Amon Amarth haben ein Statement zum MMS Festival in Kroatien veröffentlicht, das nicht so ganz nach Plan verlaufen ist…
Statement concerning the chaotic MMS Festival in Croatia.
Background:
End of April this year, we were contacted by the organizers of MMS festival in Croatia to play at the MMS festival and possibly do a bonus show in Hungary in connection to this festival. As the organisation seemd serious and proffessional, we accepted the deal they had for us. It was agreed that the organizer was to book and pay for the plane tickets, for the band plus sound engineer. As the months went along, no tickets turned up and there was no news on the Hungarian show. Eventually, we realized that there wasn’t going to be a Hungarian show at all, and we were beginning to doubt weather there would be any tickets for us to fly down to Croatia.
On Tuesday the 12th we recieved an e-mail from the organizers, containing a flight itenerary for us to concider. This itenerary was for us to fly down to Croatia on the 14th, and fly home on the 18th. We accepted this deal, but didn’t get the confimation for the tickets until late on Thursday the 13th. None the less we decided to fly down, and we arrived in Zadar on the 14th. The day of the festival we were sitting at the hotel waiting for someone from the festival to contact us and pick us up with our gear but we didn't hear anything at all. Around 4pm Therion came back from the festival site and told us there was no power at the festival and that they were going to cancel (Therion statement on the following link http://main.megatherion.com/kliffoth.html#28).
We still didn't hear anything from the organization of the festival and were getting set to also cancel the show. Indeed, at around 7pm a person involved in the organization (in a way that wasn’t entirely clear to us) told us that the whole festival was definitely cancelled. Around 8pm an Amon Amarth fan called Gregor, told us the power was back and he offered to drive us to the festival so that we could play, but we still hadn’t heard anything from the promoter, and we had not received our full payment, which was agreed in the contract. In spite of this, we decided that since we were there to play and we didn't want to disappoint our fans, that we'd go for it.
At the festival site it was full anarchy, the organizer was still nowhere to be seen, and no one seemed to be in charge anywhere. They hadn't even provided a full backline, but thanks to people not involved in the organization we were able to play! (A big thanks to the guy lending us a double feet pedal!) Still, at the end of the day we did have a great show, and the minute we stepped up on stage we felt it was the right decision for us to play. A big thanks to all you fans for making this show a great one! You made the trip and all the ordeals that came with it worth while. Thank you!
// Amon Amarth
