Metal Edge Presents
Highlights
GHOST TAKE 'SKELETOUR' TO IMAX WITH '2 BIG TO RIG'
Photo: Ethan Miller Ghost spent 70 nights on Skeletour with phones locked in pouches at the door, which means almost nothing from the tour exists on film. What does exist runs to two nights in September 2025 at Mexico City's Palacio de los Deportes, shot on 16mm in front of a combined crowd of roughly 40,000, and it's now the basis of the band's second feature. 2 Big to Rigreaches cinemas and IMAX worldwide beginning Wednesday, August 26 for a limited run. Amir Chamdin directed, with Tobias Forge producing alongside Kristen Mulderig, Rick Sales, Matilda E. Almeida and Jessica Roulston. Shooting on 16mm puts grain and halation on a band that has spent a decade building its whole visual language out of candlelight, robes and stage smoke, and since no other professional footage from the tour exists, this is the version of Skeletour that goes into the record. ORDER RITE HERE, RITE NOW Where 2024's Rite Here Rite Now built a narrative around the mythology, this one stays inside the show. Papa V Perpetua and the Nameless Ghouls work through material spanning all six Ghost albums, including 2025's chart-topping Skeletá, with non-album staples "Mary on a Cross," "Kiss the Go-Goat" and "The Future Is a Foreign Land" folded into the set. Interludes step backstage to follow the crew responsible for turning Forge's staging concepts into a functioning nightly production, which is where the title lands: Skeletour was retired in February 2026 after 70 shows across North America, Europe and Mexico, in part because the scale of the thing had outgrown the rooms that could physically hold it. Territories that never got a Skeletour date were shut out by the same logistics. The Mexico City run itself was meant to be three nights before illness forced the cancellation of the first, and fans holding tickets for that show turn up in the footage from the two that survived. "Ghost captured the final nights of the legendary Skeletour's first leg on 16mm film in Mexico City," said Kymberli Frueh, EVP of Content Acquisitions & Programming at Trafalgar Releasing, framing the release as a farewell to the era before the band steps into its already-announced hiatus. The band's first film became the highest-grossing hard rock cinema event in US history and produced a No. 1 soundtrack, which gives Trafalgar every reason to bet on a second collaboration. Tickets go on sale Thursday, July 23, with screening and showtime updates at 2bigtorig.com.
NAPALM DEATH BRING GRINDCORE TO NPR'S TINY DESK
Napalm Death have performed at NPR Music's Tiny Desk, bringing four decades of grindcore to a stage better known for hushed acoustic sets. The performance is almost certainly the heaviest music the series has hosted, and it arrives with the band making no accommodation whatsoever for the room. They played eight songs, closing with "You Suffer," which lasts roughly a second and a half and remains the shortest song ever recorded by a band anyone has heard of. The booking came from NPR Music producer and writer Lars Gotrich, a longtime advocate for heavy music at the network, who says he had been holding the slot for the right band. He turned down other grindcore acts or pushed them off, waiting. "The first grindcore band at the Tiny Desk had to be the founding fathers," Gotrich says, adding that there is only one Napalm Death, a band he sees as exemplary of extreme music and of what it takes to stay human in an inhumane time. Vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway says the offer caught him off guard, in part because he has been a listener for years. He has followed Democracy Now! through NPR for decades to get what he calls unvarnished North American news, so the invitation "kind of blew my tiny mind a little bit." The band understood the reach involved, with the series pulling audiences far beyond the one they draw at a club or a festival, and decided immediately that reach would change nothing about the set. Greenway says they were never going to temper the performance to any degree, and that he hopes viewers take something from it even if it amounts to an understanding of musical abrasion pushed as far as it will go. He used the appearance to ask people to support public access broadcasting, which he notes is under relentless attack. Napalm Death formed in Birmingham, England in 1981 and are credited with inventing grindcore, the ultra-fast extreme metal subgenre that grew out of their early records. The British press initially treated the band as a curiosity, though John Peel's championing on BBC Radio 1 helped push them toward a global audience that has sustained them across 16 albums. None of the original members remain, and Greenway and bassist Shane Embury have anchored the group for most of its run. Embury joined in 1987, making him the longest-serving member, and he appears on 15 of the band's 16 albums. He is currently off the road while he addresses several health issues, including a battle with pancreatitis. SET LIST Instinct of SurvivalStrong-ArmEveryday PoxThroes of Joy in the Jaws of DefeatismAmoralDeadScumYou Suffer MUSICIANS Mark "Barney" Greenway: vocalsJohn Cooke: guitar, background vocalsMatt Sheridan: bassDanny Herrera: drums
BON JOVI OPENS TOUR AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN ( SET LIST + PHOTOS )
Photo: Theo Wargo Bon Jovi returned to the stage Tuesday night, launching their Forever Tour with the first of nine sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden — the band's first full-scale concerts since 2022, and their first since frontman Jon Bon Jovi underwent vocal cord surgery. The night's real question was whether the voice had survived. It had. It took a couple of songs to warm — the Joe Cocker–style reading of "With a Little Help From My Friends" was cautious — but by "Lost Highway" he'd found his footing, and the familiar rasp was back. On the highest reaches of "Livin' on a Prayer" he leaned on his bandmates, then turned the chorus over to 20,000 people: "One more time… for me." At 64, grayer and now a grandfather, Bon Jovi still worked the room on charisma alone — two hands on the mic, that leg-kicking bounce, fists in the air. Original members Tico Torres and David Bryan anchored a band playing every note live, no teleprompter. Between songs he kept stopping to look around, visibly moved. "I'm grateful and humbled by this whole ordeal," he told the crowd. "Thank you for letting me have this." Photo: Theo WargoPhoto: Theo WargoPhoto: Theo Wargo Setlist: With a Little Help From My Friends (The Beatles cover)Beautiful DrugWe Weren't Born to FollowLost HighwayWho Says You Can't Go HomeYou Give Love a Bad NameBorn to Be My BabyLegendaryWhole Lot of Leavin'In These ArmsHave a Nice DayIt's My LifeLivin' on a PrayerLay Your Hands on MeBlood on BloodLiving ProofThis House Is Not for SaleKeep the Faith Encore:I'll Be There for YouWanted Dead or AliveBad Medicine
