Massive Attack replaced by BSS at Toronto VFest

Virgin Festival line-up change

Virgin Mobile Canada and Emerge Entertainment, producers of Virgin Festival announced today that there will be a change to the Virgin Festival artist line-up on Sunday, September 10. Broken Social Scene will replace Massive Attack as the closing act on the Virgin Mobile Stage.

According to Massive Attackâ??s management, "In spite of timely and coordinated efforts, the essential U.S. immigration visas were not issued in time for the beginning of the Massive Attack North American Tour. Subsequently, the band has been forced to cancel the first four shows (Toronto, 9/10, Montreal, 9/11, Detroit 9/12, Chicago, 9/13). Currently, the rest of the tour remains intact. The band hopes to reschedule the cancelled shows as soon as possible."

"We apologize to everyone who bought tickets expecting to see Massive Attack perform, but we know that the new line-up continues to deliver an outstanding two-day experience for the Toronto Virgin Festival. With the addition of Broken Social Scene, weâ??re continuing to deliver outstanding talent at incredible value," said Jacob Smid, Emerge Entertainment.

(continued at http://www.virginfestival.ca/en/press/press_newartists_7september06.html)

so at least our DC shows are safe…

favor request: anyone know where i can track down a bootleg of MA's show? my buddy in toronto is completely bummed that MA canceled and would like to hear what the new tour is like. thanks!

Interesting, but if I was Canadian, and mind you I thank god every day that I'm not, the first question I would ask is why does the lack of a US Visa prohibit them from playing Canada?

Interesting, but if I was Canadian, and mind you I thank god every day that I'm not,

it's ok, you're not worthy to be one anyways :)

the first question I would ask is why does the lack of a US Visa prohibit them from playing Canada?

pure speculation on my part, but plausible: because they don't want to do 2 canadian shows and sit around for several days until cleared for the US. it's expensive to have that many people on the tour and not earn money for those first two dates. also, they probably can't enter the US until after 9/13 - but sitting in canada isn't a good idea either as there are f*cked up tax laws that make sticking around very expensive (read the wired magazine story about U2's concert set-up - after a vancouver show, they had to be on a plane before midnight lest they paid another day's worth of taxes). so over-all, it made economic and logistical sense to re-schedule the tour to start 9/15 in houston.

actually the Chicago date got changed to the 27th not cancelled……..phew.

oh, good… they mentioned that they'd be re-scheduled on the above website, didn't know it would be that fast.

any news on the new Toronto date, so i can talk my friend off from that ledge he's on?

It's just 9/11 paranoia.
They are afraid to fly anywhere around the US on that exact date.
kidding.

I, for one, am very happy to see this. We leave tomorrow morning for the Great White North and it's gonna be a great weekend of music.

Keane have dropped out too.

Keane have dropped out too.

xcunuck, your weekend of music just got better :)

personally, i'd rather see MA than BSS - but whacha gunna do…

Originally posted by sweetcell:

Interesting, but if I was Canadian, and mind you I thank god every day that I'm not,

it's ok, you're not worthy to be one anyways :)

I'll give you that.

It takes a special person to answer to the Queen of England, the Governor General from England, the President of France, the President of The United States, the Prime Minister of Great Britian, and the Prime Minister of France and still consider themselves autonomous. I clearly am not that worthy.

how did they have a fest in toronto and not have bss to start with. thought that was a law or something

Just a quick note about VFest in Toronto.

First, I hope the organization is MUCH better here than it was in Toronto. You had to show ID to get into the beer garden (which had the only dry places to sit). Problem was…all the food, booth to buy beer tickets, washrooms, etc were all OUTSIDE the beer garden. So the lineup to get inside could be hundreds of people long - with only ONE person checking ID.

Second, what a bunch of corporate whores. I understand that Virgin is sponsoring it and therefore we expect advertising. But they pasted these huge Virgin, Bacardi, and Bud Light banners all over the fence at the beer garden - so you couldn't see anything that was happening on stage. Idiots. Never even thought of what the fan's persepective was.

Usual whining about expensive food and the long lines that go with that.

Horrible scheduling - Muse took forever to get Bellamy's ego squeezed onto the stage and consequently, everything was almost 45 mins behind schedule. Instead of shortening Muse's set, they just kept going and let everyone take their allotted time. Fine, except when Flaming Lips came on, they had a whole 10 minutes before the curfew. The went 20 mins past the curfew before they were cut off. Yes - if you paid $60 to see Flaming Lips, you got a whole FOUR F**KING songs. Brilliant.

On to the positive. Wolfmother kick motherf**king god almighty ass. It's a shame I'll miss them at Pimlico. Yeah - the singing is kinda annoying, the songs all sound the same after awhile…but who gives a damn when the band is putting on THAT kind of a show. Amazing stuff.

The Dears just keep getting better and better. They've gone from the old days of drunken jams to exceptionally polished and well crafted rock/pop songs. And Murray, bless his heart, still sings like he really really really means it.

Broken Social Scene….*sigh*. This one picture (taken from Chromewave's blog) says it all. <img src="http://www.chromewaves.net/images/concerts/virginFestival2006/brokenSocialScene/brokenSocialScene-20.jpg" alt=" - " />

Yes - we had all three divas (and were spared Lisa Lobsinger). The WHOLE freaking band was there. Feist, Jason Collett and Amy Millan were on tour in the States but flew back on three day's notice for this. It was a short set (thanks to The Strokes taking 40 mins to get their shit together) but we still got 60 mins of beautiful, joyeous, celebratory noise. Jimmy and the Photocall, Ibi Dreams of Pavement and Anthems for a Seventeen Yead Old where the absolute highlights (the last one finished with a group hug between the three girls, which is fantasy material for the next year).

Daddy G didn't play with Massive Attack at the Austin City Limits festival due to the birth of his child in the UK…

Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:
Daddy G didn't play with Massive Attack at the Austin City Limits festival due to the birth of his child in the UK…

A friend of mine who knows the band told me that there's something else going on between he and 3-D but I think I better keep my mouth (or fingers) shut about that.