Two More Bands Pull Out Of Soundwave

The many band cancellations plaguing this year’s Soundwave festival continue with two more acts today pulling out of the event, due to kick off this Saturday in Brisbane. Metal heroes Newsted have just announced their cancellation via Facebook, while AJ Maddah dropped the news that Swedish hard rock outfit Hardcore Superstar will not be playing the festival.

Posting on their Facebook wall this morning, Newsted, the heavy metal project by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Jason Newsted, wrote succinctly, “The NEWSTED Band will not be appearing or performing live in February or March 2014,” effectively ruling out their Soundwave and Sidewave dates.

Newsted have been unwittingly embroiled in a long-winded saga with the festival, over allegations that they were dropped by Megadeth on their original Sidewives bill. Megadeth denied the allegations then dropped out of the festival over their row with promoter AJ Maddah. Up until now, Jason Newsted has been quiet on the matter.

Hardcore Superstar seemed to have kept true to their threat of pulling out of Soundwave with promoter AJ Maddah confirming via Twitter the Swedes won’t be sticking around. The band reportedly threatened to become the next act to pull out of the festival if they weren’t given a later time slot.

While no official statement has been made about the cancellation, when asked by one Twitter follower last night if Hardcore Superstar would be attending the festival, Maddah answered with a definitive “No.” Adding, “Can’t really swap them with Alice In Chains, etc.”

Hardcore Superstar were scheduled were scheduled to open stage 6a on all stops of the tour with an 11:30am set in the revised timetable, although they were previously slated to play at 4pm. Maddah first hinted at the band possibly pulling out of the festival yesterday tweeting, “So Hardcore Superstar have just threatened to cancel if they don’t get a late spot. Being Superstars and all that.”

Although the band are yet to publicly respond to any of these claims, Maddah seems unvexed by the cancellation, tweeting, “The only reason they were there was as a favour to their agent!” Adding, “We’ll just replace them with great Aus bands.” The revised timetables on the Soundwave site have already been adjusted to exclude Hardcore Superstar.

The two new cancellations are the latest in a series that has plagued the Soundwave festival this year. Conor Oberst‘s Desaparecidos project pulled the pin last night, Tennessee’s Whitechapel cancelled due to the death of a family member yesterday, and the highly publicised jump-ship by Megadeth after frontman Dave Mustaine butted heads with Maddah online.

Earlier this year, Stone Temple Pilots and Sevendust also pulled out of the festival favourite, citing “scheduling conflicts” and “issues out of our control” respectively, although they were later revealed to have disputed money with Maddah.

Music Feeds have reached out to Soundwave for comment but they could not confirm the bands’ withdrawal at this time.

UPDATE 7:12pm 20/02/14: AJ Maddah has now confirmed that Newsted will not appear at Soundwave 2014, tweeting, “I am heartbroken that [Jason Newsted] will not be joining us at [Soundwave 2014]. We both look forward to bringing you a headline tour later this year.”

There had been confusion surrounding the situation since the band announced on their website that they would not be performing live “in February or March 2014.” Earlier this week, Maddah tweeted that he did not know why the band had cancelled and that he could not get in touch with them.

“Hoping that is because he is on the plane!” wrote Maddah at the time. It is still unclear why Newsted have cancelled their live commitments for February and March. Stay tuned to Music Feeds and we’ll keep you up to date as details come through.