Tomahawk’s Trevor Dunn Let Slip That Sick New World Might Be Canceled
Still stuffed from all the Thanksgiving food you shoved down your gullet? You may want to sit down and hold onto your butt, because it’s sounding like Sick New World might not be happening according to Tomahawk’s Trevor Dunn.
During a recent appearance on The Vinyl Podcast (as transcribed by Australia’s Blunt Magazine), Trevor Dunn reportedly let slip that Tomahawk had been planning a two-week tour that was “built around” Sick New World, but could no longer go forward because organizers had axed the event. The festival’s alleged cancellation forced Tomahawk to put the kibosh on their own touring plans due to financial constraints.
“I’m probably not supposed to talk about this, but it’s not happening. It’ll come out in the wash soon, but basically, the festival is not happening [Sick New World]. We had a whole tour, we had a two-week thing built around that, which we can’t do now because financially it doesn’t make any sense, so yeah, that’s not happening.”
When the lineup for Sick New World 2025 was announced, one of the shining spots on the bill was the unexpected inclusion of Tomahawk. Fans of the Mike Patton-fronted project that also features The Jesus Lizard’s Duane Denison, Helmet’s John Stanier, and Trevor Dunn were stoked at the prospect of seeing the band play live for the first time since 2013. Some even hoped that this would mark the beginning of a larger tour.
When asked to clarify whether the festival’s cancellation was a done deal — because remember at this point it wasn’t officially announced — Dunn said that for his money, Sick New World was definitely over.
“No, I think they have [made a final decision to cancel]. I erased it from my calendar, so I’m not going.”
Now, here’s where things get a little dicey. Obviously, Blunt Magazine caught wind of Dunn’s statement and reported on it while we in North America were busy stuffing our faces for Thanksgiving. Similarly, Reddit users posted about Dunn’s comments in an attempt to make sense of what was happening.
However, when you go to the specific point in the podcast where people said Dunn made his comments (~28:47), there’s a noticeable cut that suggests some of the audio was removed from the show. However, when you search Google and find the podcast episode’s listing, a cached version of the page still shows that Sick New World’s cancellation was originally listed in the show notes.
If all of this is true, then organizers and artists have known about the impending cancellation even as fans were still able to go online and spend hundreds of dollars for an already doomed event.
Sadly, we might not ever get full confirmation that a Tomahawk tour was ever in the works now. Regardless, this goes to show just how devastating a major festival cancellation can be for a smaller band and their touring plans. Here’s hoping the guys can put something together later in the year.
