitter.

–Robert Miller