The Lizard Wizard and King Gizzard leave Bluesfest.
Within days of controversial band Sticky Fingers being added to the Bluesfest lineup, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have cancelled their performance.
King Gizzard revealed on Monday that they would not be performing at Bluesfest in a social media post.
It occurs less than a week after Peter Noble, the director of Bluesfest, defended his choice to include Sticky Fingers, a band with Dylan Frost as its frontman, in the event.
In the past few years, Frost has made news for a variety of events, including the 2016 allegation that he threatened to harm Indigenous musician Thelma Plum physically.
Following the recent debate surrounding the festival’s choice to book Sticky Fingers, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard have been dropped from the lineup of this year’s Byron Bay Bluesfest.
Last Tuesday (February 14), Sticky Fingers, Sampa The Great, a homage to the late Uncle Archie Roach, Fools, and Jerome Williams were all included in the 2023 Bluesfest lineup announcement.
In light of prior accusations of racism and aggression against frontman Dylan Frost, Sticky Fingers’ booking came under fire.
These include claims that Frost threatened Gamilaraay singer-songwriter Thelma Plum in a Sydney bar in 2016 and claims that he made racial remarks while watching the band Dispossessed perform in the same year (Frost denied these allegations).
Frost apologised for his “offensive” behaviour in 2016 and promised to change.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, who are known for their prolific psychedelic rock, have cancelled their appearance at the Byron Bay Bluesfest, which is set to take place over the Easter holiday weekend.
The band’s reasoning for pulling out of the festival has been kept fairly under wraps, but in a statement, the Melbourne sextet stated that they won’t be performing because the festival chose to schedule material that goes against their moral principles.
The statement says, “As a band and as people, we stand against misogyny, racism, transphobia and violence.”
I was surprised and saddened to learn that Bluesfest had decided to show material that was totally at odds with these ideals.