Are Heaven & Hell Going To Play The Download Festival?

Today marks the release of

Heaven & Hell

's (that's the Dio-fronted Black Sabbath line-up by another name) excellent

The Devil You Know

album. You can read all about

's thoughts on the making of it in the next issue of Guitarist (on sale May 12) but right now UK fans want to know when they´ll get to see the band live again.

There´s a few rumours flying about. A November tour for the band has already been mooted, but now a mysterious

press release

has appeared online that suggests they´re co-headlining with

Manowar

Yes

that

Manowar - the band that hasn´t played in the UK for 15 years.

However we´ve been told by someone in the know that it really is just a rumour.

But before all that we can´t help but noticing the fact that back in January Heaven & Hell

confirmed themselves

that they were playing the Donington Download festival.

Or not as it turned out…

Festival organizer Andy Copping then stated that the band had

never been confirmed to play at all

, despite not ruling them out being added to the line-up in the future.

We´ve heard nothing since.

End of story?

We wonder

… is there a sign of the southern cross on the horizon after all? As most Download festival veterans will know, there´s sometimes a

‘secret´

band who are announced to play at the last minute - often news only surfaces on the day of the festival. In Download´s first year in 2003 this was none other than the mighty

Metallica

. Other surprise bands have included Down and Funeral For A Friend.

This is pure speculation here by Guitarist but looking at Heaven & Hell´s European festival tour dates on their site, we can´t help but notice a gap in their

itinerary

on June 12 - the very same day that they originally said they´d play the festival in January.

We could be completely wide of the mark of course - the band might be resting during that time, or even playing badminton, or they could even be officially announced for the festival after all. But we´re throwing a coin in the ‘wishing well´ for this one before all hope goes ‘slipping away' and we ‘walk away´ from the rumour mill.