Locked in; Stockdale says yesto smoking festival

Fri 24th Sep, 2010 in Local News

The Java Rockin’ Land festival in Indonesia from 8th-10th October features the Smashing Pumpkins, Sterophonics, DataRock, Dashboard Confessional, The Vines and sponsorship from Gudang Garam cigarette company.

However as reported on FasterLouder yesterday Wolfmother’s frontman, Andrew Stockdale, took issue with the festival’s cigarette touting sponsors and posted a notice on the group’s fanpage declaring that the band would canceling their scheduled performance in protest.

Stockdale wrote that “With the severity of the issue of smoking in Indonesia, I completely understand that bands playing with promo girls handing out cigarettes isn’t going to help kids stop smoking in Indonesia. So it is without hesitation I will now announce that we will be cancelling our headline show at Java Rockin’ Land on the 10th of October 2010. We are very regretful to miss this opportunity to play to our Indonesian fans, though hopefully in the not too distant future we can do more shows under different terms.”

Following the declaration Wolfmother’s name disappeared from the festival website yesterday, but Crikey reports today in an article titled “Wolfmother gets schooled by the last frontier of Marlboro Country” that the band has reconsidered the decision to pull out of the festival.

An official statement from the band offers the explanation that “This one is for the fans in Indonesia who have parted with their very own cold hard cash to see Wolfmother. We realize their are sponsors and we neither support or condemn the sponsors affiliated with the festival. We are very much looking forward to what we hope will be the first of many shows to come in Indonesia.”

Both Alicia Keys (in 2008) and Kelly Clarkson (earlier this year) have refused to play at Jakarta tobacco gigs unless all sponsorship and marketing by Philip Morris was stopped and both pop singers won the right to perform at Indonesian show free from cigarette branding.