Middle Ages are apparently alive and kicking in Greece of 2019, with religious and nationalist groups to have managed to cancel a concert by black metal band Rotting Christ, a band that has been around for 30 years. The concert cancellation was an apparent response to protests over the obscenity of the bands name.
Sakis Tolis, the lead singer and founder of the group, said in a Facebook post that Saturday’s gig at the Aigli venue in Patras, West Peloponnese had been called off.
“The real dark powers of this country did everything they could to postpone a cultural event which was, in their eyes, extreme,” he said.
“Freedom of speech is a right that we have fought for and actively supported for more than 30 years,” he added. “A battle was lost but not the war.”
Organizers GG Events said that Patra Municipality, which owns Aigli, said the venue would not be available, although it had received payment in advance, citing technical reasons.
They added that municipal officials had received protests from the Metropolis of Patras.
Speaking to Kathimerini, municipal officials insisted that the concert was canceled due to technical issues and that it could be rescheduled after the issue has been resolved.
“The venue is available to everyone except for Golden Dawn,” the mayor said.
the local branch of conservative New Democracy issued a statement hailing the decision to cancel the concert as “right and necessary. The NODE ND said among others that “the realization of the concert would violently hurt the faith of all Christians in the city.”
Prior to the cancellation, nationalist and religious groups had been protesting on social media, demanding the cancellation of the concert describing band Rotting Christ as “anti-Christ.”
It is not the first time, the band gets in trouble because of its name. Members of the group are detained in Tiblisi, Georgia, in April 2018, because authorities considered that the Rotting Christ was “affiliated with satanism and therefore also with terrorism.”
