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Gigs & Festivals
Wavves apologise for rubbishness, cancel European tour
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 2 June 2009
Following a performance at the Primavera festival in Barcelona last week that can only be described as disastrous, Wavves frontman Nathan Williams has apologised to fans, blaming a mixture of ecstasy, Xanax, Valium and alcohol on his erratic performance.
According to reports, the audience was already pissed off when the duo were still soundchecking 15 minutes into their allotted time. When they did start playing, Williams only managed to strum a collection of random chords and play something that sounded a bit like their song ‘Weed Demon’ before drummer Ryan Ulsh lost his patience and left the stage, throwing his drumsticks at Williams, who nonetheless briefly tried to continue with the show.
In a post on his blog on Saturday, which was subsequently removed, Williams said: “I think in the back of my head I knew I wasn’t exactly mentally healthy enough to continue to tour the way I have been since February. Honest truth is this has all happened so fast and I feel like the weight of it has been building for months now with what seems like a never ending touring and press schedule which includes absolutely zero time to myself. I’m sorry to everyone who has put effort into this and to everyone who supported me. Mixing ecstasy, Valium and Xanax before having to play in front of thousands of people was one of the more poor decisions I’ve made (duh) and I realise my drinking has been a problem now for a good period of time. Nothing else I can do but apologise to everyone that has been affected by my poor decision-making. I made a mistake. Not the first mistake I’ve made and it for sure wont be the last. I’m human. Don’t know why I chose the biggest platform I could imagine to lose my shit, but that’s life. You live and you learn”.
The band cancelled three dates at the end of last week following the Primavera debacle and have now announced that they are pulling the remainder of their European tour in full, which included a string of UK dates. In a brief statement, Williams told reporters: “I’m sorry to everyone who has put effort into this and to everyone who supported me”.
And just in case you’d like to know what you’re missing, here’s a snippet of the Primavera show.
