Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

In many ways the 21st Century festival circuit has been defined by reunions and legendary returns. The big question looming before Reading, Download, Isle Of Wight, Glastonbury, V and Sonisphere has often been, not which young band will step up, but which legendary act will return.

Of all the crazes of the past ten years the reunion, or re-live the past craze, is one of the easiest to understand. With so many mechanism with which to engage with music its unsurprising that the fans of the 21st Century have gained a great appreciation for the past, and, as we all know, there are few feelings more frustrating than that of missing out.

After all, we cannot help when we were born, nor can we magically spark a love for a band, it has to occur naturally, and for so many, it happens after the fact. Indeed, Rage Against The Machine found themselves transformed into one of the biggest bands in the world only after their retirement. They had always been popular, but in their prime, they played second fiddle, they were always the bridesmaids and never the bride at Reading Festival year after year. Yet come 2008, some eight years after their much publicized break up, they were catapulted to the top of the bill, and the headline slots have never stopped coming since.

Metal and hard rock has been affected by this craze more than other genres because, let's face it, the 21st Century hasn't been kind to metal. There have been some quite magnificent works created at the fringe, but few bands have transcended their own niches and provided those generation defining LPs that catapult you from the second stage to the top of the bill.

Five bands have tried, with varying levels of success:

• Linkin Park: were the first, riding the nu-metal band wagon for all it was worth they combined irresistible hooks with agnsty lyrics designed to entice teenagers the world over. They were a huge success commercially, but artistically they've never shown any real merit, and, like so many of the 21st Centuries young upstarts, they've become a act of diminishing returns. Still popular, still satisfying, but sadly, still uninspired.
• Rammstein: The German industrial rock gods set the ball rolling in the mid nineties but only really came to festival headlining prominence in the 2000s. Full of bluster and possessing one of the greatest stages shows one earth they earned the right to top the bill at Sonisphere last year, but despite their fearsomeness live show, their sonic limitations and one dimensional industrial metal bluster will always hold them back from true relevance.
• My Chemical Romance: Catchy hooks, impeccable looks, and an army of teenage fans is always a sure root to world domination. Unfortunately for MCR they also happen to be one of the most divisive bands walking the face of the earth. The "emo" tag may be fading, but for the time being, they are too hated to provide the unifying, generation defining moments that we crave.

For better or for worse that leaves System Of A Down and Slipknot (and no, I'm not counting the Lostprophets and Audioslave failures as serious attempts at snatching the hard rock crown). Both bands peaked commercially and arguably creatively in the 21st Century; but does their return signal new hope for hard rock fans or are they simply the latest editions to the reunion circuit?

Perhaps more than any individual band the arrival of the Sonisphere festival has injected some urgency into the metal world. Now not only are their double the number of metal headline slots available, but there is genuine competition and conflict back in the metal world as the two mammoth festivals compete for our custom. This year Download has pinned their hope on System of a Down and Sonisphere has bet the house on Slipknot.

Slipknot have hardly been away, headlining Download just two years ago they finally made their long awaited step up from subs to full blown headliners. It was a historic and career defining moment for the Iowa nine piece but it was followed by an unexpected tragedy; the death of bassist Paul Gray.

Paul Gray's death threw the Slipknot off course, starting wild speculation about the band's future that was effectively ended with this morning's announcement by Sonisphere. The band, thanks in large part to Paul's death, are enjoying a huge resurgence in popularity, topicality and buzz. There is already talk that their headline slot at Sonisphere festival will be special a secial moment, but it won't.

Let us not forgot, despite their success at Download Festival, Slipknot are effectively a band on the decline. If Subliminal Verses was the perfect marriage of the band's guttural bombast and perchance of inescapable pop hooks, then All Hope Is Gone was an unimaginative side step. Full of attitude, full of hooks, but distinctly lacking in gravitas. 2008 felt like Slipknot's moment, their chance to conqueror the world, but it the end it appeared that they assumed Metal's thrown by default. Mortgaging the good will they'd earned in the past decade rather than reaching out and snatching the throne for themselves.

So now, two years later, and after two years of honest evaluation, Slipknot are still one of the biggest bands in the world with a formidable but distinctly passe live show. They have buckets of hits and now, with Paul's death, a sense of history, but essentially, they have nothing new to offer. They have effectively no reason to be on the scene, and their return to headliner Sonisphere seems cynical and flat. Metal still needs Slipknot, they are still the standard bearer, but they still aren't worth getting excited about, their the leading light among a dim bunch, and no amount of personal history can change that.

System Of A Down on the other hand have been revealed as the ace up Download's sleeve. The reunion that hard rock fans have been calling for ever since 2005, not because they missed out on System the first time, but simply because they missed them.

At the time 2005's Hypnotize and Mesmerize left fans deflated as, in the eyes of many, they compared unfavourably to System Of A Down and the hit laden Toxicity.

Yet looking back with 20/20 hindsight the double album/release of Hypnotize and Mesmerize showed a band at the top of their game attempting to seize the moment and do something special. System of a Down showed real bravery, and real ambition, marrying throwaway fun with thoughtful pointed critiques and unrivaled bombast.With a brazen confidence that boarded on nonchalance System were taking the role of scene leaders that no other band seemed capable of fulfilling.

Now, looking forward to 2011, System's is not a nostalgia trip; this is a band who are sorely needed return from a hiatus. Metal needs System to be out there; making double albums and pushing away at the boundaries of a genre that has been long absent from the mainstream and has a stale and decaying image (deserved or not).

System's 2011 return to headline Download Festival should therefore be viewed as a celebration of 21st Century metal's true leading lights; a band that are constantly challenging themselves, and constantly moving forward. They may fall flat on their faces but you can be assured that Serj and Daron will at least try, and when it comes to mainstream metal headliners in the 21st Century that's all you can really ask for.