arcade fire
Splendour in the Grass, one of Australia’s most prominent music festivals, will not be going ahead in 2025.
The decision to not return following the unceremonious cancelation of its 2024 event was confirmed by promoters Live Nation in a statement given to Rolling Stone AU/NZ.
“The festivals team has our full support to bring Splendour in the Grass back when they feel it’s right,” the statement reads. “In the meantime, we’re working on exciting new projects to support artists and the industry, while meeting the demands of music fans and look forward to sharing more in the coming months.”
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On the Splendour social channels, a separate, more casual message was simultaneously conveyed to its followers, apologizing for their silence and explaining they had “finally” taken the opportunity to have a “holiday”.
“The rest of the festival team have still been busy cooking up some awesome new things for music lovers in Australia, but Splendour needs a little more time to recharge and we won’t be back this year,” the statement read. “Think of it as a breather so we can come back even bigger and better when the time is right. Lots of other huge events on the horizon so keep an ear to the ground in the coming months – we can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on!”
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Established in 2001 and held each year in Byron Bay, a picturesque beach town on the most easterly tip of Australia, Splendour is a destination event, the most popular mid-winter camping fest in the country. Names such as The Cure, Sonic Youth, Childish Gambino, Tame Impala, and Tyler, the Creator have all headlined the festival across its lifetime.
In 2024, the festival was canceled just weeks after it announced Kylie Minogue, Future, and Arcade Fire as headliners. “We know there were many fans excited for this year’s line-up and all the great artists planning to join us, but due to unexpected events we’ll be taking the year off,” a statement from organizers read at the time.
Three months later, the festival’s co-founder Jessica Ducrou, announced that she was exiting her role as co-CEO of Australia’s Secret Sounds Group, the producer of Splendour and a slew of live music brands.
Earlier in 2023, Secret Sounds’ other long-running festival, Falls Festival, announced it too would be taking some time off, though no updates have been provided since.
The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the organization that bestows the Juno Awards, has defended its decision to nominate Arcade Fire for group of the year in light of accusations of sexual misconduct that have been levied against frontman Win Butler. The 2023 Juno nominations were announced on Tuesday, and the awards will be presented on March 13.
“We look at Arcade Fire’s nomination for group of the year as one for the entire band,” the Academy wrote in a statement to CBC Music. “While we take the allegations very seriously, in this situation we are also honouring the rest of the band for their success. We hope the allegations against Butler will not detract from the achievements of the other group members.”
The Junos are the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys, or the Brits in the U.K. Arcade Fire, which also includes Butler’s wife Régine Chassagne, Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury and Jeremy Gara, have previously won 11 Juno Awards, including a record-tying three awards for album of the year.
The nomination for group of the year is the band’s only Juno nod this year. By contrast, the band received four nominations in 2018, the year of its previous studio album, Everything Now. The band also received an honorary international achievement award that year.
Butler has faced controversy in recent months due to a series of investigations by the website Pitchfork in which five people accused him of sexual misconduct. The first report was published on Aug. 27. The alleged incidents took place between 2015 and 2020. (Within that time frame, in 2016, Arcade Fire was named humanitarian of the year at the Juno Awards.)
In response to the Pitchfork report, Butler released a lengthy statement which read in part: “I have had consensual relationships outside of my marriage. … I have connected with people in person, at shows, and through social media, and I have shared messages of which I am not proud. Most importantly, every single one of these interactions has been mutual and always between consenting adults. It is deeply revisionist, and frankly just wrong, for anyone to suggest otherwise.
“I have never touched a woman against her will, and any implication that I have is simply false. I vehemently deny any suggestion that I forced myself on a woman or demanded sexual favors. That simply, and unequivocally, never happened.
“While these relationships were all consensual, I am very sorry to anyone who I have hurt with my behavior. Life is filled with tremendous pain and error, and I never want to be part of causing someone else’s pain.”
In the aftermath of Pitchfork’s investigation, Feist canceled her planned appearances as a support act on an Arcade Fire tour through Europe and the U.K. Beck withdrew from opening for the band on a North American tour.
In a message shared to her Instagram account on Sept. 1, Feist said: “At a pub in Dublin, after rehearsing with my band, I read the same headline you did. We didn’t have any time to prepare for what was coming let alone a chance to decide not to fly across the ocean into the belly of this situation. This has been incredibly difficult for me and I can only imagine how much more difficult it’s been for the people who came forward. More than anything I wish healing to those involved.”
She also shared that the charges put her in an impossible position. “To stay on tour would symbolize I was either defending or ignoring the harm caused by Win Butler and to leave would imply I was the judge and jury.”
Beck withdrew from the planned North American tour in mid-October without providing a reason for his departure.
The band’s sixth studio album, We, debuted and peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200, breaking a string of three consecutive No. 1 albums by the band. It logged just two weeks on the chart, the briefest stay for any of the band’s albums.
We is vying for best alternative music album at this weekend’s Grammy Awards, but that nomination hasn’t stirred the same degree of controversy as the Juno nod has in the band’s home country. All six of the band’s studio albums have been nominated for best alternative music album. Only three other acts have received six or more nods in the category’s history. Björk leads with nine nods. Radiohead and Beck follow with eight.
Billboard reached out to both the Junos and the Grammys for additional comment.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can reach out to RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673 or chat at online.rainn.org 24/7 for confidential support.
Beck will no longer serve as the opening act on Arcade Fire‘s upcoming North American tour, Billboard can confirm. Instead, the Haitian band Boukman Eksperyans will take his place.
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While Beck didn’t provide a reason for his decision, his exit comes just months after sexual misconduct allegations against Arcade Fire’s frontman Win Butler. The allegations against Butler were first published on Aug. 27 in a Pitchfork story. The report detailed the accounts of four individuals who claimed to have had inappropriate sexual interactions with Butler, with one alleging that the singer had assaulted them; he has denied that any of the alleged incidents were nonconsensual.
In addition to the testimonies of his alleged victims, a statement from Butler was included in Pitchfork‘s report. In it, the musician says the relationships he’s had outside of his marriage to Arcade Fire bandmate Régine Chassagne have all been consensual, and that his wife had been aware of them.
“Our marriage has, in the past, been more unconventional than some,” he wrote. “I have connected with people in person, at shows, and through social media, and I have shared messages of which I am not proud. Most importantly, every single one of these interactions has been mutual and always between consenting adults. It is deeply revisionist, and frankly just wrong, for anyone to suggest otherwise.”
“I have never touched a woman against her will, and any implication that I have is simply false,” he continued. “I vehemently deny any suggestion that I forced myself on a woman or demanded sexual favors. That simply, and unequivocally, never happened.”
“While these relationships were all consensual, I am very sorry to anyone who I have hurt with my behavior,” he added. “Life is filled with tremendous pain and error, and I never want to be part of causing someone else’s pain.”
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