Evergreen Terrace Pull Out of Shell Shock Festival Over Kyle Rittenhouse’s Involvement
If there’s one thing to be said about the younger bands making their way in the world lately, it’s that a lot of them are not afraid to stand by their convictions. For example, Dying Wish, Ithaca, and other bands either threatened to or completely dropped out of this year’s Download over a controversial sponsor.
Well, it seems like another instance of a band standing up for their beliefs has happened again, as Florida-based metalcore band Evergreen Terrace announced they would not be performing at Shell Shock, which is scheduled to take place in Orlando, Florida on October 19 at Level 13 Entertainment Center. In a statement posted to their social media accounts, the band that would have been the festival’s headlining act said they “did not do our due diligence” when booking the event and as a result, they ended up on the same bill as alt-right broke-ass poster boy and murderer Kyle Rittenhouse.
“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. 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 canceling 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.
“Lines we draw in the sand…depend on where we stand.”
See you soon, Orlando.
Rittenhouse was slated to be a special guest/feature for the festival. I’m not sure exactly what that fuckface adds to anything, other than maybe a seminar on how to kill protestors you disagree with or what condiments work best with boot leather…
As an event that claims to be a “PTSD charity and awareness event,” I’m amazed that organizers thought Rittenhouse was the right guy to add to the show. Couldn’t survivors of Rittenhouse’s attack be suffering from PTSD? What about the countless kids and school professionals that deal with PTSD because someone shot up their school using the same weapon Rittenhouse did to kill those people in Kenosha? How about the first responders that deal with PTSD after having to help people that have been shot with an AR-15? Kind of a shitty idea on their part, given the fact that the event tries to support the C.A.T. II Foundation with a portion of ticket proceeds to help military veterans and first responders dealing with PTSD.
It’s heartening to see organizers apparently side with the band and offer to pull Rittenhouse off the event to keep Evergreen Terrace, but good on the band for taking an even closer look and finding other areas that they couldn’t condone. To the organizers’ credit, it seems like they’re cool with the band’s decision.
As it stands, organizers have deleted all of the posts they had featuring Rittenhouse, but it might not be enough as other acts have apparently also decided to not participate in the festival. We don’t even know if the killer is still on the bill at this point, as no one aligned with the festival has said anything at all.
