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70,000 Tons of Metal 2026: A Survivor's Account Of What Made This Occasion More Memorable

This year’s 70,000 Tons of Metal was definitely one for the record books to its loyal faithful, aka "survivors". For the first timers, it was definitely an experience they won’t soon forget.

For those that are new to Metalunderground.com, or by chance stumbled upon this article haphazardly, this incredible music festival takes place every year in February on a full-size passenger cruise ship with 60 bands representing just about every genre in the heavy metal universe.

The constant vibe among “survivors” onboard 70k of Metal!

The festival takes place over five days and the ship has always sailed to a sun-drenched location in the Caribbean such as Mexico, The Bahamas, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. This year’s port was Nassau, Bahamas. This is the 14th rendition of the festival and besides a few obscure incidents, this festival has gone off with nary a hiccup…until now.

Let me preface this by stating that it is 100% fact that 70,000 Tons of Metal cannot control the weather. Andy Piller, the founder and skipper of the festival, is not Zeus. Now that we are clear on this, if you ask the “survivors” what they remember most from this year’s festival, I’m betting most of them will say, it was cold and it was windy.

Even though the weather did indeed suck, the one thing that I can say coming from someone that is a 7 time “survivor,” is that this was the most memorable and the most thrilling time that I’ve ever experienced during all of my 70k of Metal experiences. I loved spending time in Nassau, I loved the bands that played this year and most importantly, I loved that all of us “survivors” were having a blast and soaking up (literally) this year’s wild ride!

Without further ado, I’ll summarize this year’s edition of 70,000 Tons of Metal as best as I am able to.

What stood out most at this year’s festival were the bands that performed. Anthrax was the biggest name on the roster and they just killed it at both of their sets. Their second set on the Pool Stage saw Joey Vera from Armored Saint taking over bass duties from Frank Bello while Frank was accepting a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance honoring the late Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne. I have to hand it to Joey Vera though, he was a natural fit with one of thrash metal’s Big Four giants.

Anthrax with Joey Vera filling in from Armored Saint

Another band I really enjoyed was Kanonenfieber, a German blackened death metal band that garb up in German World War I costumes. It was my first time seeing them live and I was wowed by their stage performance, it definitely had a theatrical feel to it.

Kanonenfieber on the Pool Deck

Some of my other favorite sets were from Heathen, Satan, Wolf, Groza, Trash Panda, Vader, Hirax and the much-anticipated reformation and return of the Dutch death metal legends, Izegrim.

Marloes Voskuil of Izegrim

This festival isn’t only about live shows, there’s tons of other things going on during these four days. There’s artist meet and greets, artist clinics and workshops, an all-star jam playing everyone’s favorite metal classics, 70,000 Tons of Karaoke (very popular during the wee hours of the morning) and the much anticipated, belly flop contest.

The Belly Flop Contest finalists!

Another bonus during this sailing was that I was able to sit down and interview two legendary thrash metal bands, Vio-lence and Hirax. You can check out the Hirax interview below and the link for the Vio-lence interview is HERE.

As I previously mentioned, the weather made a significant impact during this year's festival. One of the results of the weather was that in order to avoid rough seas and a rainy port day, the decision was made to change the port of call to the second day of the cruise when it normally takes place on the third day. This has never happened before.

It was obvious to all that this was going to be a significant weather event. I have to applaud the change. Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines took awesome care of all of us “survivors,” the festival staff and their own crew. Even though the final night’s ride was a little bumpy, the festival wasn’t affected in a negative way.

Vader on the Pool Deck

This year’s festival was much colder than previous ones. I’ve never seen as many people wearing long pants during this festival as I did this time. In addition, the majority of “survivors” were wearing jackets and/or hoodies both inside and on outside decks. In fact, I believe this was the first time that I saw the official festival hoodies sell out completely before the final day.

Now it’s time for the only known hiccup during this year’s festival. It was rumored and then confirmed that a member of the band Skeletal Remains, was inappropriately touching women without consent during the first day of the festival. To the festival’s credit, he was banished to his cabin for the remainder of the cruise and told he would no longer be able to return to the festival ever again.

From what I read online, the rest of the band played without him during their allotted sets. I commend the festival for resolving the situation as quickly as they did and banishing him from future cruises. Bravo 70,000 Tons of Metal! I can continue writing about how awesome and a unique experience 70,000 Tons of Metal really is, but I think that sometimes words aren’t enough to describe how truly incredible this festival continues to be.

Satan!

I produced a shortish' (If you’ve made it this far, you can spare 9 minutes more of your life to watch it. C’mon now…) walk-through video of this year’s festival. For those of you that were there, maybe this will bring back some great memories or maybe it will trigger a bout of post cruise blues which is a real thing according to some sailors! Either way, I hope to be back on board soon like the rest of you.