Multiple bands have dropped out of a Florida metal festival after the event booked Kyle Rittenhouse — the teenager who shot three people at a 2020 anti-police brutality protest in Kenosha, WI, killing two — as a VIP guest.
Orlando, FL's Shell Shock II festival later this month had booked Jacksonville metalcore band Evergreen Terrace to headline the fest, which bills itself as a "PTSD charity and awareness event" and is being put on by The Antihero Podcast, which is apparently a comedy show. (It's hosted by this guy named Tyler, who has been in both bands and the military, as well as having a career as a police officer.)
Earlier this week, as MetalSucks reported, Evergreen Terrace announced that they were pulling out of the festival performance in a since-deleted statement posted to Facebook.
"Evergreen Terrace has always supported and continues to support philanthropic events for veterans, PTSD awareness, child poverty, and many more, but we will not align with an event promoting a perceived murderer such as Kyle Rittenhouse capitalizing off of their pseudo celebrity," the band wrote. "Unfortunately we did not do our due diligence with this particular event. Even after they offered to pull Kyle from the event, we discovered several associated entities that we simply do not agree with. As advocates for free speech we are respectfully cancelling the Shell Shock festival. We will be personally contributing to a veterans charity and urge you to do the same. The promoters have been nothing less than understanding."
Since then, multiple bands booked to play Shell Shock II — including Southpaw, Let Me Bleed and American Hollow — have followed suit [via Loudwire], while Evergreen Terrace have been replaced as headliner by a Slipknot cover band called SiC.
The Antihero Podcast responded to the exodus on Instagram, writing, "We have been silent. But we are prepping. The liberal mob attempted to destroy Shell Shock. But we will not allow it. This is now about more than a concert. This is a war of ideology."
In case you need the reminder, Rittenhouse became a right-wing (anti)hero after being charged with homicide for shooting three men — and killing two of them — with an AR-15-style rifle. At an anti-police brutality protest. In the year of our lord 2020.
The teen was later acquitted after pleading self-defence, infamously crying in court — very much for himself and not for the lives he ended prematurely.