Australia’s Bluesfest Removes Sticky Fingers From Lineup Following Backlash

After a weeks-long shower of bad publicity and multiple artist withdrawals, Australia’s Bluesfest has removed the controversial rock band Sticky Fingers from its lineup.

The popular, and long-running, music festival today (March 2) issued a statement in which organizers remarked, “Bluesfest cannot, sadly, continue to support Sticky Fingers by having them play our 2023 edition, and we apologise to those artists, sponsors and any others we involved in this matter through our mistaken belief that forgiveness and redemption are the rock on which our society is built.”

In recent days, festival director Peter Noble had doubled-down on his decision to book the polarizing band, despite growing calls from within the music community to boycott the event.

Melbourne prog-rock outfit King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard and two-time Australian Music Prize winner Sampa The Great recently withdrew from the lineup in protest to the inclusion of Sticky Fingers, with King Gizz issuing a statement remarking that “as a band and as human beings, we stand against misogyny, racism, transphobia and violence.”

Sticky Fingers has a reputation that, well, sticks.

The issues relate to the past behavior of lead singer Dylan Frost, who has been accused of threatening Indigenous musician Thelma Plum and making racist remarks at a gig featuring Indigenous punk band Dispossessed.

Sticky Fingers took a break after those incidents allegedly occurred in 2016, reuniting again in 2018.

Frost went on to address his mental health battles, and issued a statement in which he said he was “wholeheartedly against racism, and so is the band,” and that he doesn’t “condone or in any way excuse violence against women, straight up, I never have and I never will.”

Noble and Bluesfest’s statement claims “the narrative that they continue to deserve to be cancelled, as well as anyone who publicly supports them, is difficult to accept, wherein a portion of society and media passes eternal judgment toward those, in this case, a diagnosed mentally ill person whom we feel doesn’t deserve the continued public scrutiny he’s being given.”

The message continues, “We thank everyone who has contacted us and advised their support in this matter, especially those suffering from a mental illness who feel they cannot have their illness supported in a manner whereby they feel included in society.”

It’s not the first time Australian event organizers have performed a u-turn on Sticky Fingers.

In 2018, the band withdrew from the Newcastle fest This That, with promoters explaining at the time that “if their inclusion began to impact negatively on the other artists performing and our Newcastle and wider communities, that it would be best if they refrain from performing. That’s the decision we have both taken today.”

Sticky Fingers, notes Bluesfest in its statement, “has done so many good deeds that have never been reported, including building and funding recording studios and music education programs in disadvantaged regional communities.”

After enduring a two-year obstacle course which included the pandemic, floods, border closures, public health orders, and more, the 2022 edition of Bluesfest welcomed more than 100,000 revelers.

The 2023 edition of Bluesfest is set for April 6-10 at Byron Events Farm, with headliners including Gang of Youths, Paolo Nutini, Tash Sultana, Bonnie Raitt, the Doobie Brothers and more.

Read the full statement from Bluesfest below.

Bluesfest Byron Bay Statement Regarding Sticky Fingers

We are sad to announce that Bluesfest has decided that Sticky Fingers is to step off the Bluesfest 2023 line-up. 

Bluesfest cannot, sadly, continue to support Sticky Fingers by having them play our 2023 edition, and we apologise to those artists, sponsors and any others we involved in this matter through our mistaken belief that forgiveness and redemption are the rock on which our society is built. 

The narrative that they continue to deserve to be cancelled, as well as anyone who publicly supports them, is difficult to accept, wherein a portion of society and media passes eternal judgment toward those, in this case, a diagnosed mentally ill person whom we feel doesn’t deserve the continued public scrutiny he’s being given.  

We thank everyone who has contacted us and advised their support in this matter, especially those suffering from a mental illness who feel they cannot have their illness supported in a manner whereby they feel included in society.  

Sticky Fingers has done so many good deeds that have never been reported, including building and funding recording studios and music education programs in disadvantaged regional communities.

We will now move on, put this behind us and continue to plan and present our best-ever edition of Bluesfest… proudly.  

For those that wish to know more, there is a carefully researched article in The Australian in 2018 that took the trouble to examine the facts, unlike a lot of the current published material.