Of Australia’s recent history of troubled music festivals, the sudden cancellation of Soundwave Revolution in 2011 has to be among the most high-profile and disappointing.
The one-time Soundewave spin-off was cancelled just one month before its kick-off, chiefly pulling the plug owing to difficulties with headliners Van Halen, but there was another mystery co-headliner that was set to top the enormous bill.
Now, three years on, festival promoter AJ Maddah has revealed both the identity of the Soundwave Revolution co-headliner and the real reason the event came undone.
“Soundwave Revolution was actually created for a specific band. It was actually specifically put together for Rage Against The Machine,” Maddah explains in an interview with the Full Metal Lockdown podcast, as Music Feeds reports.
“It was all looking great,” says Maddah of the Van Halen/RATM double headliner, but after “eight months of fucking around – ‘we’re confirmed, we’re not confirmed’, the festival had only secured “three quarters of the b and” to sign on, while frontman Zack de la Roch “hadn’t signed on.” “The honourable thing to do was to cancel and give everyone a full refund. So that’s what we did.”
As the promoter details in the podcast (which you can hear in full below), de la Rocha’s reluctance to commit meant “it just stretched and stretched to the point where we couldn’t wait anymore we had to announce the tour.”
The Soundwave Revolution lineup featured Alice Cooper, Machine Head, Hole, Bad Religion, Sum 41, and headliners Van Halen, who also began giving “massive problems” to the Soundwave team at the 11th hour over their scheduled appearance.
Love Rage Against The Machine?
Get the latest Rage Against The Machine news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
“We reached the juncture where if we went any further we would have had to go on without a headliner and we would have had to keep people’s ticket money to pay the costs,” Maddah explains.
“I didn’t think that was fair … either we cancel it today or carry on a face the reality that neither band would turn up to headline. The honourable thing to do was to cancel and give everyone a full refund. So that’s what we did.”
While RATM didn’t make it back Down Under for what was to be their first shows since the 2008 Big Day Out, many of the Soundwave Revolution-billed bands ended up appearing on the Soundwave 2012 lineup and as part of the replacement Counter Revolution festival. Meanwhile, Van Halen finally played their first Aussie show in an age for the inaugural Stone Music Festival last year.
[include_post id=”405643″]
Though the Soundwave Revolution situation is nearly half-a-decade old, Maddah has dealt with his fair share of similar cancellation situations since, including – at a glance – what was to be the third edition of Harvest Festival, Blur pulling out as co-headliners of Big Day Out 2013, and this year’s Soundwave losing multiple bands weeks out from its launch.
The Full Metal Lockdown interview also sees Maddah discussing a Pantera reuinion as well as the rumours over the Soundwave 2015 lineup.
“Soundwave has four headliners next year. It’s looking pretty good,” the promoter confirms, along with re-iterating previous reports that Fear Factory will be on the bill; “We’re keen to have them so I think it’ll happen… They’ve wanted to do Soundwave for a long time.”
Maddah also says Aussie metal band King Parrot and American rock group Conditions are likely. Other bands rumoured for the 2015 lineup include Against Me!, Disturbed, Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Social Distortion, Papa Roach, Slipknot, Marilyn Manson, Opeth, and Lamb Of God. All will be revealed when the first official lineup announcement drops, slated to be in August.
