Green Day have canceled their concert scheduled for May 29 at Spartak Stadium in Moscow over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the band announced on Sunday.
“With heavy hearts, in light of current events we feel it is necessary to cancel our upcoming show in Moscow at Spartak Stadium,” the band said in a statement to Variety. “We are aware that this moment is not about stadium rock shows, it’s much bigger than that. But we also know that rock and roll is forever and we feel confident there will be a time and a place for us to return in the future. Stay safe.”
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While dozens of Western acts have shows scheduled in Russia and even Ukraine in the coming months, it seems unlikely that most if any will take place, although Green Day is just the second to cancel; on Friday, pop act AJR called off their Moscow concert slated for October.
According to artist websites, Songkick and other sources, in Moscow alone, Saint Jhn, Tricky, Disclosure and Bring Me the Horizon have shows scheduled for March and April, with Khalid, OneRepublic, Yungblud, Girl in Red, Judas Priest, Denzel Curry and OneRepublic in May. But those are just a preamble for what was looking to be a very busy summer concert season, including the alt-rock-leaning Bol festival and two Park Live festivals (the latter featuring the Killers, Gorillaz, My Chemical Romance, Iggy Pop and many others) along with summer dates by Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Imagine Dragons, Bjork, Eric Clapton and others.
Geoff Meall, a London-based agent for Paradigm Agency, told Variety on Friday, “We’ve got [multiple] of acts due to be going there from next month right through the summer — rock acts, alternative acts, a lot of electronic artists as well. As it stands, I can’t see any of those shows being able to happen. Ukraine is an obviously an active war zone so it’s impossible to do a concert there, and with Russia, first, every government is advising its citizens not to go there unless it’s essential business — rock and roll probably wouldn’t be considered that — but more, a lot of artists wouldn’t want to be seen as supporting the actions of that government at the moment.”
Presumably many more acts will be canceling concerts in the coming days.
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