Mexican Promoter: DARK TRANQUILLITY's Management Is To Blame For Tour Cancellaton

A Mexican promoter in charge of the recently-cancelledDARK TRANQUILLITY tour of Mexico/Colombia went on a local radio station Saturday night to explain his version of the events that led to the concerts being jettisoned less than a week prior to their scheduled kick-off date.

Santiago Jimenez, head of Metalipsis Productions, told XHJD 98.9 Monterrey's Saturday metal show "Distorsión" that DARK TRANQUILLITY's management was largely to blame for the cancellations due to their unreasonable last-minute demands and lack of communication in the days prior to the band's scheduled departure from their native Sweden.

The following is Jimenez's explanation for the tour's cancellation, as translated from Spanish and summarized for BLABBERMOUTH.NET by Eloy Espinosa, a resident of Chihuahua, Mexico who was planning on attending the Monterrey show:

"Regarding the logistics of the tour, everything was in order. Then, last Tuesday [Jan. 7] at 3:00 a.m. [the promoters] get a phone call from DARK TRANQUILLITY's management to say [that the band] were cancelling the Colombia shows due to security reasons (something to do with recent events regarding guerrilla forces). So DARK TRANQUILLITY decides not to fly to Colombia and just do the Mexico shows. This meant a change in the itinerary and a change in plane tickets and logistics and such.

"The change [in plans required] a 7-day stay in Mexico, then plane ride to Houston to begin the U.S. 'Art Of Noise' tour. Then it gets interesting: they request that after the U.S. tour is over on Feb. 17, Metalipsis should pay the plane tickets from Tampa back to Europe. Metalipsis did not find this fair.

"Metalipsis scrambles to make the new arrangements. They inform DARK TRANQUILLITY's management of these changes [having been made] and [DT's management] reply that they're unsatisfied with the arrangement because they do not want to arrive [in] Monterrey at 2:00 a.m.

"They decide to cancel the new deal mainly because the cost of travel more than doubled, from $8,000 to $20,000 dollars. Not to mention the 7-day stay in Mexico and the flight costs from Tampa back to Europe.

"Metalipsis has begun refunding tickets and they will release a full explanation as well as proof on their site (www.metalipsis.com) on Monday or Tuesday.

"There's still more, like the fact that DT's manager was in the hospital and did not call or return phone calls during that last week before the tour. Or the cancellation [of an upcoming tour] from HAGGARD due to this situation."

Metalipsis Productions' entire version of events, as recorded during the above-mentioned radio broadcast, can be heard in Real Audio format (in Spanish!) at this location.