Metal fans in Brazil were devastated by the collapse of the "Metal Open Air" event due to take place over the weekend when it died in a heap before it was due to end.
The lineup had included headliners Megadeth, Anthrax, Venom, Saxon and the "Rock & Roll All-Stars" comprised of Gene Simmons, Sebastian Bach, Matt Sorum and Duff McKagan.
Turns out that the only international headliners to play the festival were Megadeth who played on Friday night before the rest of the festival stages started to be torn down the following day. Venom had to cancel on the Thursday prior to the festival due to their visa's being sent to Africa and the domino affect took hold from there. Saxon and the Rock & Roll All-Stars cancelled their sets due to non-payment, as did a bunch of Brazilian acts. According to a tweet by Gene Simmons wife Shannon "Allegedly the local promoter in Brazil can’t be located so we can’t pay the crew, musicians, pilots, etc & won’t make that show!#shyster.”"
In the end a whopping tally of 30 acts did not play the festival. Anthrax and Blind Guardian were not able to play due to the subsequent cancellation.
Reportedly the festival organisers blamed the loss of goverment funding, to which the goverment swiftly retorted in a statement that reeked of "thou do prostest too much" the following denial of financial involvement;
"The Secretary of State for Communication Social (SECOM-MA) reports that there is no record of any approach by the Government of Maranhão with the production of Metal Open Air (MOA), rock festival being held in St. Louis.
It also explains that the government does not invest in events with paid ticket. In this particular case, there is the aggravating factor of the historic events of those already made by the same producers and resulted in similar problems.
Informa, finally, that the government has provided its services to the public protection if the technical Management and Consumer Protection (Procon-MA), which vistoriam place, and men of the military police guarding the area ."
A sad day for Brazilian metal fans.
