Given Korn‘s status as one of the three headliners for this year’s ‘Download Festival‘, the band’s guitarist Brian “Head” Welch brought up the topic of fellow headliner Sleep Token‘s staggering new stage production (see below footage) during a recent discussion on the latest episode of the BBC Radio 1‘s ‘Rock Show With Daniel P Carter‘. That episode is available to stream via BBC.co.uk.
It was then that the ‘Radio 1 Rock Show‘ show’s host Daniel P. Carter recalled watching Sleep Token‘s set from the side of the stage at the 2023 ‘Aftershock‘ festival in Sacramento, CA alongside Shaffer. As Carter recalled, Shaffer said during that set, “These guys are gonna be headlining this thing in two years time.” Upon hearing Carter‘s recollection, Shaffer responded, “I did say that. I called it.” Welch went onto say [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“I love it because all these people — I don’t know how many -— but, I heard chatter about people like, ‘Sleep Token headlining?’ Some people were saying they’re so young to be able to headline so quick. And they came with that stage? Shut everybody up. They went bigger than a Slipknot stage, man.”
Shaffer added, “Also, the new record [“Even In Arcadia“] is incredible. So it’s not only like the stage, yeah you can do that all day long, but they got the songs to back it up.”
Sleep Token nabbing one of the three coveted headlining slots alongside Korn and Green Day at this year’s ‘Download Festival‘ was a controversial decision upon being announced late last year, with some arguing the now chart-topping masked British alternative metal band had yet to prove themselves worthy of the spot.
The discourse surrounding whether or not they were capable of delivering on the performance was heated enough that ‘Download Festival‘ founder Andy Copping publicly rallied behind the band.
