According to the Detroit Free Press, Belle Isle has been approved as the location of next year's edition of METALLICA's Orion Music + More festival. The agenda for the Detroit City Council's January 8 meeting includes a line item for a finance department/purchasing division contract that gives Belle Isle as the location for Orion through 2015. It also states that the contract was approved through the recess procedure for the week of December 10.

Belle Isle is a 982-acre (1.534 square miles) island park in the Detroit River, between the United States mainland and Canada, managed by the Detroit Recreation Department. It is connected to the rest of Detroit, Michigan by the MacArthur Bridge. It is the largest island city park in the United States and the third largest island in the Detroit River after Grosse Ile and Fighting Island.

Orion Music + More festival will take place on June 8-9, 2013. More details regarding tickets and the lineup for the show will be revealed in February. A teaser trailer for the event has been posted online.

Orion Music + More festival debuted last June 22-23 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Drummer Lars Ulrich told The Pulse Of Radio earlier this year that the growth of European-style festivals in the U.S. led the band to give their own a try. "Four years ago we played Bonnaroo in Tennessee, and that was like the first time we did something that had that kind of European flavor in America, and we thought it was really, really cool," he said. "And we thought, there were 75,000 people there that were digging it, and we thought that maybe that kind of vibe could actually work in America, and maybe that we could carve out our own little niche and try to see if we could get something off the ground."

The first Orion festival covered a wide range of music as well as other activities and exhibits that reflected the personal interests of the members of METALLICA.

The lineup featured acts like ARCTIC MONKEYS, AVENGED SEVENFOLD, MODEST MOUSE, THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM, CAGE THE ELEPHANT, BEST COAST, KYNG, GARY CLARK JR., LUCERO, ROKY ERICKSON, THE SWORD and others.

METALLICA headlined both nights, playing 1991's self-titled "black album" in its entirety one night and 1984's "Ride The Lightning" the other.

Exhibits relating to the personal hobbies of the members of METALLICA included a custom car show by James Hetfield, a film festival tent hosted by Ulrich, a horror memorabilia display from guitarist Kirk Hammett and a surfing exhibit by bassist Robert Trujillo.

The two Atlantic City shows sold a total of 24,000 tickets, according to The Press Of Atlantic City.

Orion Music + More 2012 Day 1 Recap:



Orion Music + More 2012 Day 2 Recap: