Sick New World Texas Goes Heavy and Gets Weird

October 24, 2026Texas Motor SpeedwayFort Worth

Sick New World’s Texas debut had far more on its lineup than we could capture in a single day. The 13 acts below are the ones we photographed at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth on October 24, 2026. Our route spanned several decades of heavy music and could take us from Kittie to Lords of Acid without changing stages. Across our coverage, the day moved through metalcore, industrial, alternative rock, thrash and electronic music, with some of its most interesting combinations happening well before the evening’s biggest names arrived.

The crowd supplied plenty worth pointing a camera at, too. Black lace, fishnets, studded vests and corpse paint shared space with a neon green tutu, an equally bright beard, a cow print outfit and a full suit of armor. Clowns posed for portraits. Couples leaned together at the rail. A banana went crowdsurfing. The dress code appeared to be whatever made you happiest, preferably with something loud playing nearby. Between the elaborate costumes and the grins from people packed against the barricade, this crowd gave the festival a personality all its own.

Showing Teeth’s Addison had a straightforward request for the early crowd.

“We’re from Nashville. So we know how to get down. I think Texas does too though, so let’s fucking dance!”

That introduction set an appropriately loose tone for a day with this much aggression on the schedule. Showing Teeth opened the Spiral Stage with debut EP A Fate Worse Than Loneliness barely seven weeks old, putting a developing catalog in front of an audience surrounded by much longer histories. Addison’s combination of harsh vocals, melody and unpredictable metalcore gave the early lineup a sharp contemporary edge.

Snot followed with a different kind of unruliness. The collision of funk, punk and metal on Get Some has always made the band difficult to file neatly beside its peers, which made this a fitting place for them. With Andy Knapp fronting the current lineup, their appearance carried that music into another chapter. There is a particular appeal to Snot’s combination of groove and abrasion on a festival bill where so many bands approach heaviness from completely different directions.

Orgy’s appearance hit a snag, with technical difficulties hampering the set. It was a frustrating complication in the early stretch, particularly with festival slots leaving little room for things to go wrong. Their electronic textures and industrial rock belong comfortably within Sick New World’s identity, making the problems an unfortunate part of their afternoon.

Alien Ant Farm followed with another side of that same broad era of alternative music. Their more elastic rhythms and melodic instincts offered a change from Orgy’s darker electronic approach. Having the two bands back to back made the differences between them more interesting than any shared association with the turn of the millennium.

Violent Vira continued that movement between generations. Her emotionally direct alternative rock gave the afternoon another newer voice, followed by Kittie and a history stretching back three decades. Kittie’s renewed activity has put the band in front of another generation of listeners, and their place on this bill connected naturally with the younger artists around them. The appeal of this part of the schedule was being able to move between those catalogs without treating any one period as the whole story.

Lords of Acid then supplied a welcome dose of sleaze. With Carla Harvey fronting the band alongside Praga Khan, their combination of electronic beats, industrial abrasion and unapologetic absurdity pushed the Spiral Stage toward the club. Songs including “Scrood Bi U” and “Out Comes the Evil” made that shift clear. After so much music built around tension and emotional release, Lords of Acid’s willingness to be ridiculous had its own appeal.

Between sets, Sick New World’s offstage attractions made a persuasive case for getting distracted. The Toxicity Vault celebrated 25 years of System of a Down’s album through memorabilia and photo installations, while The Confessional offered a gothic backdrop. Slayer and Civil Regime brought merch, corpse makeup and a bedroom installation. The Rockstar Energy Compound paired vert ramp demos with karaoke, and The Yard offered barbecue, desserts, games and shade. Lil’ Sins Saloon added bar games and a photo booth.

Other stops included custom accessories at the Branding Bar, chains at BeatBox, pet gear from Jonathan Davis’ Freak On A Leash, Kavat Coffee’s Banana Terracotta Latte and Deftones’ Phantom Bride IPA. Tombstone offered free pizza and a neon photo wall. Aguasol, White Claw, Yerba Madre and Electrolit supplied refreshments, while Eargasm and The Last Stop handled practical supplies. There was also the deliberately mysterious Hideaway and, for VIP patrons, complimentary festival flash tattoos. Even a breather could become a detour.

AFI offered a particularly effective meeting of melody, momentum and theater. “Girl’s Not Grey” and “Love Like Winter” provided familiar entry points, while “Holy Visions” and “Behind the Clock” kept the set connected to the band’s newer work. Davey Havok’s spinning kicks and microphone stand theatrics gave those songs a physical expression, with his movement adding another layer to their drama. “Miss Murder” closed the set with the kind of immediate hook that works especially well when a festival keeps pulling its audience in several directions.

Knocked Loose approached the evening with much less interest in letting anyone settle. Bryan Garris’s piercing vocals and the band’s punishing rhythmic shifts supplied one of the day’s most abrasive combinations, with fire adding to the production. Their placement among so many established names made sense on musical terms. They have an immediately identifiable sound, and its refusal to soften gave this stretch of the lineup a useful jolt.

Marilyn Manson followed with a catalog built around a different kind of confrontation. “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” and “The Beautiful People” remain instantly recognizable pieces of his industrial rock theater, while “The Dope Show” provided the setting for one of the set’s more personal moments.

“I lied,” Manson said during his familiar confession about drugs. “I fucking love the drugs.”

He turned the admission into a darkly comic account of a relationship that had become destructive, personifying drugs as a lover he eventually took into the desert and killed. The subject was sobriety, presented with the same grotesque theatricality that runs through his songs. Coming alongside “The Dope Show,” the speech gave that part of the set a different perspective on the excess the song has long depicted.

Evanescence gave the evening a broader melodic sweep. Amy Lee’s voice remained the center of the performance, with newer material including “Afterlife” and “Rapture” sharing space with “Going Under,” “Lithium” and “Imaginary.” That selection allowed the set to move through several periods of the band’s work while retaining a clear identity. The tension between Lee’s vocal melodies and the weight underneath them is central to Evanescence’s appeal, and a bill this varied gave that combination room to stand out. “Bring Me to Life” supplied the closing connection to Fallen.

Slayer’s appearance carried the weight of Reign in Blood’s 40th anniversary, though the set reached across the band’s catalog. “South of Heaven,” “War Ensemble” and “Dead Skin Mask” sat alongside “Angel of Death,” “Altar of Sacrifice” and “Jesus Saves.” The selection covered both sides of Slayer’s attack, from frantic speed to slower passages that build their menace through repetition. “Postmortem” and “Raining Blood” closed the sequence, giving the anniversary material a decisive place in the set without reducing the appearance to a single album.

The Prodigy provided the final stop in our photographic coverage, returning us to the Spiral Stage for another change of pace. “Omen,” “Voodoo People” and “Poison” exchanged the evening’s metal rhythms for breakbeats and electronic distortion. Liam Howlett’s productions have always understood the physical force of repetition and a well timed release, while Maxim supplied the human presence at the front of it all.

The “Firestarter” introduction included a visual tribute to Keith Flint, acknowledging a presence inseparable from the band’s history. Later, “Smack My Bitch Up,” “Take Me to the Hospital” and “Breathe” formed the closing stretch. Those songs made a convincing endpoint for a day that had started with Addison telling Texas to dance. Several hours and a considerable amount of heavy music later, The Prodigy gave that invitation one last interpretation.

That range was the strongest part of Sick New World’s Texas debut. Our coverage moved from artists establishing their first substantial catalogs to bands revisiting records that helped shape entire scenes. The technical problems during Orgy’s set were an unfortunate interruption, but the lineup kept offering another reason to pay attention. Following 13 acts through it gave us a substantial day of music, and the fans made sure there was just as much worth photographing on their side of the barricade.

Sick New World, let’s do that again. A lineup this stacked, enough offstage attractions to derail the schedule and a crowd that showed up in everything from fishnets to full armor made Texas one hell of a home for this festival. Here’s hoping 2027 gives us another round. We’d be counting down the days.

System of a Down and Deftones closed their sets to media and are not included in this coverage.