Lacuna Coil are back in Australia next week for their ‘Sleepless Empire’ Australian Tour 2026, and if you’ve caught them here before, you already know the deal.
This band don’t just play shows, Lacuna Coil drop a thick, gothic fog over the room, crank the tension, then let it rip. It’s also their first Australian headline run in a decade, which feels overdue, especially after those 2022 Good Things sets that had people leaving the stage area like they’d just survived something.
To mark the tour, Andrea Ferro to dig into his favourite Australian touring memories, from Soundwave to wildlife attacks, near death turbulence jokes, and one very dangerous decision involving an open bar and a lobby full of European metal bands.
Andrea Ferro’s Favourite Australian Touring Memories
Soundwave, a metal bar party, and ‘Master of Puppets’
“One funny thing I remember about one of the Australian tours, it was during the Soundwave festivals. We were at the final show, and after the show we knew there was a party in a metal bar, I don’t remember which city it was actually, it’s been a while. But me and Randy [Blythe] from Lamb of God had a few drinks at the bar at the hotel, and then we were going to the party at the metal bar. The singer from Alice In Chains was at the bar, they were the headliners of the tour, and he was DJing. Then he took a break and the DJ who took over played Master of Puppets by Metallica. And I remember me and Randy entering the bar, I was on Randy’s shoulders and we walked in just rocking…wasted, of course. And then I saw the singer from Alice In Chains headbanging on the dancefloor to Master of Puppets by Metallica. It was a great moment because I have always been a huge fan of Alice In Chains, and of course Lamb of God as well. We were there together and it was a great party, so I have a great memory from that night.”
Jerry Cantrell recognising Lacuna Coil
“Another memory, it’s also connected to Alice In Chains because they’ve been such a huge influence on our musical journey. We were in a hotel, I believe in Sydney, and there was Jerry Cantrell smoking outside the hotel. We also went outside, but we were too shy to talk to him because we’ve always idolised Alice In Chains. Then at a certain point, he came close to us and said: “are you guys Lacuna Coil?”. And we were shocked that he even knew that we were Lacuna Coil, he knew we existed! It was quite a surreal moment, and then we got to hang out with him.”
Brisbane koala sanctuary, and getting chased by giant birds
“This memory might seem pretty cliché, but another favourite one was when we went to the koala sanctuary in Brisbane. We went twice actually, we went when we were there for Soundwave and also for Good Things Festival because we had different people in the crew and in the band who had never been. So, we went again and it was great! While we were there, we were assaulted by one of those giant birds, there’s these huge birds, I don’t know the name of them actually but I’d never seen them before. They’re very tall, huge birds, they look like a huge chicken, but really tall with a long neck. We had a bag of food for the animals, and these birds started to eat and then they started to chase us. We ran away and they chased us and picked on us because they wanted to get the food from our hands, it was so funny. We love the wildlife, the kangaroos and everything like that too. Before then, we’d never seen anything like that. It was definitely fun.”
The free bar incident
“On tour, we don’t always have a lot of time to do other things, but another thing I will always remember from Australia was once when we were coming into the hotel on one of the dates in the morning, all of the bands were flying together because it was a touring festival. We arrived at the hotel and the rooms weren’t ready because there was some misunderstanding between the promoter and the hotel. No rooms were available, there were like 20 bands with no rooms basically, and we all had to wait in the lobby. So they made the bar free for the bands, you could drink whatever you wanted…but they didn’t consider there were a lot of Scandinavian and European bands, big drinkers, bands like Meshuggah and In Flames, a lot of different bands. We drank the bar dry basically, by the time the rooms were ready there was no more alcohol at the bar. And then there was a bunch of wasted Europeans on the floor of the bar because of the free drinks. That was a big mistake by the hotel (laughs).”
Turbulence, and a dark joke about the early 2000s metal scene
“This one’s not a memory from being onstage, but I remember we were flying from one show to another in Australia, there was pretty bad turbulence and we were in the back of the plane. Everybody on the plane was going to the festival, many of the bands from the festival were on the flight, Nine Inch Nails were on the flight, Alice In Chains were on the flight, Lamb of God and DevilDriver as well as some others as well. I remember we hit this bad turbulence and we were saying as a joke: “if this plane goes down, half of the metal scene of the early 2000s will be gone all at once because we’re all on the same flight together”. It’s not very common that you have all of these bands flying together on the same plane. And that was our first time in Australia, it was when we played Soundwave for the first time.”
Gigantour, Bring Me The Horizon, and beating Dave Mustaine at an arcade game
“And lastly, I remember when we came out for the Gigantour in Australia with Megadeth, Static-X, and DevilDriver…and the opening band was Bring Me The Horizon! I remember we were sharing a dressing room sometimes with Bring Me The Horizon because there was no room, too many bands. And during that run I remember we went out one night with Dave Mustaine, we went to a bar and there was an arcade video game on the table, it was flat, not the classic machine but it was a table where you could play one person against the other. Me and Dave played it, I barely knew him, I’d just met him a few days ago. So, we’re playing this video game and I kicked his ass really bad. I thought he was going to get really angry because he’s kind of famous for very easily getting angry at people. I was afraid he was going to kick my ass because I beat him at the game, but in the end he was really chill and really fun. We’ve toured together many more times with Megadeth, and that was definitely a very fun night.”
Lacuna Coil ‘Sleepless Empire’ 2026 Australian Tour Dates
- Thursday, February 12th – The Tivoli, Brisbane
- Saturday, February 14th – Liberty Hall, Sydney
- Sunday, February 15th – Northcote Theatre, Melbourne
- Tuesday, February 17th – The Gov, Adelaide
- Thursday, February 19th – Magnet House, Perth
Find out more and get your tickets here.
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