Too Heavy to Hug #629
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Too Heavy to Hug #629

Welcome to THTH, Forte’s premier source of all things heavy, hard, fast and metal. The cancellation of Soundwave 2016 has sparked a lot of talk online about how the Soundwave business was run by AJ Maddah and how much money is still owed to bands who previously performed at the festival. Ministry’s Al Jourgensen got his rant going on this crowdfunding page where he is attempting to recoup the reported AUD$200k Ministry is still owed from Soundwave. UK band Monuments have also taken to a crowdfunding site to recoup their Soundwave fee of AUD$19k. And they’re just two bands from a long list that are publicly attempting to recoup owed funds. Rumour is AJ would use ticket sales money to pay the bands who played the previous year.

The alleged shoddy business practices by AJ Maddah has seen the death of Soundwave and tweets and rants of hate towards the man claims he was only ever in it for the money and didn’t care about the music or the fans. We’ll not know the truth for sometime as to how AJ ran the business side of Soundwave, but what really matters at the moment is that there is currently no music festival in Australia that caters to fans of heavy music.

It doesn’t matter what you think of AJ really, he worked to bring us Soundwave from 2007 (from 2008 in Melbourne) until 2015. Countless numbers of bands came to our shores over the years and rocked most of our major cities and now there’s a gap the size of a canyon on the country’s summer music festival list. Soundwave festival, you will be missed by Australia’s heavy music community and we can only hope that sometime soon we’ll see a replacement spring up.

In other news

Nightwish will play only one show per capital city on their Endless Forms Most Beautiful Tour 2016 and the Melbourne show will be at The Forum Theatre on Monday January 11.

Awaken I Am will be at Melbourne’s Reverence Hotel on Friday January 15.

If you’re looking for something to do in Sydney on Saturday January 30, head to Strike Hard Festival 2016 at Sydney’s UTS Underground. Featuring Boris The Blade, Confession (last ever show), Hand Of Mercy (last ever show), Shinto Katana (reunion) and others.

Soilwork will play The Corner on Tuesday February 16.

The Sword will be at Max Watts on Monday February 22.

Between The Buried And Me will play 170 Russell on Monday February 29.

Sun 0))) will be at Melbourne’s Max Watts on Sunday March 6.

Sevendust will be at 170 Russell on Tuesday March 8.

Buckcherry will play 170 Russell on Monday March 14.

Iron Maiden will be flying into Oz on their Ed Force One (piloted, of course by Bruce Dickinson). Melbourne’s show will be at Rod Laver on Saturday May 9.

Death Dealer will play Melbourne’s Max Watts on Monday June 12.

Written by Paul S Taylor

If you have any news about local metal bands, shows or albums, let THTH know by emailing to [email protected] or get in touch via Twitter at @TooHeavyToHug