Music

Twisted Sister hated playing Amnesia Rockfest

by Richard Howard

UPDATE: Amnesia Rockfest founder Alex Martel has issued a statement in response to Twisted Sister’s comments.

“I was extremely disappointed earlier today to read the comments made by Twister Sister’s blogger after their show at Amnesia Rockfest 2016. We contacted the band’s team as soon as we became aware of these comments, and they immediately decided to remove the blog post outlining their dissatisfaction. However, I think it’s important that we set the record straight to prevent misunderstandings. In the 11 years of the festival, I have never seen anything like this. No member of the Twisted Sister camp contacted me at any point during or after the festival to express any concerns — we are always open to constructive criticism and improvement. I could tell the other side of the story. I could explain how running a festival with 130 bands over two days works and how our entire team makes serious efforts to accommodate them all, rather than giving priority to a single band. I could mention that all the logistical information was sent to performers weeks prior to the event to ensure there would be no surprises about our hospitality, production or the site’s geographic location. I could also name the hundreds of bands who are satisfied with their experience at Rockfest year after year. Even though I strongly disagree with their claims and the way they chose to share their views, I still have tremendous respect for this legendary band and I wish them the best in their future endeavours.”

The annual Amnesia Rockfest in Montebello, QC is a heavy music mecca, boasting some of the most impressive line-ups of both current acts and beloved has-beens in recent years. However, it’s also notorious as a bit of an organizational shit show, resulting in more than a few complaints from both attendees and fans.

Still, no one’s gone in on the festival as hard as Twisted Sister crew member Armadillo Terry did this year. Renaming it ‘Amnesia Shitfest,’ he didn’t exactly pull any punches summarizing the band’s experience thusly: “WORST. FESTIVAL. EVER.”

So what exactly did Rockfest do to draw this Armadillo guy’s wrath? The blog post has since been deleted, but through the magic of the internet you can still see the entire rant here. And what a rant it is.

Terry’s first complaint, the “2.5 hour drive from the hotel,” doesn’t really frame him as the most reliable narrator as he speaks of “a scenic route from Montreal to Quebec, by way of Vancouver” since tour buses aren’t allowed to “drive through Ontario city limits.” Even if the Vancouver thing was poorly executed hyperbole, time to brush up on your Canadian geography, bud.

The dressing room situation, though, if accurate, was pretty hilarious. Understandably upset at being given one 10′ x 10′ room for the band, 15 crew members and a three-person video team, Twisted Sister was about to get another unwelcome surprise. Take it away, Terry:

“We have a very simple rider. It’s not fancy… it’s not ridiculous or difficult… and it’s actually quite flexible. Typically, we have a well-stocked fridge of juices, soda, coconut water, sports drinks, non-alcoholic and very small amount of regular beer and wine. There is typically a simple arrangement of fruit, cheese and meat trays and various snacks plus we usually go through 2-3 cases of water. In this dressing room: we had a dozen small water bottles. Five bags of chips. Three granola bars. A couple of tiny toffee candies. And a pack of something… I think it was gum. No mirrors. Some hand towels. Not even enough furniture for all five band members to sit down. And no access to a restroom. The toilet was down a flight of stairs, down a hallway… around a corner… and it was one toilet for about 300 drunk people.

At this point, Armadillo and Co. were probably beginning to suspect the organizers didn’t know who the hell Twisted Sister is, or if they did, really didn’t give a shit. And then there’s that moment when your suspicions are confirmed:

But wait… there’s more. Believe it or not, Tank-Mammal Terry wasn’t even mad yet, pragmatically saying he’s “done more with less.” Nope, it was the stage situation that got ol’ Terry hopping mad. After discovering he would have to “board a FUCKING BOAT” every time he needed to go between the stage and the dressing room, he was less than stoked to find out Twisted Sister would be playing the “TEENY TINY Jagermeister stage, aptly named, because it made me want to throw up.”

Claiming there was nowhere for them to work from and the local crew treated the band as it they were “just the neighbor’s kids playing air guitar on tennis rackets,” it’s at this point Terry goes gloriously nuclear.

“So Korn and Blink 182 get the human-sized stage, but Twisted Sister gets a stage the size of a gnat’s mammography plate. That’s right. Big enough for gnat tits. What’s that you say… Gnats don’t have tits? Sure, they do… just teeny tiny ones. How teeny tiny are gnat tits? Just slightly bigger than the FUCKING JAGERMEISTER STAGE AT AMNESIA ROCKFEST! But hey…you know… it’s just Twisted Sister. Just one of the biggest metal acts HEADLINING the festival circuit today. It’s just their FAREWELL tour. Just the LAST FUCKING TIME any of their Canadian fans will get to hear them play. No big deal. So Twisted Sister headlines Sweden Rock… Graspop Metal Meeting… Hellfest… and See Rock… but hey… let’s give them third bill on a high school stage.”

Other highlights included “streams of urine coming from the overflowing portapotties,” what he swore was the “drunkest, most stone [sic] crowd I’ve ever seen [with] pot smoke so thick it would have choked Cheech & Chong” and “The Douchebag of the Day runner up” in the person of a “pimple-faced security guard pitching a temper tantrum when the band used the restroom ahead of him.”

According to Terry, the penultimate insult came when the band actually took the stage. He angrily explained that the band was given only a 45-minute set, which was itself cut short by the “douchecanoe twatwaffles of Amnesia shitfest” that wouldn’t allow them to play “two more stinkin’ minutes of [ode to their fans] ‘SMF’ to say THANK YOU Canada on the farewell tour.” And if you were wondering you the grand prize winning Douchebag of the Day was, that lofty title goes to the sound guy who apparently cut Dee Snider’s mic as he began to say “Thank you” and “goodnight.” I can’t think of anyone better to wrap up this scorecard than our intrepid raconteur: take us outta here, Armadillo Terry!

Damn, son. TIL – don’t fuck with a guy named after a New World placental mammal.