hennemusic

The first Van Halen live dates of 2011 are up in the air – for now - as word out of Australia is that the Soundwave Revolution festival has been cancelled.

The dates were planned across Australia starting in late in September, with VH as headliners, joined by several acts including Alice Cooper, Machine Head, Alter Bridge, Danzig, Hellyeah, Bad Religion, and others.

There remains a possibility that VH could still play down under, as promoters talk of plans for many of the artists involved to team up and play regional shows there in lieu of the big touring fest.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports concert organizers cited the last second pull-out of an un-named, unannounced, headlining act for the event's downfall.

Soundwave promoter AJ Maddah spoke to Sydney Radio Station Nova 969 today confirming the event had been cancelled after Stix Zadinia (er, say that out loud for full effect) - the drummer from Steel Panther - broke the news on twitter this morning.

"The situation as we know it has been cancelled,” said Maddah. “The situation is that we were scheduled to make a second announcement on the 1st August, which had our festival co-headliner on that announcement. Their circumstances changed at the last minute and they had to pull out. And unfortunately we don't have enough time to replace them. And we didn't really want to go ahead with an incomplete line-up.”

"We were supposed to make the public announcement this evening anyway,” he continued. “But what we wanted to do—because a lot of those bands are still coming and we are creating packages and what have you, for them to do in clubs and other venues—we wanted to be able to make the full announcement at 1pm [today]. So that we could say the festival in its format is no longer happening. That these shows are taking its place. Unfortunately one of those artists [Steel Panther - Ed] jumped the gun.”

"Had we had been able to have our second headliner and make our second announcement, I think we wouldn't have had any issues with [the festival],” Maddah added. “And it wasn't for the fact of not being able to attract the artists, I guess we were victims of certain artists circumstances or what have you. I think the Australian festival market is still very strong.”

Soundwave promoters posted the news in the forums section of their website:

“It is with great sadness that we announce the cancellation of the Revolution Festival.

Many of the festival bands will still be coming to Australia in that time period and team up to bring you some very special shows. These will include multi band/mini festival line-ups in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. We will be announcing these events in the next 7 days.

Tickets purchased online will be refunded automatically as soon as it can be processed. If you purchased from an outlet, refunds will be available next week from point of purchase.”

Stay tuned…

Van