Bands pull out of Florida music festival over planned Kyle Rittenhouse performance: report

Metalcore band Evergreen Terrace announced Saturday that it would be pulling out of an upcoming music festival in Orlando, Florida, after it was announced that Kyle Rittenhouse would be in attendance, Loudwire reports.

The Florida-based band was scheduled to be at the top of the bill at the “Shell Shock II” festival on Thursday, October 19, which is said to be a charity event set up to raise money for veterans, those suffering from PTSD and disseminating information about them, the report said.

According to the outlet, organizers posted on Instagram that Rittenhouse had been booked as a special “VIP guest” for the festival, setting off a firestorm of political division among fans. The post has since been deleted.

“Evergreen Terrace has always supported and continues to support philanthropic events for veterans, education about post-traumatic stress disorder, child poverty and more, but we will not join an event that ensures that an alleged murderer like Kyle Rittenhouse is released from his pseudonym “Capitalizes on celebrity,” the band said in a statement on social media.

According to published reports, three other bands, Southpaw, Let Me Bleed and American Hollow, have now also withdrawn from the event.

Rittenhouse was acquitted in 2021 of murder, attempted murder and reckless endangerment after killing two men and wounding a third with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during a protest against police violence following the 2020 shooting of Jacob Blake.

The festival's organizers, The Antihero Podcast, responded defiantly on Instagram, accusing the so-called “liberal mob” of trying to “destroy” the event.

“We were silent. But we are preparing. The liberal mob tried to destroy Shell Shock. But we won't allow it. This is about more than just a concert. “This is a war of ideology,” the post says.