Lamb of God, part of the Subliminal Verses tour with Slipknot, has been banned from the show in Los Angeles. The show, set to take place 9 April 2005, will no longer feature Lamb of God because of a decision by the Faithful Central Bible Church who own the venue, the Forum. This was unexpected news for the band, who have quite a following in the city. The Faithful Central Bible Church decided to ban the band because of their name.
In response drummer Chris Adler said
The 'situation' in L.A. can only be described as ridiculous. It's already been a huge waste of energy trying to turn this around. The powers that be aren't interested in budging - or doing their research apparently - and we've never been a band to placate anyone to get our way, smooth things over or make anyone feel better. They have made it clear that they don't want us because of our name, our show and our crowd. Because of that ignorance, Lamb of God is not being permitted to appear on the Subliminal Verses Concert in L.A. It's truly a shame for the show overall, especially for our friends and fans in L.A. that are being forced to miss our part of the show. Trust that this was not our decision, we'd love to kick some ass in L.A., but apparently the word from the powers that be is that Lamb of God is not the wholesome family fun that the good people of Los Angeles deserve.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Eric Olsen
thanks Katharine, very nice job - what the hell is this church doing owning the Forum anyway?
2 - Royce
Ya I dont think this is right, There's bands with worse names that have probaly made that venue. This sucks, Lamb of God is a really good band. They put on a tremendous show. I saw them in vancouver performing with Fear Factory and Children of Bodom. Its a shame thats all I can say..... fÜckin too religious sons of bitches..... "Say who gives a fÜck!!!"
3 - Temple Stark
Bringing Billy Graham in? Good question.
4 - Temple Stark
Katharine,
I promoted this review to Advance.net. That means I put it here (and these places) where it could potentially be read by another few hundred thousand readers.
- Thank you for the post. Temple Stark
5 - Katharine Donelson
beats me as to why a church owns the Forum. I have to say I find it eight shades of amusing that Lamb of God will be playing here in the heartland but not in L.A.
6 - SFC SKI
I only know a little bit about their music, but I like what I have heard, but, if these guys were naive enough to calll themselves Lamb of God and not think they were offending someone, well, they're smarter now, maybe.
It's not like they couldn't find somewhere else in L.A. of all places, to play.
Here's the thing, just because you are offending someone doesn't mean you have somehow revealed a hidden truth and that is why they are offended; it's because you are offensive. In free speech, you can say what you like, and those who disagree can be equally vocal in disagreeing, grow a thicker skin or be less offensive, simple, right?
If the Forum is fully privately owned, they don't have to allow anyone the use of the facilities.
7 - Barry
Eric - as to "why the hell does a church own the Forum?", if I had to guess, my guess would be this is one of the newish urban "megachurches" that holds services in giant arenas because those are the only spaces big enough to hold their giant congregations. And so they bought it (or secured a very long-term lease), and it's theirs now.
As to the story in general: Nothing to see here, move along.
This is a publicist, jumping in with both feet to try to fan the flames of controversy, generate some press and make chicken salad out of chicken shit; that is to say, her client has lost a major revenue-producing gig, and she feels like at least there might be some decent press coverage in it.
Which is fine. It's a free country and all that, and God knows (pardon the expression) that I'm not on the side of the self-appointed censors and bluenoses. However, "News flash: even in big cities, the Church Ladies don't like that heavy-metal devil music" isn't much of a story, in my opinion.
No law requires the owners of a private venue to make it available for an act they don't like, and making sure that you've secured good locations for your performance is a basic job for every tour manager.
Bottom line: the band's management chose the site for their LA gig very poorly, and now, to try to salvage the situation, they are trying to seize the moral high ground and get some publicity. It's working, too: a Google News search this morning indicates that 60+ news organizations besides Blogcritics have written stories based on this press release.
8 - Eric Olsen
interesting angle Barry, but they were part of a package tour so I doubt the band had full control over the venues that were booked. My take would be it the church is going to rent out the venue to metal packages they are pretty obviously taking on more or less all comers and should therefore operate as a venue raher than a "curch-owned" venue. That would seem more consistent to me.
9 - JR
After all the sports teams moved to the Staples Center, selling the Forum to a megachurch was probably a way to keep it from being torn down.
It looks like Motley Crue is playing there in March. I guess that kind of draw buys some tolerance.
10 - Phillip Winn
I would imagine that the church that meets there on Sunday would be less concerned about a clearly secular act (Motley Crue) appearing there on some other day (it is the Forum, after all!) than a band whose name might suggest that they were somehow related to or associated with the church itself.
11 - Phillip Winn
In case I wasn't clear: I doubt it is the content of the music to which the church is objecting, it's the choice of religious imagery in the name of the band.
12 - Aaman
This reminds me of a personal experience - I was part of an excellent quiz team in college called "Mustafa & The Fat Bottomed Girls" - all guys, obviously inspired by Queen (not friends of Dorothy).
We were very very good - won many quizzes, ranked. One quiz in a college, we settled in, took the preliminary set of questions, zipped through them in no time at all, handed them in and went off to browse the other cultural offerings. When the answers were announced, we had scored full marks. You can understand our surprise when our name was not in the list of finalists.
We stormed up and questioned this - we were told our team name was too vulgar. This cracked us up, and it took a lot of cajoling and reference checks before we were allowed to enter the finals as "Mustafa and the FBGs".
Maybe Lamb Of God should go in as LoG
13 - Eric Olsen
"it's big, it's heavy it's wood
it's lo-ogg, it's lo-og
it's better than bad, it's good!"
14 - Eric Berlin
E - Give credit where due...
"...By Blam-o!"
15 - Eric Olsen
I was remiss
16 - Marty Dodge
Heh, its private property, they can do what they want. Whomever planned the tour was being a bit daft thought, unless of course, they just wanted to make sure the tour got as much publicity as possible. Kinda like when Vader did one of their black metal shows in the Pope's home town and filmed it for TV broadcast.
17 - The Theory
what a weird venue.
it boggles my mind, honestly.
18 - NancyGail
This is not difficult. If the owners think the band's name is offensive, they have every right to ban it from a performance in their venue. L.A. is a pretty big town. Surely the band can find someplace else?
19 - Eric Olsen
would be pretty hard to do on such short notice
20 - Temple Stark
Bloody
Lamb
Of
God
- all kinds of street-cred.
OK, information superhighway cred.
21 - NancyGail
Someone said booking good venues was the tour manager's job. True. Sounds to me as though due diligence was not done as thoroughly as it could have been.
22 - JR
Has the venue rejected any acts before? Otherwise how would the management know not to book them into that hall?
23 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
didn't motley crue play around wit hthe satanic imagery though? Maybe the owners assumed that they were Shouting At The Devil on account of they were mad at him. "Look what you did, the devil! How am i gonna get this cleaned? And in the hall, of all places! I'm dissapointed in you, the devil!"
Maybe that's what it is.
I believe Cradle Of Filth did a show in vatican city, and were all the suprised in the world when their Jesus Is A C**t t-shirts got them in trouble with the law.
24 - Marty Dodge
Yep Aaron that happened, I believe they were arrested for it too and booted out of VC.
25 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
i'd have booted them out for crimes relating to pretentious nonsense.