News

Kings Of Leon Cancel Benicassim Appearance

• 20th Jul 2009

Kings of Leon were forced to cancel their headline performance at Benicassim Festival on Friday (17th July) due to extreme weather conditions, which caused serious problems for the whole festival, forcing it to close down.

Other acts that pulled out on Friday include Lily Allen and Foals, both due to illness. Oasis suffered technical problems, an occurring theme at their recent shows, causing Noel Gallagher to brand the festival “a waste of time”.

In addition to these problems, a fire broke out just before Paul Weller’s set, causing delays. He admitted later that he was “fucking scared”.

Maximo Park were also unable to play on Friday due to the weather conditions, but were able to perform on the Saturday (18th), in the place of Lily Allen. Kings of Leon were unable to do the same, Nathan Followill wrote on his twitter page that the reason for this was because their “gear had already headed to Switzerland”.

The band’s publicist told the BBC, “They tried unsuccessfully with Benicassim organisers to work out a way to make a performance work yesterday, exploring every possible avenue available to them. But unfortunately it proved logistically impossible. This is a very big disappointment to the band who were looking forward to performing an Spain at Benicassim as one of the big highlights of their summer of live activity.”