An online petition has been launched requesting the removal of Metallica from their headlining appearance at the Glastonbury festival later this month following news that frontman James Hetfield will narrate “The Hunt”, a new series about bear hunting in Alaska that is set to debut on The History Channel next week.
A new website called Remove Metallica, and its companion Facebook page – created by an unidentified source – are claiming Hetfield’s association with hunting and the new series does not match “the spirit of Glastonbury.”
"This page is an appeal to Glastonbury to remove Metallica from their lineup,” state the organizer(s). “We believe James Hetfield's support of big-game hunting is incompatible with the spirit of Glastonbury and brings its good name into disrepute."
“It's been stated that [Glastonbury promoter] Michael Eavis supports the badger cull and is likely to be a hunt supporter so what good would this campaign actually do? ,” posted the organizer(s). “Well as several others have said, this is about raising awareness, letting people know and making both #Metallica and #Glastonbury Festival Ltd aware of what appears to be a large number of people’s point of view and disapproval. I doubt very much that James Hetfield is the first high profile Big Game Hunter to grace #Glastonbury's stages, I'm sure there have been many.
I do however doubt that any of them have had a prime time History Chanel show promoting his view that Big Game Hunting is a good thing to do on at the same time. This double exposure gives his views extra publicity and acceptability and this is where we can have an effect. We can use his publicity against him, and maybe make enough noise that the issues raised can be properly looked into and solutions can be reached.”
Premiering June 8 on History, “The Hunt” is an eight- episode series that documents the hunt on Alaska's Kodiak Island for the Kodiak brown bear, which is among the largest land predators on Earth. The average hunt lasts 10 days, and there's less than a 50 percent success rate in bagging a bear.
Metallica will become the first metal act to headline Glastonbury when they take the stage on June 28, one of the many dates on their “By Request” European tour.
(photo credit: Ross Halfin)
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