Headliners bail on heavy metal festival because Kyle Rittenhouse

Jacksonville, Florida-based Metalcore band Evergreen Terrace was supposed to headline the Shell Shock heavy metal music festival on October 19, 2024 in Orlando, Florida, but dropped out upon hearing that the festival had invited MAGA darling Kyle Rittenhouse to make a guest appearance at the event. Other metal bands—including Southpaw, Let Me Bleed, and American Hollow—have also dropped out of the lineup. To replace headliners Evergreen Terrace, the festival will feature a Slipknot cover band.

Consequence explains:

Rittenhouse is best known as the then 17-year-old who shot three men during an August 2020 protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, killing two of them. He was acquitted after claiming self-defense, but still has two civil lawsuits pending against him.

Shell Shock festival bills itself as a charity event that "supports first responders struggling with injuries to include Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)."

Evergreen Terrace announced their departure on their social media, stating:

"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 murderers such as Kyle Rittenhouse capitalizing off of their pseudo celebrity. Unfortunately we did not do our due diligence with this particular event. 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. The promoters have been nothing less than understanding."

Consequence also reports that one of the organizers of the festival, The Antihero Podcast, stated in response to the withdrawals, "We have been silent. But we are prepping. The liberal mob attempted to destroy Shell Shock. But we will not allow it. This is now about more than a concert. This is a war of ideology."

Evergreen Terrace has announced a new show in Orlando that they are putting together, along with other bands that are choosing not to support the Shell Shock festival. They stated:

Orlando. We will be seeing you soon. We are currently organizing a show with the bands that dropped off of the Shell Shock fest after being blindsided. All of Evergreen's proceeds will go to an associated veterans organization. Updates soon. We play shows, not rallies.

I don't listen to much heavy metal, but Evergreen Terrace, you just got yourself another fan!

Previously:
QAnon declares Rittenhouse to be part of a 'secretive transgender psy-op aimed at harming the MAGA movement'