Iced Earth Cancel B.O.A. Appearance

With a little more than two weeks to go before the first Bangalore Open Air Festival, headliners Iced Earth announced today that will not be playing the festival. The Florida metal band posted the announcement on their Facebook page, citing visa issues as the reason for the cancellation.

“It is with a heavy heart and deep regret to announce that we will not be performing at the Bangalore Open Air festival on the 16th of June 2012. 

Unfortunately, we have been a victim of terminal visa issues for our American band and crew members, despite having followed every step given to us and retaining one of the top immigration firms in the world to do the job. It turns out some of the regulations have changed without this being made known to us and we are now no longer in a position to get the necessary paperwork in place. This has come as a huge disappointment since we were looking forward to performing for and meeting all of you for the very first time in your wonderful country.

We would like to thank the team of BOA for all their help and support along the way. Unfortunately, things are now beyond the control of the band and the organizers but we sincerely hope all the metalheads in India will continue to support Bangalore Open Air and all the fantastic bands scheduled to play there.

Finally, a huge thank you to all the Indian metalheads for your kind words and wonderful support. We promise to make every effort to make it to India as soon as humanly possible and bang heads with each and every one of you.”

However, co-headliners Kreator will still play the show and the B.O.A management have announced German melodic metal band Suidakra as a replacement for Iced Earth. The show will also feature Indian metal bands Albatross, Kryptos, BevarSea, Dying Embrace, 1833 AD and Eccentric Pendulum. B.O.A had this to say about the show on their Facebook page:

 “It looks like the Indian government has once again decided to play spoilsport. We are extremely disappointed to announce that the mighty Iced Earth will not be performing at the Bangalore Open Air on June 16th 2012due to the denial of their visas by the Indian Embassy. As to why the visas have been denied, well there has been no explanation forthcoming unfortunately. Despite this setback the show will go on as scheduled and to soften the blow we have roped in the incredible folk metal maestros Suidakra to take Iced Earth’s place at Bangalore Open Air. We humbly request all Indian metalheads to show up in force at Bangalore Open Air and stand together as one. The system may try and break us but we will not be defeated. We sincerely thank you all for your patience and understanding and we hope to see each and every one you at the festival with your fists raised high.”

This is the second instance of a US metal band being unable to play after being denied visas this year. Earlier in May, Floridadeath metal band Nile was forced to cancel their appearance at the Summer Blaze festival in Delhi and a second show in Bangaloreafter being denied visas no less than eight times.