Bands pull out of Orlando music fest after Kyle Rittenhouse announced as 'special guest'

An upcoming metal fest in Orlando has lost most of its lineup and garnered a boatload of negative publicity (look ma, they made

Rolling Stone! ) — over the utterly bizarre decision to book right-wing grifter Kyle Rittenhouse alongside a bunch of hardcore and metal acts.

Jacksonville metalcore faves Evergreen Terrace and more have dropped off the roster of the Shell Shock II festival, set for Oct. 19 at the Level 13 Event Center on Edgewater Drive. The fest has a stated mission of raising funds and awareness for veterans and first responders dealing with PTSD, which made things only weirder when news broke that Rittenhouse had been booked as a special guest.

The baby-faced Kenosha protest shooter and right-wing poster boy was confirmed as a guest of the festival via an Instagram update from organizers.

The resulting — and justified — uproar culminated in Evergreen Terrace, Southpaw and Let Me Bleed dropping off Shell Shock. Per Loudwire , Shell Shock is now down to a Texan Slipknot cover band, SiC, as headliner.

In a statement posted to their social media , Evergreen Terrace explained why they dropped off the festival : “Evergreen Terrace has always supported and continues to support philanthropic events for veterans, PTSD awareness, child poverty, and many more, but we will not align with an event promoting a perceived murderer such as Kyle Rittenhouse capitalizing off of their pseudo celebrity…  Even after they offered to pull Kyle from the event, we discovered several associated entities that we simply do not agree with. As advocates for free speech we are respectfully canceling the Shell Shock festival. We will be personally contributing to a veterans charity and urge you to do the same.”

A Shell Shock II organizer and host of " The Antihero Podcast," Tyler Hover, jumped on social media to castigate critics as a "liberal mob" attempting "to destroy Shell Shock. But we will not allow it."

In the meantime, Evergreen Terrace have promised that they will be playing Orlando in the near future with three other bands who dropped off Shell Shock II — Southpaw, Let Me Bleed and American Hollow — to "benefit an associated veterans organization." The band added that "we play shows, not rallies."

As of this writing, Shell Shock II is still happening on Saturday, Oct. 19.

[location-1]

Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed