Twelve years after the fact, Avenged Sevenfold's full June 9, 2014 performance at Pinkpop Festival has officially been released online in professional broadcast quality. The footage — drawn from the long-running Dutch festival's archive — gives fans an unfiltered look at the band at full arena momentum, playing one of the landmark European festival stages of that touring cycle.
The Context: Hail to the King Touring at Its Peak
The June 2014 Pinkpop date landed in the heart of A7X's Hail to the King campaign. The album had dropped in August 2013 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 — the band's second chart-topper, following their self-titled record in 2007. The Hail to the King cycle put Avenged Sevenfold in stadium and arena-sized rooms across North America and Europe, and the European festival circuit that summer placed them on bills where production scale mattered as much as the songs.
Pinkpop had been part of A7X's European history before. Their 2014 appearance was the second time the band had played the festival — their first was in 2009, during the cycle behind their self-titled album and in the shadow of the death of original drummer Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan, who passed in December 2009. The 2014 return came with a full new album, a refined live show, and the kind of confidence that comes from having proven your staying power through genuine adversity.
The Set
Nine songs captured M. Shadows, Synyster Gates, Zacky Vengeance, Johnny Christ, and then-drummer Arin Ilejay at full performance intensity. The setlist leaned heavily on the new record while giving the classics room to breathe:
- "Shepherd of Fire"
- "Critical Acclaim"
- "Bat Country"
- "Hail to the King"
- "Doing Time"
- "Buried Alive"
- "Nightmare"
- "Afterlife"
- "Unholy Confessions"
"Shepherd of Fire" as an opener was a statement. The track — written for the Son of God soundtrack — had become one of the band's most recognizable cuts and a reliable way to hit immediately. "Critical Acclaim" is an older catalog deep cut that shows up in setlists when A7X wants to remind people the back catalog goes further than the singles. "Bat Country" and "Afterlife" are the kind of fan-service that doesn't feel like fan-service because they're legitimately great songs that the crowd earns on both ends of the exchange.
"Nightmare" carries its own weight. Written about Sullivan's death, it doesn't diminish live — it tends to grow. The Pinkpop crowd responding to that song in a festival environment, years after the fact, is the kind of moment that makes archival footage matter beyond nostalgia.
Brooks Wackerman Is Not On This Footage
Worth noting for the record: Arin Ilejay sits behind the kit for this performance. Ilejay played with A7X from 2011 through 2014, joining the band following Sullivan's passing in the wake of Nightmare. He departed in late 2014. Brooks Wackerman — former Bad Religion drummer and one of the most technically capable players in hard rock — joined in 2015 and has been with the band since. Current lineups matter when historical footage surfaces, especially with a band where the drummer chair has visible history.
The current lineup of M. Shadows (vocals), Synyster Gates (lead guitar), Zacky Vengeance (rhythm guitar), Johnny Christ (bass), and Brooks Wackerman (drums) is the most stable configuration A7X has maintained since Sullivan's death, and by many measures the band's most productive creative period since the self-titled record.
Why the Archive Matters
The release of this footage isn't just fan service. Festival archives going online represents a genuine shift in how metal's live history is being preserved and surfaced. For years, pro-shot footage of major festival performances existed in broadcast archives that never found an online home — licensing ambiguity, institutional inertia, and the slow pace of digitization kept massive amounts of material locked away from the audiences that cared most about it.
Pinkpop's move to release this footage officially means it's preserved, properly credited, and findable. For A7X specifically — a band with a complicated live documentation history owing to the Sullivan-era transition — this kind of archival release adds to the record in ways that fan-shot video never could. You can see the production design. You can hear the mix. You can watch the performance breathing in its full context.
For the Hail to the King cycle specifically, this footage rounds out the document of a period where A7X were genuinely operating at mainstream commercial peak while holding their identity intact. The album was divisive — critics landed all over it, longtime fans split on the direction — but the live show was never the problem. The Pinkpop footage makes that case clearly.
What's Next for A7X
Avenged Sevenfold are back on the road in 2026 for a major North American summer run with Good Charlotte, hitting arenas and amphitheaters across the country through late August. No new album has been announced following 2023's Life Is But a Dream, but the band remains active.
For more metal live coverage and news, see our Metal News hub.
The 2014 Pinkpop pro-shot footage is available now on YouTube. A7X's catalog is streaming everywhere. Grab their records on Amazon.
