Over the weekend, Psycho Las Vegas announced that Rotting Christ had dropped off the festival. The organizers of Psycho went on to say that the band or their label would likely blame visa issues, but the true reason, according to Psycho organizers, was poor planning on the part of Rotting Christ's label, Season of Mist.
Psycho noted that they offer to take on the visa process for artists performing at their fest but the band wanted to handle it on their own and ultimately didn't get it done in time. The Psycho organizers seemed to have no pity and put the blame on the label and the band's petitioner.
Yesterday, Season of Mist owner Michael Berberian took to social media and offered his own version of events, explaining the delay in visa applications was due to the band having a lineup change and trying to get that new member cleared with the visa process was becoming a big problem.
So Rotting Christ cancelled Psycho fest.
Festival made a statement blaming us (??)
A few points
– Rotting Christ barely canceled a single show in a decade. They are road monsters. They live on the road. They are on tour and festivals 150 days a year. This week end? 4 festivals, 4 countries with exhausting 15 hours drive between some. I saw the yesterday in CZ playing and driving to Belgium to play the next day… It's insane.
You really gonna blame that band, one of the hardest working out there, who doesn't cancel a show out a of thousand and try to hurt their image?– Did it occur to you that Rotting Christ changed band members for the first time in over a decade? And that every time you change a band member, you have to restart the visa process. Rotting tried a few people since Feb. You know how "fast" US administration is.
– Do you know how many bands we have on tour and fest in the US per year? Yeah exactly, a ton. Ever saw a SOM band cancel for visa issue? Barely. We've been lucky I guess.
– I wasn't a part of this visa process. I just talked to Sakis yesterday, asked my US office who explained me what happened. Administration delay and unforeseen circumstances.
RC made a neutral statement. They didn't understand the Psycho reaction and were genuinely sorry not to go there.. For real.So as far as the Procrastination comments goes and this statement from Psycho fest. I don't know. I have been to this fest once, had a good time – what's their issue there I have no clue to be honest?? It sounds almost personal..
We know how long and hard it is to get visas. Procrastination? Incompetence? Seriously – we're not supermen. We make mistakes. But look at Rotting Christ tour history and how many bands we had canceling for visas. Pretty much none. And there was nothing any of us could have done, in Rotting Christ or in SOM.
So to resume : in the interesting new social media drama of the day, a festival made an accusatory statement over one of the nicest band out there and us, and some great "journalists" were happy to relay without any sort of background check. Moving on.
Any way you slice it, the big losers here are the fans, who miss out on some killer Rotting Christ performances.
