Sun 19th Oct, 2014 in News
Despite the Australian debuts of neo-soul legends including D’Angelo and Maxwell, Soulfest’s inaugural show in Melbourne was marred by a last-minute stage cancellation.
The local stage was cut from the lineup at yesterday’s event at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, with the promoters blaming “a combination of operational and logistical issues” for the cancellation. The change was announced just 90 minutes before gates opened at the event. “I am so ridiculously disappointed, and that is putting it nicely,” wrote one irate fan on Facebook.” Not only did the local acts miss out because of so called ‘logistical and organisational issues’ ... but also the fact that the main stage had so much down time when no one was performing, and not even music was playing.”
Acts that had been scheduled to perform on the stage included Nathaniel, Miricle and Ngaiire, who had planned to perform a surprise collaboration with Nai Palm from Hiatus Kaiyote. While Mosé and his six-piece band The FMLY called the cancellation “some BS”, Ms Murphy who appeared on the third series of The Voice said that the decision was “beyond Soulfest’s control” and thanked the festival for booking her in the first place.
The issue did not affect the main stage where all nine international acts on the lineup preformed and fans were treated to the first live collaboration between D’Angelo and his former backing-singers Angie Stone and Anthony Hamilton in over 15 years. Full review to come.
The local stage ran in Sydney the previous day, but the festival reportedly struggled with sound issues with unhappy fans taking to social media to complain. FL writer Adam Lewis reported on Twitter that the sound was “atrocious for most of it [and that] d’angelo was great but totally undermined.” However, the biggest complaint was the cancellation of Mos Def who bailed on the show due to “travel issues”. Soulfest ticket holders in Sydney can claim discounted $39 entry into the rapper’s headline show at the Enmore Theatre tonight. The discounted tickets are only available at the door and punters have been warned that the offer is on a first come first served basis until the venue reaches capacity.
INTERVIEW WITH SOULFEST PROMOTER JOHN DENISON
The Brisbane leg of the festival tour will be held at the Riverstage on Saturday, October 25, before the lineup heads across to Auckland for the final show. A full review of the Melbourne Soulfest show will be published on FL soon.*
(Lead photos by Anthony Smith for FL, embedded side-stage photo via Soulfest)
No comments:
Post a Comment