2020 will mark the 25th anniversary of NOLA, the landmark debut album from Southern metal supergroup Down, which featured, in its classic original lineup, Philip Anselmo on vocals, Corrosion of Conformity's Pepper Keenan and Crowbar's Kirk Windstein on guitars, and Eyehategod's Jimmy Bower on drums. The band hasn't played a show together since August 2016, when they brought their swampy, lysergic sludge sound to the Psycho Las Vegas festival in Sin City, but that drought is about to end: Down have been booked for the 2020 edition of Belgium's Graspop Metal Meeting festival, set to take place June 18th-20th.
No word yet on whether Windstein, who recently unleashed the lead single off his first-ever solo album, will appear as part of the lineup — the Crowbar frontman split amicably with Down in 2013 in order to focus on his main band and his family life, and was replaced by guitarist Bobby Landgraf — but it would make sense for the group's core original members to reunite considering the NOLA anniversary. Anselmo acknowledged as much in an interview with Metal Nexus earlier this year. "We do have the 20th [sic] anniversary of 'NOLA' coming up, and I know that we have been offered some shows. And that's all I know," he said at the time. "Pepper's still on tour. Crowbar's always on tour. And Eyehategod, they're on tour for a long time." Stay tuned for updates as they break.
