Headed up by Slayer and Pantera, Tattoo The Planet should have been the most exciting UK tour in years. Then 9/11 happened, and it all went to shit

WORDS: STEPHEN HILL

GEORGE CHIN/ICONICPIX

I could see it from my apartment,” says Biohazard’s Billy Graziadei. “It was lifechanging. The kind of event you’d never imagine was even possible.”

The mid-90s to the early 00s was a fallow period for UK metal festivals. It was the aftermath of Monsters Of Rock at Donington Park, and before the same site was reclaimed by metalheads for Download. There was the odd Ozzfest, a few metal bands sprinkled across the stages of Reading and Leeds… but that was about it, until 2001, when a new contender entered the arena: Tattoo The Planet. It promised a day-long experience packed to the brim with the best metal bands of the time.

Only, it didn’t go to plan. Instead, 9/11, the horrifying attack Billy witnessed from his window, threw the whole thing into chaos. Headliners cancelled, bands were spooked, dates were moved, and chairs were thrown though tour bus windows. This is the story of Tattoo The Planet – the greatest metal festival the UK never saw.

The idea for Tattoo The Planet was imported from the States. In the year 2000, US promoter Scott Alderman released a statement announcing a brand-new, 30-date US touring festival named Tattoo The Earth, set to begin in July. ‘Nothing represents youth culture like music and body art,’ it read. The headliners would be confirmed as Slipknot and Slayer, alongside the likes of Coal Chamber, Soulfly and Sevendust, plus a group of renowned tattooists.

While the initial run was somewhat chaotic, with numerous bands jumping ship to Ozzfest, it attracted attention from the other side of the Atlantic. UK promoter Mags Revell, who ended up helping to shape Download a few years down the line, decided to make the trip to see it for himself, and thought it had the potential to work in Britain.