Venue apologises for booking band with alleged Nazi ties

A music venue in Detroit has apologised for booking a number of black metal bands with alleged ties to neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Harpos Concert Theatre hosted a concert on January 25 that the venue’s owners chose to cancel halfway through, before later posting a lengthy explanation on Facebook about how the situation came about.

Co-owners Ruzvelt Stevanovski and Krystle Dzajkovska claim they were misled by the bands’ promoters, but did not name the individuals in question.

“Starting off, I would like to issue our deepest apologies to the community,” they wrote.

“While the events on January 25th do not reflect our values, or that of our community, we are truly sorry and are holding ourselves and others involved accountable. We at Harpos are deeply committed to fostering an environment of inclusivity, respect, and equality for all. We want to unequivocally state racism has no place in our business or community, and we stand against all forms of racism.”

They said that while they should have “done more research” on the acts they were booking, “we feel that by design, they deliberately failed to provide such information,” referring to the band’s promoters.”

“We feel manipulated throughout the entire process and will continue to address where we need to improve. For the event held on Saturday January 25th, we were not made aware ahead of time that some of the bands were in any association with Nazi/Neo Nazi, White Supremacy, and/or Nationalist Socialist black metal. If I were made aware of this ahead of time, this event would have never happened.

“This was the first time this event organizer has done an event at our venue,” they continued. “In the process of the event organizer booking this event with Harpos, this information was never given. It was communicated that it was just a Black Metal Festival, which Harpos has had many in the past.”

Concluding, they added: “The outrage and anger is completely understood and shows that there is still some humanity left in this world and that there are still individuals out there that will stand up against what is wrong and hateful.”

“Hate and racism is not something that I or Harpos stand for, encourage, or promote and I would never knowingly or intentionally hold this type of event at my venue with the risk of losing the support of my community and my venue. This is not who we are, this is not what we represent.”

The show was stopped after two of the seven scheduled bands had performed. The acts and their promoters have not been named and have not publicly commented on the issue.

The show came just five days after Donald Trump’s second inauguration as US President. At an event during the inauguration, Elon Musk addressed the crowd and extended his arm upwards with his palm facing down in a gesture that has been compared by many to a Nazi salute.

Musk has since dismissed the rumours, calling them “tired” and an attempt at “dirty tricks”.

The Tesla and X CEO’s former partner Grimes initially said that she would not respond to the gesture as she needed time to “research the state of affairs”. She later clarified: “If it wasn’t clear – ****I very much denounce Nazi-ism and white supremacy*****. I am sorry I didn’t take this more seriously sooner, I did not realize the extent of the issue. But it has come to my attention from some of yall that this has been creating a lot of trouble.”

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