Overview
The Big Day Out has finally announced its replacements for pull-outs Blur. Not replacements that look or sound like Blur, but replacements all the same. Liam Gallagher's Beady Eye, The Hives and The Deftones are set to take to the BDO stages in the new year. Happy fans of those bands can hold on to their festival tickets; the still disgruntled can go ahead and claim their refund.
Festival promoter AJ Maddah (the man behind Soundwave and the ill-fated Harvest) was originally set to make the announcement last Friday, but wanted to wait until he had all three of the bands' contracts in hand.
In a move that shocked fans and festival organisers, Blur announced their decision to pull out of the festival last week via their Facebook page, citing "the constantly shifting goalposts and challenging conditions of the organisers" as the reason for the decision.
Many fans took to social media to express their disappointment, with some blaming the festival, while others directed their anger at the band themselves, calling them a "bunch of sooks" and even rubbing in England's recent Ashes loss.
Blur were one of founder Ken West's "white whales"; it took him 14 years to finally land them. The band even had their own purpose-built stage, called the Love Stage.
The promoters disputed the claim that they were to blame. Big Day Out CEO Adam Zammit tweeted "22 years and thousands of bands, I don't think we are the issue."