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Artist News Gigs & Festivals Live Business
Azealia Banks cancels summer festival bookings
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 30 April 2012
So, Azealia Banks has withdrawn from a number of planned UK festival appearances, including slots at Rough Beats, Bestival, RockNess, Lovebox and Wakestock, plus various Euro dates at Rock AM Ring, Rock Werchter and Way Out West. Though Banks’ bookings at the Reading and Leeds festivals and Radio 1’s Hackney Weekend remain intact.
An official statement from the Polydor-signed MC’s management reads: “Azealia Banks has unfortunately had to cancel her remaining UK festival appearances due to recording commitments. Her October UK headline tour will still go ahead as scheduled”.
Said recording commitments, of course, relate to Banks’ forthcoming debut album, ‘Broke With Expensive Taste’, which is set for release in September.
Mike McSherry, organiser of Yorkshire independent Rough Beats (which was to host the ‘212’ rapper’s first ever headline billing), speculates that the retreat might in part be due to a lack of live repertoire, as became apparent during Banks’ content-light Coachella set earlier this month.
He says: “Obviously we’re gutted. It would have been her first major headlining show in the UK and we were pretty chuffed about getting in there early and backing her to be a great act even before her debut releases. However, I think her management have made the right decision. As great as her Coachella performance was, the UK audience is going to need more than half hour of material from a headliner”.
